When I got to college they called me “undecided.” I wasn’t undecided. Undecided is vacillating between options, you can’t make up your mind – bacon, ham or sausage? It wasn’t that, I didn’t even know what the choices were, I was uninformed, unaware, unfocused. The world could call me undecided but I was unfazed, I mean, how much different could it be from high school? Turns out, not that different, especially if you never go to class and blow off most assignments.
In January 1836 James Smithson, an obscure English amateur scientist who had never been to America, died and bequeathed $500,000 ($11 million in today’s dollars) to the U.S. government for science.
Selfless, random, forward-thinking, generous, thought-provoking, legendary – Smithson is worthy of American Idol status. Smithson wasn’t prescriptive in any way about the execution of his final wishes. Here’s some money, spend it on science. A complete stranger did America an incredibly-enduring solid: Put his money where his mouth is – from the grave.