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diff --git a/old/hdknk10.txt b/old/hdknk10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..38643c4 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/hdknk10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5323 @@ +**The Project Gutenberg Etext of The University of Hard Knocks** + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + + +The University of Hard Knocks + +by Ralph Parlette + +The School That Completes Our Education + + +"He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his +God, and he shall be my son"--Revelation 21:7. + +"Sweet are the uses of adversity; +Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, +Wears yet a precious jewel in his head; +And thus our life, exempt from public haunt, +Finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks +Sermons in stones, and good in everything." + +Shakespeare + + + + +Why It Is Printed + +MORE than a million people have sat in audiences in all parts of +the United States and have listened to "The University of Hard +Knocks." It has been delivered to date more than twenty-five +hundred times upon lyceum courses, at chautauquas, teachers' +institutes, club gatherings, conventions and before various other +kinds of audiences. Ralph Parlette is kept busy year after year +lecturing, because his lectures deal with universal human +experience. + +"Can I get the lecture in book form?" That continuous question from +audiences brought out this book in response. Here is the overflow +of many deliveries. + +"What is written here is not the way I would write it, were I +writing a book," says Ralph Parlette. "It is the way I say it. The +lecture took this unconscious colloquial form before audiences. An +audience makes a lecture, if the lecture survives. I wish I could +shake the hand of every person who has sat in my audiences. And I +wish I could tell the lecture committees of America how I +appreciate the vast amount of altruistic work they have done in +bringing the audiences of America together. For lecture audiences +are not drawn together, they are pushed together." + +The warm reception given "The University of Hard Knocks" by the +public, has encouraged the publishers to put more of Mr. Parlette's +lectures into book form, "Big Business" and "Pockets and Paradises" +are now in preparation as this, the third edition of "The +University of Hard Knocks" comes from the press. + + + +Contents + +SOME PRELIMINARY REMARKS--The lecturer the delivery wagon--The +sorghum barrel--Audience must have place to put lecture--Why so +many words + +The University of Hard Knocks + +I. THE BOOKS ARE BUMPS--Every bump a lesson--Why the two kinds of +bumps--Description of University--"Sweet are the uses of +Adversity"--Why children are not interested + +II. THE COLLEGE OF NEEDLESS KNOCKS, the bumps that we bump +into--Getting the coffee-pot--Teaching a wilful child--Bumps make +us "stop, look, listen"--Blind man learns with one bump--Going up +requires effort--Prodigals must be bumped--The fly and the sticky +fly-paper--"Removed" and "knocked out" + +III. THE COLLEGE OF NEEDFUL KNOCKS, the bumps that bump into +us--Our sorrows and disappointments--How the piano was made--How +the "red mud" becomes razor-blades--The world our mirror--The +cripple taught by the bumps--Every bump brings a blessing--You are +never down and out + +IV. "SHAKE THE BARREL"--How we decide our destinies--Why the big +ones shake up and the little ones shake down--The barrel of life +sorting people--How we hold our places, go down, go up--Good luck +and bad luck--The girl who went up--The man who went down--The +fatal rattle--We must get ready to get--Testimonials and press +notices--You cannot uplift people with derrick--No laws can +equalize--Help people to help themselves--We cannot get things till +we get ready for them + +V. GOING UP--How we become great--We must get inside greatness-- +There is no top--We make ourselves great by service--the +first step at hand--All can be greatest--Where to find great +people--A glimpse of Gunsaulus + +VI. THE PROBLEM OF "PREPAREDNESS"--Preparing children for +life--Most "advantages" are disadvantages--Buying education for +children--The story of "Gussie" and "Bill Whackem"--Schools and +books only give better tools for service--"Hard knocks" graduates-- +Menace of America not swollen fortunes but shrunken souls-- +Children must have struggle to get strength--Not packhorse work-- +Helping the turkeys killed them--the happiness of work we love-- +Amusement drunkards--Lure of the city--Strong men from the +country-- +Must save the home towns--A school of struggle--New School +experiment + +VII. THE SALVATION OF A "SUCKER"--You can't get something for +nothing--The fiddle and the tuning--How we know things--Trimmed at +the shell game--My "fool drawer"--Getting "selected to receive +1,000 per cent"--You must earn what you own--Commencement +orations--My maiden sermon--The books that live have been +lived--Singer must live songs--Successful songs written from +experience--Theory and practice--Tuning the strings of life + +VIII. LOOKING BACKWARD--Memories of the price we pay--My first +school teaching--Loaning the deacon my money--Calling the roll of +my schoolmates--At the grave of the boy I had envied--Why Ben Hur +won the chariot race--Pulling on the oar + +IX. GO ON SOUTH!--The book in the running brook--The Mississippi +keeps on going south and growing greater--We generally start well, +but stop--Few go on south--The plague of incompetents--Today our +best day, tomorrow to be better--Birthdays are promotions--I am +just beginning--Bernhardt, Davis, Edison--Moses begins at +eighty--Too busy to bury--Sympathy for the "sob squad"--Child sees +worst days, not best--Waiting for the second table--Better days on +south--Overcoming obstacles develops power--Go on south from +principle, not praise--Doing duty for the joy of it--Becoming the +"Father of Waters"--Go on south forever! + + +X. GOING UP LIFE'S MOUNTAIN--The defeats that are victories-- +Climbing Mount Lowe--Getting above the clouds into the sunshine-- +Each day we rise to larger vision--Getting above the night into +the eternal day--Going south is going upward + + + + +Some Preliminary Remarks + +LADIES and Gentlemen: +I do not want to be seen in this lecture. I want to be heard. I am +only the delivery wagon. When the delivery wagon comes to your +house, +you are not much interested in how it looks; you are interested in +the goods it brings you. You know some very good goods are +sometimes delivered to you in some very poor delivery wagons. + +So in this lecture, please do not pay any attention to the delivery +wagon--how much it squeaks and wheezes and rattles and wabbles. Do +not pay much attention to the wrappings and strings. Get inside to +the goods. + +Really, I believe the goods are good. I believe I am to recite to +you some of the multiplication table of life--not mine, not yours +alone, but everybody's. + + +Can Only Pull the Plug! + + +Every audience has a different temperature, and that makes a +lecture go differently before every audience. The kind of an +audience is just as important as the kind of a lecture. A cold +audience will make a good lecture poor, while a warm audience will +make a poor lecture good. + +Let me illustrate: + +When I was a boy we had a barrel of sorghum in the woodshed. When +mother wanted to make ginger-bread or cookies, she would send me to +the woodshed to get a bucket of sorghum from that barrel. + +Some warm September day I would pull the plug from the barrel and +the sorghum would fairly squirt into my bucket. Later in the fall +when it was colder, I would pull the plug but the sorghum would not +squirt. It would come out slowly and reluctantly, so that I would +have to wait a long while to get a little sorghum. And on some real +cold winter day I would pull the plug, but the sorghum would not +run at all. It would just look out at me. + +I discovered it was the temperature. + +I have brought a barrel of sorghum to this audience. The name of +the sorghum is "The University of Hard Knocks." I can only pull the +plug. I cannot make it run. That will depend upon the temperature +of this audience. You can have all you want of it, but to get it to +running freely, you will have to warm up. + + + + +Did You Bring a Bucket? + + +No matter how the sorghum runs, you have to have a bucket to get +it. How much any one gets out of a lecture depends also upon the +size of the bucket he brings to get it in. A big bucket can get +filled at a very small stream. A little bucket gets little at the +greatest stream. With no bucket you can get nothing at Niagara. + +That often explains why one person says a lecture is great, while +the next person says he got nothing out of it. + + + + +What It's All About + + +Here is a great mass of words and sentences and pictures to express +two or three simple little ideas of life, that our education is our +growing up from the Finite to the Infinite, and that it is done by +our own personal overcoming, and that we never finish it. + +Have you noticed that no sentence, nor a million sentences, can +bound life? Have you noticed that every statement does not quite +cover it? No statement, no library, can tell all about life. No +success rule can alone solve the problem. You must average it all +and struggle up to a higher vision. + +We are told that the stomach needs bulk as well as nutriment. It +would not prosper with the necessary elements in their condensed +form. So abstract truths in their lowest terms do not always +promote mental digestion like more bulk in the way of pictures and +discussions of these truths. Here is bulk as well as nutriment. + +If you get the feeling that the first personal pronoun is being +overworked, I remind you that this is more a confession than a +lecture. You cannot confess without referring to the confesser. + + + +To Everybody in My Audience + + +I like you because I am like you. + + +I believe in you because I believe in myself. We are all one +family. I believe in your Inside, not in your Outside, whoever you +are, whatever you are, wherever you are. + + +I believe in the Angel of Good inside every block of human marble. +I believe it must be carved out in The University of Hard Knocks. + + +I believe all this pride, vanity, selfishness, self-righteousness, +hypocrisy and human frailty are the Outside that must be chipped +away. + + +I believe the Hard Knocks cannot injure the Angel, but can only +reveal it. + + +I hope you are getting your Hard Knocks. + + +I care little about your glorious or inglorious past. I care little +about your present. I care much about your future for that is to +see more of the Angel in you. + + + +The University of Hard Knocks + +Chapter I + +The Books Are Bumps + + +THE greatest school is the University of Hard Knocks. Its books are +bumps. + +Every bump is a lesson. If we learn the lesson with one bump, we do +not get that bump again. We do not need it. We have traveled past +it. They do not waste the bumps. We get promoted to the next bump. + +But if we are "naturally bright," or there is something else the +matter with us, so that we do not learn the lesson of the bump we +have just gotten, then that bump must come back and bump us again. + +Some of us learn to go forward with a few bumps, but most of us are +"naturally bright" and have to be pulverized. + +The tuition in the University of Hard Knocks is not free. +Experience is the dearest teacher in the world. Most of us spend +our lives in the A-B-C's of getting started. + +We matriculate in the cradle. + +We never graduate. When we stop learning we are due for another +bump. + +There are two kinds of people--wise people and fools. The fools are +the people who think they have graduated. + +The playground is all of God's universe. + +The university colors are black and blue. + +The yell is "ouch" repeated ad lib. + + + + +The Need of the Bumps + + +When I was thirteen I knew a great deal more than I do now. There +was a sentence in my grammar that disgusted me. It was by some +foreigner I had never met. His name was Shakespeare. It was this: + +"Sweet are the uses of adversity; +Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, +Wears yet a priceless jewel in its head; +And thus our life, exempt from public haunt, +Finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks, +Sermons in stones, and good in everything." + + +"Tongues in trees," I thought. "Trees can't talk! That man is +crazy. Books in running brooks! Why nobody never puts no books in +no running brooks. They'd get wet. And that sermons in stones! They +get preachers to preach sermons, and they build houses out of +stones." + +I was sorry for Shakespeare--when I was thirteen. + +But I am happy today that I have traveled a little farther. I am +happy that I have begun to learn the lessons from the bumps. I am +happy that I am learning the sweet tho painful lessons of the +University of Adversity. I am happy that I am beginning to listen. +For as I learn to listen, I hear every tree speaking, every stone +preaching and every running brook the unfolding of a book. + + + + + + +Children, I fear you will not be greatly interested in what is to follow. +Perhaps you are "naturally bright" and feel sorry for Shakespeare. + +I was not interested when father and mother told me these things. +I knew they meant all right, but the world had moved since they were +young, and now two and two made seven, because we lived so much faster. + +It is so hard to tell young people anything. They know better. So +they have to get bumped just where we got bumped, to learn that two +and two always makes four, and "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall +he also reap." + +But if you will remember some of these things, they will feel like +poultices by and by when the bumps come. + + + + +The Two Colleges + + +As we get bumped and battered on life's pathway, we discover we get +two kinds of bumps--bumps that we need and bumps that we do not +need. + +Bumps that we bump into and bumps that bump into us. + +We discover, in other words, that The University of Hard Knocks has +two colleges--The College of Needless Knocks and The College of +Needful Knocks. + +We attend both colleges. + + + +Chapter II + +The College of Needless Knocks + +The Bumps That We Bump Into + + +NEARLY all the bumps we get are Needless Knocks. + +There comes a vivid memory of one of my early Needless Knocks as I +say that. It was back at the time when I was trying to run our home +to suit myself. I sat in the highest chair in the family circle. I +was three years old and ready to graduate. + +That day they had the little joy and sunshine of the family in his +high-chair throne right up beside the dinner table. The coffee-pot +was within grabbing distance. + +I became enamored with that coffee-pot. I decided I needed that +coffee-pot in my business. I reached over to get the coffee-pot. +Then I discovered a woman beside me, my mother. She was the most +meddlesome woman I had ever known. I had not tried to do one thing +in three years that that woman had not meddled into. + +And that day when I wanted the coffee-pot--I did want it. Nobody +knows +how I desired that coffee-pot. "One thing thou lackest," a +coffee-pot-- +I was reaching over to get it, that