The English idiom “don’t judge a book by its cover” is a metaphorical phrase that means one shouldn’t presume the worth or value of someone/something by its outward appearance alone. Well, for ages we have been hearing this popular English phrase. But, in practice we all do the opposite. We turn someone down easily if the person is not properly attired or is unattractive. “I am not handsome but I can give my hand to someone who needs help… Because beauty is required in heart not in face….” this quote of Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam gives such a strong message.
Some of insignificant looking men and women do most significant work in society. The President of Harvard made a mistake by presuming Mr and Mrs. Leland Stanford to be some worthless people and it cost him greatly. 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. His secretary spoke to them rudely considering them as backwoods country hicks and they were made to feel that they had no business at Harvard and probably didn’t even deserve to be in Cambridge.
For hours, the secretary ignored them, hoping that the couple would finally become dispirited 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 signed in exasperation and nodded. The President of Harvard looking at their out appearance was rude and disgraceful towards Stanfords.
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, and then exclaimed, “A building! Do you have any possible 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 drooped in confusion and seemed disorientation. And Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford walked away, travelling to Palo Alto, California, where they established the Stanford University that bears their name, a memorial to a son that Harvard did not cared about.
The very premise of the tale was completely incredible. Leland Stanford (1824-93) was one of the most prominent men of his time in America: He was a wealthy railroad magnate who built the Central Pacific Railroad (and drove the gold spike to symbolize the completion of the first transcontinental rail line at Promontory Summit, Utah, in 1869), as well as a Republican Party leader who served as California’s eighth governor (1862-63) and later represented that state in the U.S. Senate (1885-93). He was a striking figure, hardly the type of man to dress in a “homespun threadbare suit,” walk “timidly” into someone’s office without an appointment, and sit cooling his heels “for hours” until someone stooped to see him. Harvard’s president was unaware of Mr. Stanford’s standing in society.
Our society is more fixated on physical appearance; it was not so in past. Few decades ago, people were more graceful and had ethics in treating others with respect. People of great standing and intelligence prefer dressing up simply. Their knowledge, their expertise, their intellect makes them sand out in crowd.
But, these days great care is taken by all celebrities to ensure they look perfect when they are seen and to suppress all pictures of them looking less than ideal. The proliferation of these unreal images is thought to be linked with eating disorders and with many ordinary people’s dissatisfaction with their own appearance. If you see Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Ratan Tata, Elon Musk they are not flashily dressed, they don’t show off their wealth. These people rose from low to high they know the value of money and showing it won’t proliferate their wealth. They don’t flaunt on Instragram. For that matter even Instagram founder is such a simple gentleman and grounded. Ever noticed that billionaires lead such a simple life why? Because they don’t need to prove people by materialistic things that they are rich they prove by their remarkable contribution like donations, inventions, for betterment of the society.
Our poor understanding of what constitutes attractiveness as opposed to beauty is creased. We concentrate more on our outer beauty than inner beauty. Warmth, kindness and compassion are some qualities that make a person more attractive. However these qualities are quite impalpable and difficult to define, so there is a natural tendency to overestimate the importance of physical good looks which are more easily quantified and readily visible.
