Posted by Miz on 6/26/2009, 5:43 pm
63.231.70.197
THE GINGHAM DRESS
>
> 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 Harvard University President's outer
> office. The secretary could tell in a moment that such backwoods,
> country hicks had no business at Harvard & probably didn't even deserve
> to be in Cambridge .
>
> “We'd like 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.
>
> “Maybe if you see them for a few minutes, they'll leave,” she said
> to him!
>
> He sighed in exasperation and nodded. Someone of his importance
> obviously didn't have the time to spend with them, and he detested
> gingham dresses and homespun suits cluttering up his outer office. 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, 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 cost 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, traveling 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.
>
> You can easily judge the character of others by how they treat those
> who they think can do nothing for them.
>
> - ---- A TRUE STORY by Malcolm Forbes
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