woman said, "Don't touch that!" + +The longer I thought about it the more angry I became. What right +has that woman to meddle into my affairs all the time? I have stood +this petticoat tyranny three years, and it is time to stop it! + +I stopped it. I got the coffee-pot. I know I got the coffee-pot. I +got it unanimously. I know when I got it and I also know where I +got it. I got about a gallon of the reddest, hottest coffee a bad +boy ever spilled over himself. + +O-o-o-o-o-o! I can feel it yet! + +There were weeks after that when I was upholstered. They put +applebutter on me--and coal oil and white-of-an-egg and starch and +anything else the neighbors could think of. They would bring it +over and rub it on the little joy and sunshine of the family, who +had gotten temporarily eclipsed. + + + + +Teaching a Wilful Child + + +You see, my mother's way was to tell me and then let me do as I +pleased. She told me not to get the coffee-pot and then let me get +it, knowing that it would burn me. She would say, "Don't." Then she +would go on with her knitting and let me do as I pleased. + +Why don't mothers knit today? + +Mother would say, "Don't fall in the well." I could go and jump in +the well after that and she would not look at me. I do not argue +that this is the way to raise children, but I insist that this was +the most kind and effective way to rear one stubborn boy I know of. +The neighbors and the ladies' aid society often said my mother was +cruel with that angel child. But the neighbors did not know what +kind of an insect mother was trying to raise. Mother did know. She +knew how stubborn and self-willed I was. It came from father's +"side of the house." + +Mother knew that to argue with me was to flatter me. Tell me, serve +notice upon me, and then let me go ahead and get my coffee-pot. +That was the quickest and kindest way to teach me. + +I learned very quickly that if I did not hear mother, and heed, a +coffee-pot would spill upon me. I cannot remember when I disobeyed +my mother that a coffee-pot of some kind did not spill upon me, and I +got my blisters. Mother did not inflict them. Mother was not much of an +inflicter. Father attended to that in the laboratory behind the +parsonage. + + + + +"Stop, Look, Listen" + + +And thru the bumps we learn that The College of Needless Knocks +runs on the same plan. The Voice of Wisdom says to each of us, +"Child of humanity, do right, walk in the right path. You will be +wiser and happier." The tongues in the trees, the books in the +running brooks and the sermons in the stones all repeat it. + +But we are not compelled to walk in the right path. We are free +im-moral agents. + +We get off the right path. We go down forbidden paths. They seem +easier and more attractive. It is so easy to go downward. We slide +downward, but we have to make effort to go upward. + +Anything that goes downward will run itself. Anything that goes +upward has to be pushed. + +And going down the wrong path, we get bumped harder and harder +until we listen. + +We are lucky if we learn the lesson with one bump. We are unlucky +when we get bumped twice in the same place, for it means we are +making no progress. + +When we are bumped, we should "stop, look, listen." "Safety first!" + +One time I paid a seeress two dollars to look into my honest palm. +She said, "It hain't your fault. You wasn't born right. You was +born under an unlucky star." You don't know how that comforted me. +It wasn't my fault--all my bumps and coffee-pots! I was just +unlucky and it had to be. + +How I had to be bumped to learn better! Now when I get bumped I try +to learn the lesson of the bump and find the right path, so that +when I see that bump coming again I can say, "Excuse me; it hath a +familiar look," and dodge it. + +The seeress is the soothing syrup for mental infants. + + + + +Blind Man's Fine Sight + + +The other day I watched a blind man go down the aisle of the car to +get off the train. Did you ever study the walk of a blind man? He +"pussyfooted" it along so carefully. He bumped his hand against a +seat. Then he did what every blind man does, he lifted his hand +higher and didn't bump any more seats. + +I looked down my nose. "Ralph Parlette," I said to myself, "when +are you going to learn to see as well as that blind man? He learns +his lesson with one bump, and you have to go bumping into the same +things day after day and wonder why you have so much `bad luck'!" + + + + +Are You Going Up or Down? + + +Let me repeat, things that go downward will run themselves. Things +that go upward have to be pushed. Going upward is overcoming. +Notice that churches, schools, lyceums, chautauquas, reform +movements--things that go upward--never run themselves. They must +be pushed all the time. + +And so with our own lives. Real living is conscious effort to go +upward to larger life. + +If you are making no effort in your life, if you are moving in the +line of least resistance, depend upon it you are going downward. +Look out for the bumps! + +Look over your community. Note the handful of brave, faithful, +unselfish souls who are carrying the community burdens and pushing +upward. Note the multitude making little or no effort, and even +getting in the way of the pushers. + +Majorities do not rule. Majorities never have ruled. It is the +brave minority of thinking, self-sacrificing people that decides +the tomorrow of communities that go upward. Majorities are not +willing to make the effort to rule themselves. They are content to +drift and be amused and follow false gods that promise something +for nothing. They must be led--sometimes driven--by minorities. + +People are like sheep. The shepherd can lead them to heaven--or to +hell. + + + + +Bumping the Prodigals + + +Human life is the story of the Prodigal Son. We look over the fence +of goodness into the mystery of the great unknown world beyond and +in that unknown realm we fondly imagine is happiness. + +Down the great white way of the world go the million prodigals, +seeking happiness where nobody ever found happiness. Their days +fill up with disappointment, their vision becomes dulled. They +become anaemic feeding upon the husks. + +They just must get their coffee-pot! + +How they must be bumped to think upon their ways. Every time we do +wrong we get a Needless Knock. Every time! We may not always get +bumped on the outside, but we always get bumped on the inside. A +bump on the conscience is worse than a bump on the "noodle." + +"I can do wrong and not get bumped. I have no feelings upon the +subject," somebody says, You can? You poor old sinner, you have +bumped your conscience numb. That is why you have no feelings on +the subject. You have pounded your soul into a jelly. You don't +know how badly you are hurt. + +How the old devil works day and night to keep people amused and +doped +so that they will not think upon their ways! How he keeps the music +and the dazzle going so they will not see they are bumping +themselves! + + + + +Consider the Sticky Flypaper + + +Did you ever watch a fly get his Needless Knocks on the sticky +flypaper? + +The last thing Mamma Fly said as Johnny went off to the city was, +"Remember, son, to stay away from the sticky flypaper. That is +where your poor dear father was lost." And Johnny Fly remembers for +several minutes. But when he sees all the smart young flies of his +set go over to the flypaper, he goes over, too. He gazes down at +his face in the stickiness. "Ah! how pretty I am! This sticky +flypaper shows me up better than anything at home. What a fine +place to skate. Just see how close I can fly over it and not get +stuck a bit. Mother is such a silly old worryer. She means all +right, of course, but she isn't up-to-date. We young set of modern +flies are naturally bright and have so many more advantages. You +can't catch us. They were too strict with me back home." + +You see Johnny fly back and forth and have the time of his +naturally bright young life. Afterwhile, tho, he stubs his toe and +lands in the stickiness. "Well, well, how nice this is on the feet, +so soft and soothing!" + +First he puts one foot down and pulls it out. That is a lot of fun. +It shows he is not a prisoner. He is a strong-minded fly. He can +quit it or play in it, just as he pleases. After while he puts two +feet down in the stickiness. It is harder to pull them out. Then he +puts three down and puts down a few more trying to pull them out. + +"Really," says Johnny Fly bowing to his comrades also stuck around +him, "really, boys, you'll have to excuse me now. Good-bye!" But he +doesn't pull loose. He feels tired and he sits down in the sticky +flypaper. It is a fine place to stick around. All his young set of +flies are around him. He does like the company. They all feel the +same way--they can play in the sticky flypaper or let it alone, +just as they please, for they are strong-minded flies. They have +another drink and sing, "We won't go home till morning." + +Johnny may get home, but he will leave a wing or a leg. +Most of them stay. They just settle down into the stickiness +with sleeping sickness. + +The tuition in The College of Needless Knocks is very high indeed! + + + + +"Removed" or "Knocked Out"? + + +The man who goes to jail ought to congratulate himself if he is +guilty. It is the man who does not get discovered who is to be +pitied, for he must get some more knocks. + +The world loves to write resolutions of respect. How often we +write, "Whereas, it has pleased an all-wise Providence to remove," +when we might reasonably ask whether the victim was "removed" or +merely "knocked out." + +There is a good deal of suicide charged up to Providence. + + + +Chapter III + +The College of Needful Knocks + +The Bumps That Bump Into Us + + +BUT occasionally all of us get bumps that we do not bump into. They +bump into us. They are the guideboard knocks that point us to the +higher pathway. + +You were bumped yesterday or years ago. Maybe the wound has not yet +healed. Maybe you think it never will heal. You wondered why you +were bumped. Some of you in this audience are just now wondering +why. + +You were doing right--doing just the best you knew how--and yet +some blow came crushing upon you and gave you cruel pain. + +It broke your heart. You have had your heart broken. I have had my +heart broken more times than I care to talk about now. Your home +was darkened, your plans were wrecked, you thought you had nothing +more to live for. + +I am like you. I have had more trouble than anybody else. I have +never known anyone who had not had more trouble than anyone else. + +But I am discovering that life only gets good after we have been +killed a few times. Each death is a larger birth. + +We all must learn, if we have not already learned, that these blows +are lessons in The College of Needful Knocks. They point upward to +a higher path than we have been traveling. + +In other words, we are raw material. You know what raw material +is--material that needs more Needful Knocks to make it more useful +and valuable. + +The clothing we wear, the food we eat, the house we live in, all +have to have the Needful Knocks to become useful. And so does +humanity need the same preparation for greater usefulness. + +I should like to know every person in this audience. But the ones +I should most appreciate knowing are the ones who have known the +most of these knocks--who have faced the great crises of life and +have been tried in the crucibles of affliction. For I am learning +that these lives are the gold tried in the fire. + + + + +The Sorrows of the Piano + + +See the piano on this stage? Good evening, Mr. Piano. I am glad to +see you. You are so shiny, beautiful, valuable and full of music, +if properly treated. + +Do you know how you got upon this stage, Mr. Piano? You were bumped +here. This is no reflection upon the janitor. You became a piano by +the Needful Knocks. + +I can see you back in your callow beginnings, when you were just a +tree--a tall, green tree. You were green! Only green things grow. +Did you get the meaning of that, children? I hope you are green. + +There you stood in the forest, a perfectly good, green young tree. +You got your lessons, combed your hair, went to Sunday school and +were the best young tree you could be. + +That is why you were bumped--because you were good! There came a +man into the woods with an ax, and he looked for the best trees +there to bump. He bumped you--hit you with the ax! How it hurt you! +And how unjust it was! He kept on hitting you. "The operation was +just terrible." Finally you fell, crushed, broken, bleeding. + +It is a very sad story. They took you all bumped and bleeding to +the sawmill and they bumped and ripped you more. They cut you in +pieces and hammered you day by day. + +They did not bump the little, crooked, dissipated, cigaret-stunted +trees. They were not worth bumping. + +But shake, Mr. Piano. That is why you are on this stage. You were +bumped here. All the beauty, harmony and value were bumped into you. + + + + +The Sufferings of the Red Mud + + +One day I was up the Missabe road about a hundred miles north of +Duluth, Minnesota, and came to a hole in the ground. It was a big +hole--about a half-mile of hole. There were steam-shovels at work +throwing out of that hole what I thought was red mud. + +"Kind sir, why are they throwing that red mud out of that hole?" I +asked a native. + +"That hain't red mud. That's iron ore, an' it's the best iron ore +in the world." + +"What is it worth?" + +"It hain't worth nothin' here; that's why they're movin' it away." + +There's red mud around every community that "hain't worth nothin'" +until you move it--send it to college or somewhere. + +Not very long after this, near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, I saw some +of this same red mud. It had been moved over the Great Lakes and +the rails to what they call a blast furnace, the technological name +of which being The College of Needful Knocks for Red Mud. + +I watched this red mud matriculate into a great hopper with +limestone, charcoal and other textbooks. Then they corked it up and +school began. They roasted it. It is a great thing to be roasted. + +When it was done roasting they stopped. Have you noticed that they +always stop when anything is done roasting? If we are yet getting +roasted, perhaps we are not done! + +Then they pulled the plug out of the bottom of the college and held +promotion exercises. The red mud squirted out into the sand. It was +not red mud now, because it had been roasted. It was a freshman-- +pig iron, worth more than red mud, because it had been roasted. + +Some of the pig iron went into another department, a big teakettle, +where it was again roasted, and now it came out a sophomore--steel, +worth more than pig iron. + +Some of the sophomore steel went up into another grade where it was +roasted yet again and rolled thin into a junior. Some of that went +on up and up, at every step getting more pounding and roasting and +affliction. + +It seemed as tho I could hear the suffering red mud crying out, "O, +why did they take me away from my happy hole-in-the-ground? Why do +they pound me and break my heart? I have been good and faithful. O, +why do they roast me? O, I'll never get over this!" + +But after they had given it a diploma--a pricemark