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Don't Judge a book by it's cover
The President of Harvard made a mistake by
prejudging people
and it cost him dearly.
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
doing. "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.
And 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.
And 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. ...
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