In 1892 at Stanford University, an 18-year-old student was struggling to pay his fees. He was an orphan, and not knowing where to turn for money, he came up with a bright idea. He and a friend decided to host a musical concert on campus to raise money for their education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They reached out to the great pianist Ignacy J. Paderewski. His manager demanded a guaranteed fee of $2000 for the piano recital. A deal was struck, and the boys began to work to make the concert a success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The big day arrived. But unfortunately, they had not managed to sell enough tickets. The total collection was only $1600. Disappointed, they went to Paderewski and explained their plight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They gave him the entire $1600, plus a cheque for the balance $400. They promised to honor the cheque at the soonest possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNo,\u201d said Paderewski. \u201cThis is not acceptable.\u201d He tore up the cheque, returned the $1600 and told the two boys: \u201cHere\u2019s the $1600. Please deduct whatever expenses you have incurred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Keep the money you need for your fees. And just give me whatever is left\u201d. The boys were surprised and thanked him profusely. It was a small act of kindness. But it clearly marked out Paderewski as a great human being.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why should he help two people he did not even know? We all come across situations like these in our lives. And most of us only think \u201cIf I help them, what will happen to me?\u201d The truly great people think, \u201cIf I don\u2019t help them, what will happen to them?\u201d They don\u2019t do it expecting something in return. They do it because they feel it\u2019s the right thing to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Paderewski later went on to become the Prime Minister of Poland. He was a great leader, but unfortunately when the World War began, Poland was ravaged. There were more than 1.5 million people starving in his country, and no money to feed them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Paderewski did not know where to turn for help. He reached out to the US Food and Relief Administration for help. He heard there was a man called Herbert Hoover \u2014 who later went on to become the US President. Hoover agreed to help and quickly shipped tons of food grains to feed the starving Polish people. A calamity was averted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Paderewski was relieved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He decided to go across to meet Hoover and personally thank him. When Paderewski began to thank Hoover for his noble gesture, Hoover quickly interjected and said, \u201cYou shouldn\u2019t be thanking me Mr. Prime Minister. You may not remember this, but several years ago, you helped two young students go through college. I was one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In 1892 at Stanford University, an 18-year-old student was struggling to pay his fees. He was an orphan, and not knowing where to turn for money, he came up with a bright idea. He and a friend decided to host a musical concert on campus to raise money for their education. They reached out to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachingstories.briancullen.net\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachingstories.briancullen.net\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachingstories.briancullen.net\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachingstories.briancullen.net\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachingstories.briancullen.net\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11321"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/teachingstories.briancullen.net\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11322,"href":"https:\/\/teachingstories.briancullen.net\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11321\/revisions\/11322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachingstories.briancullen.net\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachingstories.briancullen.net\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachingstories.briancullen.net\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}