telling how much +it had been roasted--they took it proudly all over the world, +labeled "Made in America." They hung it in show windows, they put +it in glass cases. Many people admired it and said, "Isn't that +fine work!" They paid much money for it now. They paid the most +money for what had been roasted the most. + +If a ton of that red mud had become watch-springs or razor-blades, +the price had gone up into thousands of dollars. + +My friends, you and I are the raw material, the green trees, the +red mud. The Needful Knocks are necessary to make us serviceable. + +Every bump is raising our price. Every bump is disclosing a path to +a larger life. The diamond and the chunk of soft coal are exactly the +same material, say the chemists. But the diamond has gone to The College +of Needful Knocks more than has her crude sister of the coal-scuttle. + +There is no human diamond that has not been crystallized in the +crucibles of affliction. There is no gold that has not been refined +in the fire. + + + + +Cripple Taught by Bumps + + +One evening when I was trying to lecture in a chautauqua tent in +Illinois, a crippled woman was wheeled into the tent and brought +right down to the foot of the platform. The subject was The +University of Hard Knocks. Presently the cripple's face was shining +brighter than the footlights. + +She knew about the knocks! + +Afterwards I went to her. "Little lady, I want to thank you for +coming here. I have the feeling that I spoke the words, but you are +the lecture itself." + +What a smile she gave me! "Yes, I know about the hard knocks," she +said. "I have been in pain most of my life. But I have learned all +that I know sitting in this chair. I have learned to be patient and +kind and loving and brave." + +They told me this crippled woman was the sweetest-spirited, +best-loved person in the town. + +But her mother petulantly interrupted me. She had wheeled the +cripple into the tent. She was tall and stately. She was +well-gowned. She lived in one of the finest homes in the city. She +had everything that money could buy. But her money seemed unable to +buy the frown from her face. + +"Mr. Lecture Man," she said, "why is everybody interested in my +daughter and nobody interested in me? Why is my daughter happy and +why am I not happy? My daughter is always happy and she hasn't a +single thing to make her happy. I am not happy. I have not been +happy for years. Why am I not happy?" + +What would you have said? Just on the spur of the moment--I said, +"Madam, I don't want to be unkind, but I really think the reason +you are not happy is that you haven't been bumped enough." + +I discover when I am unhappy and selfish and people don't use me +right, I need another bump. + +The cripple girl had traveled ahead of her jealous mother. For +selfishness cripples us more than paralysis. + + + + +Schools of Sympathy + + +When I see a long row of cots in a hospital or sanitarium, I want +to congratulate the patients lying there. They are learning the +precious lessons of patience, sympathy, love, faith and courage. +They are getting the education in the humanities the world needs +more than tables of logarithms. Only those who have suffered can +sympathize. They are to become a precious part of our population. +The world needs them more than libraries and foundations. + + + + +The Silver Lining + + +There is no backward step in life. Whatever experiences come to us +are truly new chapters of our education if we are willing to learn +them. + +We think this is true of the good things that come to us, but we do +not want to think so of the bad things. Yet we grow more in lean +years than in fat years. In fat years we put it in our pockets. In +lean years we put it in our hearts. Material and spiritual +prosperity do not often travel hand-in-hand. When we become +materially very prosperous, so many of us begin to say, "Is not +this Babylon that I have builded?" And about that time there comes +some handwriting on the wall and a bump to save us. + +Think of what might happen to you today. Your home might burn. We +don't want your home to burn, but somebody's home is burning just +now. A conflagration might sweep your town from the map. Your +business might wreck. Your fortune might be swept away. Your good +name might be tarnished. Bereavement might take from you the one +you love most. + +You would never know how many real friends you have until then. But +look out! Some of your friends would say, "I am so sorry for you. +You are down and out." Do not believe that you are down and out, +for it is not true. The old enemy of humanity wants you to believe +you are down and out. He wants you to sympathize with yourself. You +are never down and out! + +The truth is, another chapter of your real education has been +opened. Will you read the lesson of the Needful Knocks? + +A great conflagration, a cyclone, a railroad wreck, an epidemic or +other public disaster brings sympathy, bravery, brotherhood and +love in its wake. + +There is a silver lining to every hard knocks cloud. + +Out of the trenches of the Great War come nations chastened by +sacrifice and purged of their dross. + + + +Chapter IV + +"Shake The Barrel" + +How We Decide Our Destinies + + +NOW as we learn the lessons of the Needless and the Needful Knocks, +we get wisdom, understanding, happiness, strength, success and +greatness. We go up in life. We become educated. Let me bring you +a picture of it. + +One day the train stopped at a station to take water. Beside the +track was a grocery with a row of barrels of apples in front. There +was one barrel full of big, red, fat apples. I rushed over and got +a sack of the big, red, fat apples. Later as the train was under +way, I looked in the sack and discovered there was not a big, red, +fat apple there. + +All I could figure out was that there was only one layer of the +big, red, fat apples on the top, and the groceryman, not desiring +to spoil his sign, had reached down under the top layer. He must +have reached to the bottom, for he gave me the worst mess of runts +and windfalls I ever saw in one sack. The things I said about the +grocery business must have kept the recording angel busy. + +Then I calmed down. Did the groceryman do that on purpose? Does +the groceryman ever put the big apples on top and the little +ones down underneath? + +Do you? Is there a groceryman in the audience? + +Man of sorrows, you have been slandered. It never occurred to me +until that day on the train that the groceryman does not put the +big ones on top and the little ones down underneath. He does not +need to do it. It does itself. It is the shaking of the barrel that +pushes the big ones up and the little ones down. + + + + +Shake to Their Places + + +You laugh? You don't believe that? Maybe your roads are so good +and smooth that things do not shake on the road to town. But back +in the Black Swamp of Ohio we had corduroy roads. Did you ever see +a corduroy road? It was a layer of logs in the mud. Riding over it +was the poetry of motion! The wagon "hit the high spots." And as I +hauled a wagon-bed full of apples to the cider-mill over a corduroy +road, the apples sorted out by the jolting. The big apples would +try to get to the top. The little, runty apples would try to hold +a mass meeting at the bottom. + +I saw that for thirty years before I saw it. Did you ever notice +how long you have to see most things before you see them? I saw +that when I played marbles. The big marbles would shake to the top +of my pocket and the little ones would rattle down to the bottom. + +You children try that tomorrow. Do not wait thirty years to learn +that the big ones shake up and the little ones shake down. Put some +big ones and some little things of about the same density in a box +or other container and shake them. You will see the larger things +shake upward and the smaller shake downward. You will see every +thing shake to the place its size determines. A little larger one +shakes a little higher, and a little smaller one a little lower. + +When things find their place, you can shake on till doomsday, but +you cannot change the place of one of the objects. + +Mix them up again and shake. Watch them all shake back as they were +before, the largest on top and the smallest at the bottom. + + + + +Lectures in Cans + + +At this place the lecturer exhibits a glass jar more than +half-filled with small white beans and a few walnuts. + + +Let us try that right on the platform. Here is a glass jar and +inside of it you see two sizes of objects--a lot of little white +beans and some walnuts. You will pardon me for bringing such a +simple and crude apparatus before you in a lecture, but I ask your +forbearance. I am discovering that we can hear faster thru the eye +than thru the ear. I want to make this so vivid that you will never +forget it, and I do not want these young people to live thirty +years before they see it. + +If there are sermons in stones, there must be lectures in cans. +This is a canned lecture. Let the can talk to you awhile. + +You note as I shake the jar the little beans quickly settle down +and the big walnuts shake up. Not one bean asks, "Which way do I +go?" Not one walnut asks, "Which way do I go?" Each one +automatically goes the right way. The little ones go down and the +big ones go up. + +Note that I mix them all up and then shake. Note that they arrange +themselves just as they were before. + +Suppose those objects could talk. I think I hear that littlest bean +down in the bottom saying, "Help me! Help me! I am so unfortunate +and low down. I never had no chance like them big ones up there. +Help me up." + +I say, "Yes, you little bean, I'll help you." So I lift him up to +the top. See! I have boosted him. I have uplifted him. + +See, the can shakes. Back to the bottom shakes the little bean. And +I hear him say, "King's ex! I slipped. Try that again and I'll +stay on top." So I put him back again on top. + +The can shakes. The little bean again shakes back to the bottom. He +is too small to stay up. He cannot stand prosperity. + +Then I hear Little Bean say, "Well, if I cannot get to the top, you +make them big ones come down. Give every one an equal chance." + +So I say, "Yes, sir, Little Bean. Here, you big ones on top, get +down. You Big Nuts get right down there on a level with Little +Bean!" And you see I put them down. + +But I shake the can, and the big ones go right back to the top with +the same shakes that send the little ones back to the bottom. + +There is only one way for those objects to change their place in +the can. Lifting them up or putting them down will not do it. But +change their size! + +Equality of position demands quality of size. Let the little one +grow bigger and he will shake up. Let the big one grow smaller and +he will shake down. + + + + +The Shaking Barrel of Life + + +O, fellow apples! We are all apples in the barrel of life on the +way to the market place of the future. It is a corduroy road and +the barrel shakes all the time. + +In the barrel are big apples, little apples, freckled apples, +speckled apples, green apples, and dried apples. A bad boy on the +front row shouted the other night, "And rotten apples!" + +In other words, all the people of the world are in the great barrel +of life. That barrel is shaking all the time. Every community is +shaking, every place is shaking. The offices, the shops, the +stores, the schools, the pulpits, the homes--every place where we +live or work is shaking. Life is a constant survival of the +fittest. + +The same law that shakes the little ones down and the big ones up +in that can is shaking every person to the place he fits in the +barrel of life. It is sending small people down and great people +up. + +And do you not see that we are very foolish when we want to be +lifted up to some big place, or when we want some big person to be +put down to some little place? We are foolishly trying to overturn +the eternal law of life. + +We shake right back to the places our size determines. We must get +ready for places before we can get them and keep them. + +The very worst thing that can happen to anybody is to be +artificially boosted up into some place where he rattles. + +I hear a good deal about destiny. Some people seem to think destiny +is something like a train and if we do not get to the depot in time +our train of destiny will run off and leave us, and we will have no +destiny. There is destiny--that jar. + +If we are small we shall have a small destiny. If we are great we +shall have a great destiny. We cannot dodge our destiny. + + + + +Kings and Queens of Destiny + + +The objects in that jar cannot change their size. But thank God, +you and I are not helpless victims of blind fate. We are not +creatures of chance. We have it in our hands to decide our destiny +as we grow or refuse to grow. + +We shake down if we become small; we shake up if we become great. +And when we have reached the place our size determines, we stay +there so long as we stay that size. + +If we wish to change our place, we must first change our size. If +we wish to go down, we must grow smaller and we shall shake down. +If we wish to go up, we must grow greater, and we shall shake up. + +Each person is doing one of three things consciously or +unconsciously. + +1. He is holding his place. + +2. He is going down. + +3. He is going up. + +In order to hold his place he must hold his size. He must fill the +place. If he shrinks up he will rattle. Nobody can stay long where +he rattles. Nature abhors a rattler. He shakes down to a smaller place. + +In order to stay the same size he must grow enough each day to supply +the loss by evaporation. Evaporation is going steadily on in lives +as well as in liquids. If we are not growing any, we are rattling. + + + + +We Compel Promotion + + +So you young people should keep in mind that you will shake into +the places you fit. And when you are in your places--in stores, +shops, offices or elsewhere, if you want to hold your place you +must keep growing enough to keep it tightly filled. + +If you want a greater place, you simply grow greater and they +cannot keep you down. You do not ask for promotion, you compel +promotion. You grow greater, enlarge your dimensions, develop new +capabilities, do more than you are paid to do--overfill your place, +and you shake up to a greater place. + +I believe if I were so fortunate or unfortunate as to have a number +of people working for me, I would have a jar in my office filled +with various sizes of objects. When an employee would come into the +office and say, "Isn't it about time I was getting a raise?" I +would say, "Go shake the jar, Charlie. That is the way you get +raised. As you grow greater you won't need to ask to be promoted. +You will promote yourself." + + + + +"Good Luck" and "Bad Luck" + + +This jar tells me so much about luck. I have noted that the lucky +people shake up and the unlucky people shake down. That is, the +lucky people grow great and the unlucky people shrivel and rattle. + +Notice as I bump this jar. Two things happened. The little ones +shook down and the big ones shook up. The bump that was bad luck to +the little ones was good luck to the big ones. The same bump was +both good luck and bad luck. + +Luck does not depend upon the direction of the bump, but upon