sara

A lady in a faded grey dress and her husband, dressed in a home-spun suit walked in timidly without an appointment into the Harvard University President's outer office. The secretary could tell in a moment that such backwoods, country hicks had no business at Harvard and probably didn't even deserve to be in Harvard.

"We want to see the President "the man said softly.

"He'll be busy all day "the secretary snapped.

"We'll wait" the lady replied.

For hours the secretary ignored them, hoping that the couple would finally become discouraged and go away. They didn't and the secretary grew frustrated and finally decided to disturb the president..

"Maybe if you see them for a few minutes, they'll leave" she said to him. The President, stern faced and with dignity, strutted toward the couple.

The lady told him "We had a son who attended Harvard for one year. He loved Harvard. He was happy here. But about a year ago, he was accidentally killed. My husband and I would like to erect a memorial to him, somewhere on campus."

The president wasn't touched....He was shocked. "Madam "he said, gruffly, " we can't put up a statue for every person who attended Harvard and died. If we did, this place would look like a cemetery."

"Oh, no," the lady explained quickly” We don't want to erect a statue. We thought we would like to give a building to Harvard."

The president rolled his eyes. He glanced at the gingham dress and homespun suit, and then exclaimed, "A building! Do you have any earthly idea how much a building costs? We have over seven and a half million dollars in the physical buildings here at Harvard."

For a moment the lady was silent. The president was pleased. Maybe he could get rid of them now. The lady turned to her husband and said quietly, "Is that all it costs to start a university ? Why don't we just start our own?"

Her husband nodded. The president's face wilted in confusion and bewilderment. Mr and Mrs Leland Stanford got up and walked away, travelling to Palo Alto, California where they established the University that bears their name: -Stanford University, a memorial to a son that Harvard no longer cared about.

ChaiWala

Thanks for this, I also read this a while back.
but note one thing..

This is not a true story..!

yup.. I did a little research and this is not a true story... so lets keep the facts straight.

But nonetheless this is a very touchy one.
Thanks Sara..

sara

Hmmm yes,even i did a research on it,and found out that this isn't a true story!

ChaiWala

I actually had read this a while back in my email.

its funny that what we believe in the emails without doing any research.
There are so many emails that are being forwarded like these.. especially concerning religion..
the problem is we believe in it right away without even thinking about if it is true or not.. and then they have this title at the end saying forward this to 10 people to hear good news and stuff.

what do you think about these email threads?

sara

Yeah,you're right!
I hate receiving emails which,in a way,force you to forward them to others I believe, it's in a way blackmailing

ChaiWala

well i remember someone asked this question to a religious scholar and the reply was..

you can ignore these kinds of emails. especially the ones that you are not confirmed of.
if the material is generic in nature like reading the kalimah or some simple dua, thats fine if you want to pass it forward.

But the ones that kind of force you saying you wont be a good muslim or similar.. its not necessary to be forwarded.

I cannot remember where i had seen/hear this, but yes i did hear this.

Blonde Baji

yea i had an email saying chinese ppl eat human baby(fetus) soup..n it also had pictures...

sara

Ewwww

ChaiWala

BB and Sara... well there are real life cannibals who eat others.. somewhere in tribal African jungles... this is true..

about chinese thing eating that.. yeah i saw those pics too.. but i cannot tell if its real.. but it is the sickest thing... :eew: