judge by the looks
A lady in a faded gingham dress and her husband, dressed in a homespun threadbare suit, stepped off the train in Boston, and walked timidly without an appointment into the 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 Cambridge. She frowned.
"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, even though it was a chore she always regretted to do. "Maybe if they just see you for a few minutes, they'll leave," she told him. And he sighed in exasperation and nodded. Someone of his importance obviously didn't have the time to spend with them, but he detested gingham dresses and homespun suits cluttering up his outer office. The president, stern-faced with dignity, strutted toward the couple.
The lady told him, "We had a son that attended Harvard for one year. He loved Harvard. He was happy here. But about a year ago, he was accidentally killed. And 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, 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 plant at Harvard." For a moment the lady was silent.
The president was pleased. 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 walked away, traveling to Palo Alto, California where they established the University that bears their name, a memorial to a son that Harvard no longer cared about!
not to judge a book by it's cover....
Its along the same lines as Pretty Woman - when julia roberts goes shopping dressed like a hooker no one served her but when she went dressed up and flashing a credit card they were falling overthemselves to assist. Unfortunately its a shallow world we live in.
Its one of the top reputed universities along with Harvard now, good the president didnt care.
good one... have a good moral lesson...
and the funny thing is that the president of Harvard himself who is supposed to lead by example is trying to assume that this people are not worth wasting his time on. Its strange how this presidents, leaders, CEO's, managers, etc preach one thing and do exactly the opposite when it suits them
whether this story is baseless or not, it still gives us a lesson particularly in humility because true humility is a self respect which keeps us from thinking too highly or too meanly of ourselves. it makes us modest by reminding us how far we have come short, of what we can be.
Never Judge a Human by Looks....
Ohh, It's a hoax..At least it gives a moral lesson.:p
It's a nice story but Leland's son died of typhoid fever and he never attend school at Harvard.
The story is a hoax..
http://www.snopes.com/glurge/stanford.asp
It's a good story and I can able to relate to it.honestly, it happend to me here long back 2007, I decided to purchase a Brand new Car and try to visit some show rooms. I dressed like I cant afford anything (wearing shorts, slippers .. etc..) when I go to one show room nobody is approching me in short sales person is ignoring me at all because of my dress code so I walk away and go to other showroom.It's quite funny but its true people always "judge the book by its cover"
good one TFS
This doesn't implement only on the wealth it implement on the beauty and morals too
TFS - This is very true.Almost always,we are judging people on how they look and how they act without trying to look beyond what we see. A cover never defines a person and whatever they look like is not a basis of what they can offer..
Nice story, TFS