the +size of the bump-ee! + + + + +The "Lucky" One + + +So everywhere you look you see the barrel sorting people according +to size. Every business concern can tell you stories like that of +the Chicago house where a number of young ladies worked. Some of +them had been there for a long time. There came a raw, green Dutch +girl from the country. It was her first office experience, and she +got the bottom job. + +The other girls poked fun at her and played jokes upon her because +she was so green. + +Do you remember that green things grow? + +"Is not she the limit?" they oft spake one to another. She was. She +made many blunders. But it is now recalled that she never made the +same blunder twice. She learned the lesson with one helping to the +bumps. + +And she never "got done." When she had finished her work, the work +she had been put at, she would discover something else that ought +to be done, and she would go right on working, contrary to the +rules of the union! Without being told, mind you. She had that rare +faculty the world is bidding for--initiative. + +The other girls "got done." When they had finished the work they +had been put at, they would wait--O, so patiently they would +wait--to be told what to do next. + +Within three months every other girl in that office was asking +questions of the little Dutch girl. She had learned more about +business in three months than the others had learned in all the +time they had been there. Nothing ever escaped her. She had become +the most capable girl in the office. + +The barrel did the rest. Today she is giving orders to all of them, +for she is the office superintendent. + +The other girls feel hurt about it. They will tell you in +confidence that it was the rankest favoritism ever known. "There +was nothing fair about it. Jennie ought to have been made +superintendent. Jennie had been here four years." + + + + +The "Unlucky" One + + +The other day in a paper-mill I was standing beside a long machine +making shiny super-calendered paper. I asked the man working there +some questions about the machine, which he answered fairly well. +Then I asked him about a machine in the next room. He said, "I +don't know nothing about it, boss, I don't work in there." + +I asked him about another process, and he replied, "I don't know +nothing about it, I never worked in there." I asked him about the +pulpmill. He replied, "No, I don't know nothing about that, +neither. I don't work in there." And he did not betray the least +desire to know anything about anything. + +"How long have you worked here?" + +"About twelve years." + +Going out of the building, I asked the foreman, "Do you see that +man over there at the supercalendered machine?" pointing to the man +who didn't know. "Is he a human being?" + +The foreman's face clouded. "I hate to talk to you about that man. +He is one of the kindest-hearted men we ever had in the works, but +we've got to let him go. We're afraid he'll break the machine. He +isn't interested, does not learn, doesn't try to learn." + +So he had begun to rattle. Nobody can stay where he rattles. It is +grow or go. + + + + +Life's Barrel the Leveler + + +So books could be filled with just such stories of how people have +gone up and down. You may have noticed two brothers start with the +same chance, and presently notice that one is going up and the +other is going down. + +Some of us begin life on the top branches, right in the sunshine of +popular favor, and get our names in the blue-book at the start. +Some of us begin down in the shade on the bottom branches, and we +do not even get invited. We often become discouraged as we look at +the top-branchers, and we say, "O, if I only had his chance! If I +were only up there I might amount to something. But I am too low +down." + +We can grow. Everybody can grow. + +And afterwhile we are all in the barrel of life, shaken and bumped +about. There the real people do not often ask us, "On what branch +of that tree did you grow?" But they often inquire, "Are you big +enough to fill this place?" + + + + +The Fatal Rattle! + + +Now life is mainly routine. You and I and everybody must go on +doing pretty much the same things over and over. Every day we +appear to have about the same round of duties. + +But if we let life become routine, we are shaking down. The very +routine of life must every day flash a new attractiveness. We must +be learning new things and discovering new joys in our daily +routine or we become unhappy. If we go on doing just the same +things in the same way day after day, thinking the same thoughts, +our eyes glued to precedents--just turning round and round in our places +and not growing any, pretty soon we become mere machines. We wear +smaller. The joy and juice go out of our lives. We shrivel and rattle. + +The success, joy and glory of life are in learning, growing, going +forward and upward. That is the only way to hold our place. + +The farmer must be learning new things about farming to hold his +place this progressive age as a farmer. The merchant must be +growing into a greater, wiser merchant to hold his place among his +competitors. The minister must be getting larger visions of the +ministry as he goes back into the same old pulpit to keep on +filling it. The teacher must be seeing new possibilities in the +same old schoolroom. The mother must be getting a larger horizon in +her homemaking. + +We only live as we grow and learn. When anybody stays in the same +place year after year and fills it, he does not rattle. + +Unless the place is a grave! + +I shiver as I see the pages of school advertisements in the +journals labeled "Finishing Schools," and "A Place to Finish Your +Child." I know the schools generally mean all right, but I fear the +students will get the idea they are being finished, which finishes +them. We never finish while we live. A school finishing is a +commencement, not an end-ment. + +I am sorry for the one who says, "I know all there is to know about +that. You can't tell me anything about that." He is generally +rattling. + +The greater and wiser the man, the more anxious he is to be told. + +I am sorry for the one who struts around saying, "I own the job. +They can't get along without me." For I feel that they are getting +ready to get along without him. That noise you hear is the +death-rattle in his throat. + +Big business men keep their ears open for rattles in their +machinery. + +I am sorry for the man, community or institution that spends much +time pointing backward with pride and talking about "in my day!" +For it is mostly rattle. The live one's "my day" is today and +tomorrow. The dead one's is yesterday. + + + + +We Must Get Ready to Get + + +We young people come up into life wanting great places. I would not +give much for a young person (or any other person) who does not +want a great place. I would not give much for anybody who does not +look forward to greater and better things tomorrow. + +We often think the way to get a great place is just to go after it +and get it. If we do not have pull enough, get some more pull. Get +some more testimonials. + +We think if we could only get into a great place we would be great. +But unless we have grown as great as the place we would be a great +joke, for we would rattle. And when we have grown as great as the +place, that sized place will generally come seeking us. + +We do not become great by getting into a great place, any more than +a boy becomes a man by getting into his father's boots. He is in +great boots, but he rattles. He must grow greater feet before he +gets greater boots. But he must get the feet before he gets the +boots. + +We must get ready for things before we get them. + +All life is preparation for greater things. + +Moses was eighty years getting ready to do forty years work. The +Master was thirty years getting ready to do three years work. So +many of us expect to get ready in "four easy lessons by mail." + +We can be a pumpkin in one summer, with the accent on the "punk." +We can be a mushroom in a day, with the accent on the "mush." But +we cannot become an oak that way. + +The world is not greatly impressed by testimonials. The man who has +the most testimonials generally needs them most to keep him from +rattling. A testimonial so often becomes a crutch. + +Many a man writes a testimonial to get rid of somebody. "Well, I +hope it will do him some good. Anyhow, I have gotten him off my +hands." I heard a Chicago superintendent say to his foreman, "Give +him a testimonial and fire him!" + +It is dangerous to overboost people, for the higher you boost them +the farther they will fall. + + + + +The Menace of the Press-Notice + + +Now testimonials and press-notices very often serve useful ends. In +lyceum work, in teaching, in very many lines, they are often useful +to introduce a stranger. A letter of introduction is useful. A +diploma, a degree, a certificate, a license, are but different +kinds of testimonials. + +The danger is that the hero of them may get to leaning upon them. +Then they become a mirror for his vanity instead of a monitor +for his vitality. + +Most testimonials and press-notices are frank flatteries. They +magnify the good points and say little as possible about the bad +ones. I look back over my lyceum life and see that I hindered my +progress by reading my press-notices instead of listening to the +verdict of my audiences. I avoided frank criticism. It would hurt +me. Whenever I heard an adverse criticism, I would go and read a +few press-notices. "There, I am all right, for this clipping says +I am the greatest ever, and should he return, no hall would be able +to contain the crowd." + +And my vanity bump would again rise. + +Alas! How often I have learned that when I did return the hall that +was filled before was entirely too big for the audience! The +editors of America--God bless them! They are always trying to boost +a home enterprise--not for the sake of the imported attraction but +for the sake of the home folks who import it. + +We must read people, not press-notices. + +When you get to the place where you can stand aside and "see +yourself go by"--when you can keep still and see every fibre of you +and your work mercilessly dissected, shake hands with yourself and +rejoice, for the kingdom of success is yours. + + + + +The Artificial Uplift + + +There are so many loving, sincere, foolish, cruel uplift movements +in the land. They spring up, fail, wail, disappear, only to be +succeeded by twice as many more. They fail because instead of +having the barrel do the uplifting, they try to do it with a +derrick. + +The victims of the artificial uplift cannot stay uplifted. They +rattle back, and "the last estate of that man is worse than the +first." + +You cannot uplift a beggar by giving him alms. You are using the +derrick. We must feed the hungry and clothe the naked, but that is +not helping them, that is propping them. The beggar who asks you to +help him does not want to be helped. He wants to be propped. He +wants you to license him and professionalize him as a beggar. + +You can only help a man to help himself. Help him to grow. You +cannot help many people, for there are not many people willing to +be helped on the inside. Not many willing to grow up. + +When Peter and John went up to the temple they found the lame +beggar sitting at the gate Beautiful. Every day the beggar had been +"helped." Every day as they laid him at the gate people would pass +thru the gate and see him. He would say, "Help me!" "Poor man," +they would reply, "you are in a bad fix. Here is help," and they +would throw him some money. + +And so every day that beggar got to be more of a beggar. The public +"helped" him to be poorer in spirit, more helpless and a more +hopeless cripple. No doubt he belonged after a few days of the +"helping" to the Jerusalem Beggars' Union and carried his card. +Maybe he paid a commission for such a choice beggars' beat. + +But Peter really helped him. "Silver and gold have I none; but such +as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise +up and walk." + + + + +Fix the People, Not the Barrel + + +I used to say, "Nobody uses me right. Nobody gives me a chance." +But if chances had been snakes, I would have been bitten a hundred +times a day. We need oculists, not opportunities. + +I used to work on the "section" and get a dollar and fifteen cents +a day. I rattled there. I did not earn my dollar fifteen. I tried +to see how little I could do and look like I was working. I was the +Artful Dodger of Section Sixteen. When the whistle would blow--O, +joyful sound!--I would leave my pick hang right up in the air. I +would not bring it down again for a soulless corporation. + +I used to wonder as I passed Bill Barlow's bank on the way down to +the section-house, why I was not president of that bank. I wondered +why I was not sitting upon one of those mahogany seats instead of +pumping a handcar. I was naturally bright. I used to say "If the +rich wasn't getting richer and the poor poorer, I'd be president of a +bank." + +Did you ever hear that line of conversation? It generally comes +from somebody who rattles where he is. + +I am so glad now that I did not get to be president of the bank. +They are glad, too! I would have rattled down in about fifteen +minutes, down to the peanut row, for I was only a peanut. Remember, +the hand-car job is just as honorable as the bank job, but as I was +not faithful over a few things, I would have rattled over many +things. + +The fairy books love to tell about some clodhopper suddenly +enchanted up into a king. But life's good fairies see to it that +the clodhopper is enchanted into readiness for kingship before he +lands upon the throne. + +The only way to rule others is to learn to rule ourself. + +I used to say, "Just wait till I get to Congress." I think they are +all waiting! "I'll fix things. I'll pass laws requiring all apples +to be the same size. Yes, I'll pass laws to turn the barrel upside +down, so the little ones will be on the top and the big ones will +be at the bottom." + +But I had not seen that it wouldn't matter which end was the top, +the big ones would shake right up to it and the little ones would +shake down to the bottom. + +The little man has the chance now, just as fast as he grows. You +cannot fix the barrel. You can only fix the people inside the +barrel. + +Have you ever noticed that the man who is not willing to fix +himself, is the one who wants to get the most laws passed to fix +other people? He wants something for nothing. + + + + +That Cruel Fate + + +O, I am so glad I did not get the things I wanted at the time I +wanted them! They would have been coffee-pots. Thank goodness, we +do not get the coffee-pot until we are ready to handle it. + +Today you and I have things we couldn't have yesterday. We just +wanted them yesterday. O, how we wanted them! But a cruel fate +would not let us have them. Today we have them. They come to us as +naturally today, and we see it is because we have grown ready for +them, and the barrel has shaken us up to them. + +Today you and I want things beyond our reach. O, how we want them! +But a cruel fate will not let us have them. + +Do you not see that "cruel fate" is our own smallness and +unreadiness? As we grow greater we have greater things. We have +today all