Judging Others
Notes
Transcript
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Social
3/10/2003
An Excellent point about judging people on their appearance. Too bad for
>Harvard.
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>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 and probably didn't even deserve to be in
>Cambridge.
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>"We want to see the president," the man said softly.
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>"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.
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>"Maybe if you see them for a few minutes, they'll leave," she said to him.
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>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 and with dignity, strutted toward the couple.
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>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."
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>The president wasn't touched.... He was shocked.
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>"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."
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>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.
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>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?"
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>Her husband nodded.
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>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.
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>You can easily judge the character of others by how they treat those who
>they think can do nothing.
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>A TRUE STORY ----- by Malcolm Forbes