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