we can stand today. More would wreck us. More would start +us to rattling. + +Getting up is growing up. + +And this blessed old barrel of life is just waiting and anxious to +shake everybody up as fast as everybody grows. + + + +Chapter V + +Going Up + +How We Become Great + +WE go up as we grow great. That is, we go up as we grow up. But so +many are trying to grow great on the outside without growing great +on the inside. They rattle on the inside! + +They fool themselves, but nobody else. + +There is only one greatness--inside greatness. All outside +greatness is merely an incidental reflection of the inside. + +Greatness is not measured in any material terms. It is not measured +in inches, dollars, acres, votes, hurrahs, or by any other of the +world's yardsticks or barometers. + +Greatness is measured in spiritual terms. It is education. It is +life expansion. + +We go up from selfishness to unselfishness. + +We go up from impurity to purity. + +We go up from unhappiness to happiness. + +We go up from weakness to strength. + +We go up from low ideals to high ideals. + +We go up from little vision to greater vision. + +We go up from foolishness to wisdom. + +We go up from fear to faith. + +We go up from ignorance to understanding. + +We go up by our own personal efforts. We go up by our own service, +sacrifice, struggle and overcoming. We push out our own skyline. We +rise above our own obstacles. We learn to see, hear, hold and +understand. + +We may become very great, very educated, rise very high, and yet +not leave our kitchen or blacksmith shop. We take the kitchen or +blacksmith shop right up with us! We make it a great kitchen or +great blacksmith shop. It becomes our throne-room! + +Come, let us grow greater. There is a throne for each of us. + + + + +"Getting to the Top" + + +"Getting to the top" is the world's pet delusion. There is no top. +No matter how high we rise, we discover infinite distances above. +The higher we rise, the better we see that life on this planet is +the going up from the Finite to the Infinite. + +The world says that to get greatness means to get great things. So +the world is in the business of getting--getting great fortunes, +great lands, great titles, great applause, great fame, and +folderol. Afterwhile the poor old world hears the empty rattle of +the inside, and wails, "All is vanity. I find no pleasure in them. +Life is a failure." All outside life is a failure. Real life is in +being things on the inside, not in getting things on the outside. + +I weary of the world's pink-sheet extras about "Getting to the Top" +and "Forging to the Front." Too often they are the sordid story of +a few scrambling over the heads of the weaker ones. Sometimes they +are the story of one pig crowding the other pigs out of the trough +and cornering all the swill! + + + + +The Secret of Greatness + + +Christ Jesus was a great Teacher. His mission was to educate +humanity. + +There came to him those two disciples who wanted to "get to the +top." Those two sons of Zebedee wanted to have the greatest places +in the new kingdom they imagined he would establish on earth. + +They got very busy pursuing greatness, but I do not read that they +were half so busy preparing for greatness. They even had their +mother out electioneering for them. + +"O, Master," said the mother, "grant that these my two sons may sit, +the one on thy right hand, and the other on the left, in thy kingdom." + +The Master looked with love and pity upon their unpreparedness. +"Are ye able to drink of the cup?" Then he gave the only definition +of greatness that can ever stand: "Whosoever will be great among +you, let him be your minister; and whosoever will be chief among +you, let him be your servant." + +That is we cannot be "born great," nor "have greatness thrust upon" +us. We must "achieve greatness" by developing it on the +inside--developing ability to minister and to serve. + +We cannot buy a great arm. Our arm must become a great servant, and +thus it becomes great. + +We cannot buy a great mind. Our mind must become a great servant, +and thus it becomes great. + +We cannot buy a great character. It is earned in great moral +service. + + + + +The First Step at Hand + + +This is the Big Business of life--going up, getting educated, +getting greatness on the inside. Getting greatness on the outside +is little business. Much of it mighty little. + +Everybody's privilege and duty is to become great. And the joy of +it is that the first step is always nearest at hand. We do not have +to go off to New York or Chicago or go chasing around the world to +become great. It is a great stairway that leads from where our feet +are now upward for an infinite number of steps. + +We must take the first step now. Most of us want to take the +hundredth step or the thousandth step now. We want to make some +spectacular stride of a thousand steps at one leap. That is why we +fall so hard when we miss our step. + +We must go right back to our old place--into our kitchen or our +workshop or our office and take the first step, solve the problem +nearest at hand. We must make our old work luminous with a new +devotion. We must battle up over every inch. And as fast as we +solve and dissolve the difficulties and turn our burdens into +blessings, we find love, the universal solvent, shining out of our +lives. We find our spiritual influences going upward. So the winds +of earth are born; they rush in from the cold lands to the warm +upward currents. And so as our problems disappear and our life +currents set upward, the world is drawn toward us with its +problems. +We find our kitchen or workshop or office becoming a new throne +of power. We find the world around us rising up to call us blessed. + +As we grow greater our troubles grow smaller, for we see them thru +greater eyes. We rise above them. + +As we grow greater our opportunities grow greater. That is, we +begin to see them. They are around us all the time, but we must get +greater eyes to see them. + +Generally speaking, the smaller our vision of our work, the more we +admire what we have accomplished and "point with pride." The +greater our vision, the more we see what is yet to be accomplished. + +It was the sweet girl graduate who at commencement wondered how one +small head could contain it all. It was Newton after giving the +world a new science who looked back over it and said, "I seem to +have been only a boy playing on the seashore * * * while the great +ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." That great ocean is +before us all. + + + + +The Widow's Mites + + +The great Teacher pointed to the widow who cast her two mites into +the treasury, and then to the rich men who had cast in much more. +"This poor widow hath cast in more than they all. For all these +have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God: but she +of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had." + +Tho the rich men had cast in more, yet it was only a part of their +possessions. The widow cast in less, but it was all she had. The +Master cared little what the footings of the money were in the +treasury. That is not why we give. We give to become great. The +widow had given all--had completely overcome her selfishness and +fear of want. + +Becoming great is overcoming our selfishness and fear. He that +saveth his life shall lose it, but he that loseth his life for the +advancement of the kingdom of happiness on earth shall find it +great and glorified. + +Our greatness therefore does not depend upon how much we give or +upon what we do, whether peeling potatoes or ruling a nation, but +upon the percentage of our output to our resources. Upon doing with +our might what our hands find to do. Quit worrying about what you +cannot get to do. Rejoice in doing the things you can get to do. +And as you are faithful over a few things you go up to be ruler +over many. + +The world says some of us have golden gifts and some have copper +gifts. But when we cast them all into the treasury of right +service, there is an alchemy that transmutes every gift into gold. +Every work is drudgery when done selfishly. Every work becomes +golden when done in a golden manner. + + + + +Finding the Great People + + +I do not know who fitted the boards into the floor I stand upon. I +do not know all the great people who may come and stand upon this +floor. But I do know that the one who made the floor--and the one +who sweeps it--is just as great as anybody in the world who may +come and stand upon it, if each be doing his work with the same +love, faithfulness and capability. + +We have to look farther than the "Who's Who" and Dun and Bradstreet +to make a roster of the great people of a community. You will find +the community heart in the precious handful who believe that the +service of God is the service of man. + +The great people of the community serve and sacrifice for a better +tomorrow. They are the faithful few who get behind the churches, +the schools, the lyceum and chautauqua, and all the other movements +that go upward. + +They are the ones who are "always trying to run things." They are +the happy ones, happy for the larger vision that comes as they go +higher by unselfish service. They are discovering that their +sweetest pay comes from doing many things they are not paid for. +They rarely get thanked, for the community does not often think of +thanking them until it comes time to draft the "resolutions of +respect." + +I had to go to the mouth of a coal-mine in a little Illinois town, +to find the man the bureau had given as lyceum committeeman there. +I wondered what the grimy-faced man from the shaft, wearing the +miner's lamp in his cap, could possibly have to do with the lyceum +course. But I learned that he had all to do with it. He had sold +the tickets and had done all the managing. He was superintendent of +the Sunday school. He was the storm-center of every altruistic +effort in the town--the greatest man there, because the most +serviceable, tho he worked every day full time with his pick at his +bread-and-butter job. + +The great people are so busy serving that they have little time to +strut and pose in the show places. Few of them are "prominent +clubmen." You rarely find their names in the society page. They +rarely give "brilliant social functions." Their idle families +attend to such things. + + + + +A Glimpse of Gunsaulus + + +I found a great man lecturing at the chautauquas. He preaches in +Chicago on Sundays to thousands. He writes books and runs a college +he founded by his own preaching. He is the mainspring of so many +uplift movements that his name gets into the papers about every day, +and you read it in almost every committee doing good things in +Chicago. + +He had broken away from Chicago to have a vacation. Many people +think that a vacation means going off somewhere and stretching out +under trees or letting the mind become a blank. But this Chicago +preacher went from one chautauqua town to another, and took his +vacation going up and down the streets. He dug into the local +history of each place, and before dinner he knew more about the +place than most of the natives. + +"There is a sermon for me," he would exclaim every half-hour. He +went to see people who were doing things. He went to see people who +were doing nothing. In every town he would discover somebody of +unusual attainment. He made every town an unusual town. He turned +the humdrum travel map into a wonderland. He scolded lazy towns and +praised enterprising ones. He stopped young fellows on the streets. +"What are you going to do in life?" Perhaps the young man would +say, "I have no chance." "You come to Chicago and I'll give you a +chance," the man on his vacation would reply. + +So this Chicago preacher was busy every day, working overtime on +his vacation. He was busy about other people's business. He did not +once ask the price of land, nor where there was a good investment +for himself, but every day he was trying to make an investment in +somebody else. + +His friends would sometimes worry about him. They would say, "Why +doesn't the doctor take care of himself, instead of taking care of +everybody else? He wears himself out for other people until he +hasn't strength enough left to lecture and do his own work." + +Sometimes they were right about that. + +But he that saveth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his +life in loving service finds it returning to him great and +glorious. This man's preaching did not make him great. His college +did not make him great. His books did not make him great. These are +the by-products. His life of service for others makes him +great--makes his preaching, his college and his books great. + +This Chicago man gives his life into the service of humanity, and +it becomes the fuel to make the steam to accomplish the wonderful +things he does. Let him stop and "take care of himself," and his +career would stop. + +If he had begun life by "taking care of himself" and "looking out +for number one," stipulating in advance every cent he was to get +and writing it all down in the contract, most likely Dr. Frank W. +Gunsaulus would have remained a struggling, discouraged preacher in +the backwoods of Morrow county, Ohio. + + + + +Give It Now + + +Gunsaulus often says, "You are planning and saving and telling +yourself that afterwhile you are going to give great things and do +great things. Give it now! Give your dollar now, rather than your +thousands afterwhile. You need to give it now, and the world needs +to get it now." + + + +Chapter VI + +The Problem of "Preparedness" + +Preparing Children to Live + +THE problem of "preparedness" is the problem of preparing children +for life. All other kinds of "preparedness" fade into +insignificance before this. The history of nations shows that their +strength was not in the size of their armies and in the vastness +of their population and wealth, but in the strength and ideals +of the individual citizens. + +As long as the nation was young and growing--as long as the people were +struggling and overcoming--that nation was strong. It was "prepared." + +But when the struggle stopped, the strength waned, for the strength +came from the struggle. When the people became materially prosperous +and surrendered to ease and indulgence, they became fat, stall-fed weaklings. +Then they fell a prey to younger, hardier peoples. + +Has the American nation reached that period? + +Many homes and communities have reached it. + +All over America are fathers and mothers who have struggled and +have become strong men and women thru their struggles, who are +saying, "Our children shall have better chances than we had. We are +living for our children. We are going to give them the best +education our money can buy." + +Then, forgetful of how they became strong, they plan to take away +from their children their birthright--their opportunity to become +strong and "prepared"--thru struggle and service and overcoming. + +Most "advantages" are disadvantages. Giving a child a chance +generally means getting out of his way. Many an orphan can be +grateful that he was jolted from his life-preserver and cruelly +forced to sink or swim. Thus he learned to swim. + +"We are going to give our children the best education our money can buy." + +They think they can buy an education--buy wisdom, strength and +understanding, and give it to them C. O. D! They seem to think they +will buy any brand they see--buy the home brand of education, or +else send off to New York or Paris or to "Sears Roebuck," and get +a bucketful or a tankful of education. If they are rich enough, +maybe they will have a private pipeline of education laid to their +home. They are going to force this education into them regularly +until they get them full of education. They are going to get them +fully inflated with education! + +Toll the bell! There's going to be a "blow out." Those inflated +children are going to have to run on "flat tires." + +Father and mother cannot buy their children education. All they can +do is to buy them some tools, perhaps, and open the gate and say, +"Sic 'em, Tige!" The children must get it themselves. + +A father and mother might as well say, "We will buy our children +the strength we have earned in our arms and the wisdom we have +acquired in a life of struggle." As well expect the athlete to give +them his physical development he has earned in years of exercise. +As well expect the musician to give them the technic he has +acquired in years of practice. As well expect the scholar to give +them the ability to think he has developed in years of study. As +well expect Moses to give them his spiritual understanding acquired +in a long life of prayer. + +They can show the children the way, but each child must make the +journey. + +Here is a typical case. + + + + +The Story of "Gussie" + + +There was a factory town back East. Not a pretty town, but just a +great, dirty mill and a lot of little dirty houses around the mill. +The hands lived in the little dirty houses and worked six days of +the week in the big mill. + +There was a little, old man who went about that mill, often saying, +"I hain't got no book l'arnin' like the rest of you." He was the +man who owned the mill. He had made it with his own genius out of +nothing. He had become rich and honored. Every man in the mill +loved him like a father. + +He had an idolatry for a book. + +He also had a little pink son, whose name was F. Gustavus Adolphus. +The little old man often said, "I'm going to give that boy the best +education my money can buy." + +He began to buy it. He began to polish and sandpaper Gussie from +the minute the child could sit up in the cradle and notice things. +He sent him to the astrologer, the phrenologer and all other +"ologers" they had around there. When Gussie was old enough to +export, he sent the boy to one of the greatest universities in the +land. The fault was not with the university, not with Gussie, who +was bright and capable. + +The fault was with the little old man, who was so wise and great +about everything else, and so foolish about his own boy. In the +blindness of his love he robbed his boy of his birthright. + +The birthright of every child is the opportunity of becoming +great--of going up--of getting educated. + +Gussie had no chance to serve. Everything was handed to him on a +silver platter. Gussie went thru that university about like a steer +from Texas goes thru Mr. Armour's institute of packnology in +Chicago. Did you ever go over into Packingtown and see a steer +receive his education? + +You remember, then, that after he matriculates--after he gets the +grand bump, said steer does not have to do another thing. His +education is all arranged for in advance and he merely rides thru +and receives it. There is a row of professors with their sleeves +rolled up who give him the degrees. So as Mr. T. Steer of Panhandle +goes riding thru on that endless cable from his A-B-C's to his +eternal cold storage, each professor hits him a dab. He rides along +from department to department until he is canned. + +They "canned" Gussie. He had a man hired to study for him. He rode +from department to department. They upholstered him, enameled him, +manicured him, sugar-cured him, embalmed him. Finally Gussie was +done and the paint was dry. He was a thing of beauty. + + + + + +Gussie and Bill Whackem Gussie came back home with his education in +the baggage-car. It was checked. The mill shut down on a week day, +the first time in its history. The hands marched down to the depot, +and when the young lord alighted, the factory band played, "See, +the Conquering Hero Comes." + +A few years later the mill shut down again on a week day. There was +crape hanging on the office door. Men and women stood weeping in +the streets. The little old man had been translated. + +When they next opened up the mill, F. Gustavus Adolphus was at its head. +He had inherited the entire plant. "F. Gustavus Adolphus, President." + +Poor little peanut! He rattled. He had never grown great enough to +fill so great a place. In two years and seven months the mill was +a wreck. The monument of a father's lifetime was wrecked in two +years and seven months by the boy who had all the "advantages." + +So the mill was shut down the third time on a week day. It looked +as tho it never could open. But it did open, and when it opened it +had a new kind of boss. If I were to give the new boss a +descriptive name, I would call him "Bill Whackem." He was an +orphan. He had little chance. He had a new black eye almost every +day. But he seemed to fatten on bumps. Every time he was bumped he +would swell up. How fast he grew! He became the most useful man in +the community. People forgot all about Bill's lowly origin. They +got to looking up to him to start and run things. + +So when the courts were looking for somebody big enough to take charge +of the wrecked mill, they simply had to appoint Hon. William Whackem. +It was Hon. William Whackem who put the wreckage together and made +the wheels go round, and finally got the hungry town back to work. + + + + +Colleges Give Us Tools + + +After that a good many people said it was the college that made a +fool of Gussie. They said Bill succeeded so well because he never +went to one of "them highbrow schools." I am sorry to say I thought +that way for a good while. + +But now I see that Bill went up in spite of his handicaps. If he +had had Gussie's fine equipment he might have accomplished vastly more. + +The book and the college suffer at the hands of their friends. They +say to the book and the college, "Give us an education." They cannot +do that. You cannot get an education from the book and the college +any more than you can get to New York by reading a travelers' guide. +You cannot get physical education by reading a book on gymnastics. + +The book and the college show you the way, give you instruction and +furnish you finer working tools. But the real education is the +journey you make, the strength you develop, the service you perform +with these instruments and tools. + +Gussie was in the position of a man with a very fine equipment of +tools and no experience in using them. Bill was the man with the +poor, homemade, crude tools, but with the energy, vision and +strength developed by struggle. + + + + +The "Hard Knocks Graduates" + + +For education is getting wisdom, understanding, strength, +greatness, physically, mentally and morally. I believe I know some +people liberally educated who cannot write their own names. But +they have served and overcome and developed great lives with the +poor, crude tools at their command. + +In almost every community are what we sometimes call "hard knocks +graduates"--people who have never been to college nor have studied +many or any books. Yet they are educated to the degree they have +acquired these elements of greatness in their lives. + +They realized how they have been handicapped by their poor mental tools. + +That is why they say, "All my life I have been handicapped by lack of +proper preparation. Don't make my mistake, children, go to school." + +The young person with electrical genius will make an electrical +machine from a few bits of junk. But send him to Westinghouse and +see how much more he will achieve with the same genius and with +finer equipment. + +Get the best tools you can. But remember diplomas, degrees are not +an education, they are merely preparations. When you are thru with +the books, remember, you are having a commencement, not an +end-ment. You will discover with the passing years that life is +just one series of greater commencements. + +Go out with your fine equipment from your commencements into the +school of service and write your education in the only book you +ever can know--the book of your experience. + +That is what you know--what the courts will take as evidence when +they put you upon the witness stand. + + + + +The Tragedy of Unpreparedness + + +The story of Gussie and Bill Whackem is being written in every +community in tears, failure and heartache. It is peculiarly a +tragedy of our American civilization today. + +These fathers and mothers who toil and save, who get great farms, +fine homes and large bank accounts, so often think they can give +greatness to their children--they can make great places for them in +life and put them into them. + +They do all this and the children rattle. They have had no chance +to grow great enough for the places. The child gets the blame for +making the wreck, even as Gussie was blamed for wrecking his +father's plant, when the child is the victim. + +A man heard me telling the story of Gussie and Bill Whackem, and he +went out of my audience very indignant. He said he was very glad +his boy was not there to hear it. But that good, deluded father now +has his head bowed in shame over the career of his spoiled son. + +I rarely tell of it on a platform that at the close of the lecture +somebody does not take me aside and tell me a story just as sad +from that community. + +For years poor Harry Thaw was front-paged on the newspapers and +gibbeted in the pulpits as the shocking example of youthful +depravity. He seems never to have had a fighting chance to become +a man. He seems to have been robbed of his birthright from the +cradle. Yet the father of this boy who has cost America millions in +court and detention expenses was one of the greatest business +generals of the Keystone state. He could plat great coal empires +and command armies of men, but he seems to have been pitifully +ignorant of the fact that the barrel shakes. + +It is the educated, the rich and the worldly wise who blunder most in +the training of their children. Poverty is a better trainer for the rest. + +The menace of America lies not in the swollen fortunes, but in the +shrunken souls who inherit them. + +But Nature's eliminating process is kind to the race in the barrel +shaking down the rattlers. Somebody said it is only three +generations from shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves. + +How long this nation will endure depends upon how many Gussie boys +this nation produces. Steam heat is a fine thing, but do you notice +how few of our strong men get their start with steam heat? + + + + +Children, Learn This Early + + +You boys and girls, God bless you! You live in good homes. Father +and mother love you and give you everything you need. You get to +thinking, "I won't have to turn my hand over. Papa and mamma will +take care of me, and when they are gone I'll inherit everything +they have. I'm fixed for life." + +No, you are unfixed. You are a candidate for trouble. You are going +to rattle. Father and mother can be great and you can be a peanut. + +You must solve your own problems and carry your own loads to have +a strong mind and back. Anybody who does for you regularly what you +can do for yourself--anybody who gives you regularly what you can +earn for yourself, is robbing you of your birthright. + +Father and mother can put money in your pocket, ideas in your head +and food in your stomach, but you cannot own it save as you digest +it--put it into your life. + +I have read somewhere about a man who found a cocoon and put it in +his house where he could watch it develop. One day he saw a little +insect struggling inside the cocoon. It was trying to get out of +the envelope. It seemed in trouble and needed help. He opened the +envelope with a knife and set the struggling insect free. But out +came a monstrosity that soon died. It had an over-developed body +and under-developed wings. He learned that helping the insect was +killing it. He took away from it the very thing it had to have--the +struggle. For it was this struggle of breaking its own way out of +that envelope that was needed to reduce its body and develop its +wings. + + + + +Not Packhorse Work + + +But remember there is little virtue in work unless it is getting us +somewhere. Just work that gets us three meals a day and a place to +lie down to sleep, then another day of the same grind, then a year +of it and years following until our machine is worn out and on the +junkpile, means little. "One day nearer home" for such a worker +means one day nearer the scrapheap. + +Such a worker is like the packhorse who goes forward to keep ahead +of the whip. Such a worker is the horse we used to have hitched to +the sorghum mill. Round and round that horse went, seeing nothing, +hearing nothing, his head down, without ambition enough to prick up +his ears. Such work deadens and stupefies. The masses work about +that way. They regard work as a necessary evil. They are +right--such work is a necessary evil, and they make it such. They +follow their nose. "Dumb, driven cattle." + +But getting a vision of life, and working to grow upward to it, +that is the work that brings the joy and the greatness. + +When we are growing and letting our faculties develop, we will love +even the packhorse job, because it is our "meal ticket" that +enables us to travel upward. + + + + +"Helping" the Turkeys + + +One time I put some turkey eggs under the mother hen and waited day +by day for them to hatch. And sure enough, one day the eggs began +to crack and the little turkeys began to stick their heads out of +the shells. Some of the little turkeys came out from the shells all +right, but some of them stuck in the shells. + +"Shell out, little turkeys, shell out," I urged, "for Thanksgiving +is coming. Shell out!" + +But they stuck to the shells. + +"Little turkeys, I'll have to help you. I'll have to shell you by +hand." So I picked the shells off. "Little turkeys, you will never +know how fortunate you are. Ordinary turkeys do not have these +advantages. Ordinary turkeys do not get shelled by hand." + +Did I help them? I killed them, or stunted them. Not one of the turkeys +was "right" that I helped. They were runts. One of them was a regular +Harry Thaw turkey. They had too many silk socks. Too many "advantages." + +Children, you must crack your own shells. You must overcome your +own obstacles to develop your own powers. + +A rich boy can succeed, but he has a poorer chance than a poor boy. +The cards are against him. He must succeed in spite of his "advantages." + +I am pleading for you to get a great arm, a great mind, a great +character, for the joy of having a larger life. I am pleading with +you to know the joy of overcoming and having the angels come and +minister to you. + + + + +Happiness in Our Work + + +Children, I am pleading with you to find happiness. All the world +is seeking happiness, but so many are seeking it by rattling down +instead of by shaking up. + +The happiness is in going up--in developing a greater arm, a +greater mind, a greater character. + +Happiness is the joy of overcoming. It is the delight of an +expanding consciousness. It is the cry of the eagle mounting +upward. It is the proof that we are progressing. + +We find happiness in our work, not outside of our work. If we +cannot find happiness in our work, we have the wrong job. Find the +work that fits your talents, and stop watching the clock and +planning vacations. + +Loving friends used to warn me against "breaking down." They scared +me into "taking care" of myself. And I got to taking such good care +of myself and watching for symptoms that I became a physical wreck. + +I saved myself by getting busier. I plunged into work I love. I +found my job in my work, not away from it, and the work refreshed +me and rejuvenated me. Now I do two men's work, and have grown from +a skinny, fretful, nervous wreck into a hearty, happy man. This has +been a great surprise to my friends and a great disappointment to +the undertaker. I am an editor in the daytime and a lecturer at +night. + +I edit all day and take a vacation lecturing at night. I lecture +almost every day of the year--maybe two or three times some +days--and then take a vacation by editing and writing. Thus every +day is jam full of play and vacation and good times. The year is +one round of joy, and I ought to pay people for the privilege of +speaking and writing to them instead of them paying me! + +If I did not like my work, of course, I would be carrying a +terrible burden and would speedily collapse. + +You see, I have no time nowadays to break down. I have no time to +think and grunt and worry about my body. And like Paul I am happy +to be "absent from the body and present with the Lord." Thus this +old body behaves just beautifully and wags along like the tail +follows the dog when I forget all about it. The grunter lets the +tail wag the dog. + + + + + +I have never known a case of genuine "overwork." I have never known +of anyone killing himself by working. But I have known of +multitudes killing themselves by taking vacations. + +The people who think they are overworking are merely overworrying. +This is one species of selfishness. + +To worry is to doubt God. + +To work at the things you love, or for those you love, is to turn +work into play and duty into privilege. + +When we love our work, it is not work, it is life. + + + + +Many Kinds of Drunkards + + +The world is trying to find happiness in being amused. The world is +amusement-mad. Vacations, Coca Cola and moviemania! + +What a sad, empty lot of rattlers! Look over the bills of the movies, +look over the newsstands and see a picture of the popular mind, +for these places keep just what the people want to buy. What a lot +of mental frog-pond and moral slum our boys and girls wade thru! + +There are ten literary drunkards to one alcoholic drunkard. There +are a hundred amusement drunkards to one victim of strong drink. +And all just as hard to cure. + +We have to have amusement, but if we fill our lives with nothing +but amusement, we never grow. We go thru our lives babies with new +rattleboxes and "sugar-tits." + +Almost every day as I go along the street to some hall to lecture, +I hear somebody asking, "What are they going to have in the hall +tonight?" + +"Going to have a lecture." + +"Lecture?" said with a shiver as tho it was "small pox." "I ain't +goin.' I don't like lectures." + +The speaker is perfectly honest. He has no place to put a lecture. +I am not saying that he should attend my lecture, but I am grieving +at what underlies his remark. He does not want to think. He wants +to follow his nose around. Other people generally lead his nose. +The man who will not make the effort to think is the great menace +to the nation. The crowd that drifts and lives for amusement is the +crowd that finds itself back near the caboose, and as the train of +progress leaves them, they wail, they "never had no chanct." They +want to start a new party to reform the government. + + + + +The Lure of the City + + +Do you ever get lonely in a city? How few men and women there. A +jam of people, most of them imitations--most of them trying to look +like they get more salary. Poor, hungry, doped butterflies of the +bright lights,--hopers, suckers and straphangers! Down the great +white way they go chasing amusement to find happiness. They must be +amused every moment, even when they eat, or they will have to be +alone with their empty lives. + +The Prodigal Son came to himself afterwhile and thought upon his +ways. Then he arose and went to his father's house. Whenever one +will stop chasing amusements long enough to think upon his ways, he +will arise and go to his father's house of wisdom. But there is no +hope for the person who will not stop and think. And the devil +works day and night shifts keeping the crowd moving on. + +That is why the crowd is not furnishing the strong men and women. + +We must have amusement and relaxation. Study your muscles. First +they contract, then they relax. But the muscle that goes on +continually relaxing is degenerating. And the individual, the +community, the nation that goes on relaxing without +contracting--without struggling and overcoming--is degenerating. + +The more you study your muscles, the more you learn that while one +muscle is relaxing another is contracting. So you must learn that +your real relaxation, vacation and amusement, are merely changing +over to contracting another set of muscles. + +Go to the bank president's office, go to the railroad magnate's +office, go to the great pulpit, to the college chair--go to any +place of great responsibility in a city and ask the one who fills +the place, "Were you born in this city?" + +The reply is almost a monotony. "I born in this city? No, I was +born in Poseyville, Indiana, and I came to this city forty years +ago and went to work at the bottom." + +He glows as he tells you of some log-cabin home, hillside or +farmside where he struggled as a boy. Personally, I think this +log-cabin ancestry has been over-confessed for campaign purposes. +Give us steam heat and push-buttons. There is no virtue in a +log-cabin, save that there the necessity for struggle that brings +strength is most in evidence. There the young person gets the +struggle and service that makes for strength and greatness. And as +that young person comes to the city and shakes in the barrel among +the weaklings of the artificial life, he rises above them like the +eagle soars above a lot of chattering sparrows. + +The cities do not make their own steam. The little minority from +the farms controls the majority. The red blood of redemption flows +from the country year by year into the national arteries, else +these cities would drop off the map. + +If it were not for Poseyville, Indiana, Chicago would disappear. +If it were not for Poseyville, New York would disintegrate +for lack of leaders. + + + + +"Hep" and "Pep" for the Home Town + + +But so many of the home towns of America are sick. Many are dying. +Many are dead. + +It is the lure of the city--and the lure-lessness of the country. +The town the young people leave is the town the young people ought +to leave. Somebody says, "The reason so many young people go to +hell is because they have no other place to go." + +What is the matter with the small town? Do not blame it all upon +the city mail order house. With rural delivery, daily papers, +telephones, centralized schools, automobiles and good roads, there +are no more delightful places in the world to live than in the +country or in the small town. They have the city advantages plus +sunshine, air and freedom that the crowded cities cannot have. + +I asked the keeper who was showing me thru the insane asylum at +Weston, West Virginia, "You say you have nearly two thousand insane +people in this institution and only a score of guards to keep them +in. Aren't you in danger? What is to hinder these insane people +from getting together, organizing, overpowering the few guards and +breaking out?" + +The keeper was not in the least alarmed at the question. He smiled. +"Many people say that. But they don't understand. If these people +could get together they wouldn't be in this asylum. They are +insane. No two of them can agree upon how to get together and how +to break out. So a few of us can hold them." + +It would be almost unkind to carry this further, but I have been +thinking ever since that about three-fourths of the small towns of +America have one thing in common with the asylum folks--they can't +get together. They cannot organize for the public good. They break +up into little antagonistic social, business and even religious +factions and neutralize each other's efforts. + +A lot of struggling churches compete with each other instead of +massing for the common good. And when the churches fight, the devil +stays neutral and furnishes the munitions for both sides. + +So the home towns stagnate and the young people with visions go +away to the cities where opportunity seems to beckon. Ninety-nine +out of a hundred of them will jostle with the straphangers all +their lives, mere wheels turning round in a huge machine. +Ninety-nine out of a hundred of them might have had a larger +opportunity right back in the home town, had the town been awake +and united and inviting. + +We must make the home town the brightest, most attractive, most +promising place for the young people. No home town can afford to +spend its years raising crops of young people for the cities. That +is the worst kind of soil impoverishment--all going out and nothing +coming back. That is the drain that devitalizes the home towns more +than all the city mail order houses. + +America is to be great, not in the greatness of a few crowded +cities, but in the greatness of innumerable home towns. + +The slogan today should be, For God and Home and the Home Town! + + + + +A School of Struggle + + +Dr. Henry Solomon Lehr, founder of the Ohio Northern University at +Ada, Ohio, one of Ohio's greatest educators, used to say with +pride, "Our students come to school; they are not sent." + +He encouraged his students to be self-supporting, and most of them +were working their way thru school. He made the school calendar and +courses elastic to accommodate them. He saw the need of combining +the school of books with the school of struggle. He organized his +school into competing groups, so that the student who had no +struggle in his life would at least have to struggle with the +others during his schooling. + + +He pitted class against class. He organized great literary and +debating societies to compete with each other. He arranged contests +for the military department. His school was one surging mass of +contestants. Yet each student felt no compulsion. Rather he felt +that he was initiating an individual or class effort to win. The +literary societies vied with each other in their programs and in +getting new members, going every term to unbelievable efforts to +win over the others. They would go miles out on the trains to +intercept new students, even to their homes in other states. Each +old student pledged new students in his home country. The military +companies turned the school into a military camp for weeks each +year, scarcely sleeping while drilling for a contest flag. + +Those students went out into the world trained to struggle. I do +not believe there is a school in America with a greater alumni roll +of men and women of uniformly greater achievement. + +I believe the most useful schools today are schools of struggle +schools offering encouragement and facilities for young people to +work their way thru and to act upon their own initiative. + + + + +Men Needed More Than Millions + + +We are trying a new educational experiment today. + +The old "deestrick" school is passing, and with it the small +academies and colleges, each with its handful of students around a +teacher, as in the old days of the lyceum in Athens, when the +pupils sat around the philosopher in the groves. + +From these schools came the makers and the preservers of the nation. + +Today we are building wonderful public schools with equally +wonderful equipment. Today we are replacing the many small colleges +with a few great centralized state normal schools and state +universities. We are spending millions upon them in laboratories, +equipment and maintenance. Today we scour the earth for specialists +to sit in the chairs and speak the last word in every department of +human research. + +O, how the students of the "dark ages" would have rejoiced to see +this day! Many of them never saw a germ! + +But each student has the same definite effort to make in +assimilation today as then. Knowing and growing demand the same +personal struggle in the cushions of the "frat" house as back on +the old oak-slab bench with its splintered side up. + +I am anxiously awaiting the results. I am hoping that the boys and +girls who come out in case-lots from these huge school plants will +not be rows of lithographed cans on the shelves of life. I am +hoping they will not be shorn of their individuality, but will have +it stimulated and unfettered. I am anxious that they be not +veneered but inspired, not denatured but discovered. + +All this school machinery is only machinery. Back of it must be +men--great men. I am anxious that the modern school have the modern +equipment demanded to serve the present age. But I am more anxious +that each student come in vital touch with great men. We get life +from life, not from laboratories, and we have life more abundantly +as our lives touch greater lives. + +A school is vastly more than machinery, methods, microscopes and millions. + +Many a small school struggling to live thinks that all it needs is +endowment, when the fact is that its struggle for existence and the +spirit of its teachers are its greatest endowment. And sometimes +when the money endowment comes the spiritual endowment goes in +fatty degeneration. Some schools seem to have been visited by +calamities in the financial prosperity that has engulfed them. + +Can we keep men before millions, and keep our ideals untainted by +foundations? That is the question the age is asking. + +You and I are very much interested in the answer. + + + +Chapter VII + +The Salvation of a "Sucker" + +The Fiddle and the Tuning + +HOW long it takes to learn things! I think I was thirty-four years +learning one sentence, "You can't get something for nothing." I +have not yet learned it. Every few days I stumble over it +somewhere. + +For that sentence utters one of the fundamentals of life that +underlies every field of activity. + +What is knowing? + +One day a manufacturer took me thru his factory where he makes +fiddles. Not violins--fiddles. + +A violin is only a fiddle with a college education. + +I have had the feeling ever since that you and I come into this +world like the fiddle comes from the factory. We have a body and a +neck. That is about all there is either to us or to the fiddle. We +are empty. We have no strings. We have no bow--yet! + +When the human fiddles are about six years old they go into the +primary schools and up thru the grammar grades, and get the first +string--the little E string. The trouble is so many of these human +fiddles think they are an orchestra right away. They want to quit +school and go fiddling thru life on this one string! + +We must show these little fiddles they must go back into school and +go up thru all the departments and institutions necessary to give +them the full complement of strings for their life symphonies. + +After all this there comes the commencement, and the violin comes +forth with the E, A, D and G strings all in place. Educated now? +Why is a violin? To wear strings? Gussie got that far and gave a +lot of discord. The violin is to give music. + +So there is much yet to do after getting the strings. All the book +and college can do is to give the strings--the tools. After that +the violin must go into the great tuning school of life. Here the +pegs are turned and the strings are put in tune. The music is the +knowing. Learning is tuning. + +You do not know what you have memorized, you know what you have +vitalized, what you have written in the book of experience. + +Gussie says, "I have read it in a book." Bill Whackem says," I +know!" + + + + +Reading and Knowing + + +All of us are Christopher Columbuses, discovering the same new-old +continents of Truth. That is the true happiness of +life--discovering Truth. We read things in a book and have a hazy +idea of them. We hear the preacher utter truths and we say with +little feeling, "Yes, that is so." We hear the great truths of life +over and over and we are not excited. Truth never excites--it is +falsehood that excites--until we discover it in our lives. Until we +see it with our own eyes. Then there is a thrill. Then the old +truth becomes a new blessing. Then the oldest, driest platitude +crystallizes into a flashing jewel to delight and enrich our +consciousness. This joy of discovery is the joy of living. + +There is such a difference between reading a thing and knowing a +thing. We could read a thousand descriptions of the sun and not +know the sun as in one glimpse of it with our own eyes. + +I used to stand in the row of blessed little rascals in the +"deestrick" school and read from McGuffey's celebrated literature, +"If--I-p-p-play--with--the--f-f-f-i-i-i-i-r-r-e--I--will--g-e-e-et +--my-y-y-y-y--f-f-f-f--ingers--bur-r-r-rned--period!" + +I did not learn it. I wish I had learned by reading it that if I +play with the fire I will get my fingers burned. I had to slap my +hands upon hot stoves and coffee-pots, and had to get many kinds of +blisters in order to learn it. + +Then I had to go around showing the blisters, boring my friends and +taking up a collection of sympathy. "Look at my bad luck!" Fool! + +This is not a lecture. It is a confession! It seems to me if you in +the audience knew how little I know, you wouldn't stay. + + + + +"You Can't Get Something for Nothing" + + +Yes, I was thirty-four years learning that one sentence. "You can't +get something for nothing." That is, getting it in partial tune. It +took me so long because I was naturally bright. It takes that kind +longer than a human being. They are so smart you cannot teach them +with a few bumps. They have to be pulverized. + +That sentence takes me back to the days when I was a "hired man" on +the farm. You might not think I had ever been a "hired man" on the +farm at ten dollars a month and "washed, mended and found." You see +me here on this platform in my graceful and cultured manner, and +you might not believe that I had ever trained an orphan calf to +drink from a copper kettle. But I have fed him the fingers of this +hand many a time. You might not think that I had ever driven a yoke +of oxen and had said the words. But I have! + +I remember the first county fair I ever attended. Fellow sufferers, +you may remember that at the county fair all the people sort out to +their own departments. Some people go to the canned fruit +department. Some go to the fancywork department. Some go to the +swine department. Everybody goes to his own department. Even the +"suckers"! Did you ever notice where they go? That is where I +went--to the "trimming department." + +I was in the "trimming department" in five minutes. Nobody told me +where it was. I didn't need to be told. I gravitated there. The +barrel always shakes all of one size to one place. You notice +that--in a city all of one size get together. + +Right at the entrance to the "local Midway" I met a gentleman. I +know he was a gentleman because he said he was a gentleman. He had +a little light table he could move quickly. Whenever the climate +became too sultry he would move to greener pastures. On that table +were three little shells in a row, and there was a little pea under +the middle shell. I saw it there, being naturally bright. I was the +only naturally bright person around the table, hence the only one +who knew under which shell the little round pea was hidden. + +Even the gentleman running the game was fooled. He thought it was +under the end shell and bet me money it was under the end shell. +You see, this was not gambling, this was a sure thing. (It was!) +I had saved up my money for weeks to attend the fair. I bet it all +on that middle shell. I felt bad. It seemed like robbing father. +And he seemed like a real nice old gentleman, and maybe he had a +family to keep. But I would teach him a lesson not to "monkey" with +people like me, naturally bright. + +But I needn't have felt bad. I did not rob father. Father cleaned +me out of all I had in about five seconds. + +I went over to the other side of the fairgrounds and sat down. That +was all I had to do now--just go, sit down. I couldn't see the +mermaid now or get into the grandstand. + +Sadly I thought it all over, but I did not get the right answer. +I said the thing every fool does say when he gets bumped and fails +to learn the lesson from the bump. I said, "Next time I shall be +more careful." + +When anybody says that he is due for a return date. + + + + +I Bought the Soap + + +Learn? No! Within a month I was on the street a Saturday night when +another gentleman drove into town. He stopped on the public square +and stood up in his buggy. "Let the prominent citizens gather +around me, for I am going to give away dollars." + +Immediately all the prominent "suckers" crowded around the buggy. +"Gentlemen, I am introducing this new medicinal soap that cures all +diseases humanity is heir to. Now just to introduce and advertise, +I am putting these cakes of Wonder Soap in my hat. You see I am +wrapping a ten-dollar bill around one cake and throwing it into the +hat. Now who will give me five dollars for the privilege of taking +a cake of this wonderful soap from my hat--any cake you want, gentlemen!" + +And right on top of the pile was the cake with the ten wrapped +around it! I jumped over the rest to shove my five (two weeks' farm +work) in his hands and grab that bill cake. But the bill +disappeared. I never knew where it went. The man whipped up his +horse and also disappeared. I never knew where he went. + + + + +My "Fool Drawer" + + +I grew older and people began to notice that I was naturally bright +and therefore good picking. They began to let me in on the ground +floor. Did anybody ever let you in on the ground floor? I never +could stick. Whenever anybody let me in on the ground floor it +seemed like I would always slide on thru and land in the cellar. + +I used to have a drawer in my desk I called my "fool drawer." I +kept my investments in it. I mean, the investments I did not have +to lock up. You get the pathos of that--the investments nobody +wanted to steal. And whenever I would get unduly inflated I would +open that drawer and "view the remains." + +I had in that drawer the deed to my Oklahoma corner-lots. Those +lots were going to double next week. But they did not double I +doubled. They still exist on the blueprint and the Oklahoma +metropolis on paper is yet a wide place in the road. + +I had in that drawer my deed to my rubber plantation. Did you ever +hear of a rubber plantation in Central America? That was mine. +I had there my oil propositions. What a difference, I have learned, +between an oil proposition and an oil well! The learning has been +very expensive. + +I used to wonder how I ever could spend my income. I do not wonder now. +I wonder how I will make it. + +I had in that drawer my "Everglade" farm. Did you ever hear of the +"Everglades"? I have an alligator ranch there. It is below the +frost-line, also below the water-line. I will sell it by the +gallon. + +I had also a bale of mining stock. I had stock in gold mines and +silver mines. Nobody knows how much mining stock I have owned. +Nobody could know while I kept that drawer shut. As I looked over +my gold and silver mine stock, I often noticed that it was printed +in green. I used to wonder why they printed it in green--wonder if +they wanted it to harmonize with me! And I would realize I had so +much to live for--the dividends. I have been so near the dividends +I could smell them. Only one more assessment, then we will cut the +melon! I have heard that all my life and never got a piece of the rind. + + + + +Getting "Selected" + + +Why go farther? I am not half done confessing. Each bump only +increased my faith that the next ship would be mine. Good, honest, +retired ministers would come periodically and sell me stock in some +new enterprise that had millions in it--in its prospectus. I would +buy because I knew the minister was honest and believed in it. He +was selling it on his reputation. Favorite dodge of the promoter to +get the ministers to sell his shares. + +I was also greatly interested in companies where I put in one +dollar and got back a dollar or two of bonds and a dollar or two of +stock. That was doubling and trebling my money over night. An old +banker once said to me, "Why don't you invest in something that +will pay you five or six per cent. and get it?" + +I pitied his lack of vision. Bankers were such "tightwads." They +had no imagination! Nothing interested me that did not offer fifty +or a hundred per cent.--then. Give me the five per cent. now! + +By the time I was thirty-four I was a rich man in worthless paper. +It would have been better for me if I had thrown about all my +savings into the bottom of the sea. + +Then I got a confidential letter from a friend of our family I had +never met. His name was Thomas A. Cleage, and he was in the Rialto +Building, St. Louis, Missouri. He wrote me in extreme confidence, +"You have been selected." + +Were you ever selected? If you were, then you know the thrill that +rent my manly bosom as I read that letter from this man who said he +was a friend of our family. "You have been selected because you are +a prominent citizen and have a large influence in your community. +You are a natural leader and everybody looks up to you." + +He knew me! He was the only man who did know me. So I took the +cork clear under. + +"Because of your tremendous influence you have been selected to go +in with us in the inner circle and get a thousand per cent. +dividends." + +Did you get that? I hope you did. I did not! But I took a night +train for St. Louis. I was afraid somebody might beat me there if +I waited till next day. I sat up all night in a day coach to save +money for Tom, the friend of our family. But I see now I need not +have hurried so. They would have waited a month with the +sheep-shears ready. Lambie, lambie, lambie, come to St. Louis! + +I don't get any sympathy from this crowd. You laugh at me. You +respect not my feelings. I am not going to tell you a thing that +happened in St. Louis. It is none of your business! + +O, I am so glad I went to St. Louis. Being naturally bright, I +could not learn it at home, back in Ohio. I had to go clear down to +St. Louis to Tom Cleage's bucket-shop and pay him eleven hundred +dollars to corner the wheat market of the world. That is all I paid +him. I could not borrow any more. I joined what he called a "pool." +I think it must have been a pool, for I know I fell in and got +soaked! + +That bump set me to thinking. My fever began to reduce. I got the +thirty-third degree in financial suckerdom for only eleven hundred +dollars. + +I have always regarded Tom as one of my great school teachers. I +have always regarded the eleven hundred as the finest investment I +had made up to that time, for I got the most out of it. I do not +feel hard toward goldbrick men and "blue sky" venders. I sometimes +feel that we should endow them. How else can we save a sucker? You +cannot tell him anything, because he is naturally bright and knows +better. You simply have to trim him till he bleeds. + + + + +I Am Cured + + +It is worth eleven hundred dollars every day to know that one +sentence, You cannot get something for nothing. Life just begins to +get juicy when you know it. Today when I open a newspaper and see +a big ad, "Grasp a Fortune Now!" I will not do it! I stop my +subscription to that paper. I simply will not take a paper with +that ad in it, for I have graduated from that class. + +I will not grasp a fortune now. Try me, I dare you! Bring a +fortune right up on this platform and put it down there on the +floor. I will not grasp it. Come away, it is a coffee-pot! + +Today when somebody offers me much more than the legal rate of +interest I know he is no friend of our family. + +If he offers me a hundred per cent. I call for the police! + +Today when I get a confidential letter that starts out, "You have +been selected--" I never read farther than the word "selected." +Meeting is adjourned. I select the waste-basket. Here, get in there +just as quick as you can. I was selected! + + +O, Absalom, Absalom, my son, my son! Learn it early in life. The +law of compensation is never suspended. You only own what you earn. +You can't get something for nothing. If you do not learn it, you +will have to be "selected." There is no other way for you, because +you are naturally bright. When you get a letter, "You have been +selected to receive a thousand per cent. dividends," it means you +have been selected to receive this bunch of blisters because you +look like the biggest sucker on the local landscape. + +The other night in a little town of perhaps a thousand, a banker +took me up into his office after the lecture in which I had related +some of the above experiences. "The audience laughed with you and +thought it very funny," said he. "I couldn't laugh. It was too +pathetic. It was a picture of what is going on in our own little +community year after year. I wish you could see what I have to see. +I wish you could see the thousands of hard-earned dollars that go +out of our community every year into just such wildcat enterprises +as you described. The saddest part of it is that the money nearly +always goes out of the pockets of the people who can least afford +to lose it." + +Absalom, wake up! This is bargain night for you. I paid eleven +hundred dollars to tell you this one thing, and you get it for a +dollar or two. This is no cheap lecture. It cost blood. + +Learn that the gambler never owns his winnings. The man who +accumulates by sharp practices or by undue profits never owns it. +Even the young person who has large fortune given him does not own +it. We only own what we have rendered definite service to bound. +The owning is in the understanding of values. + +This is true physically, mentally, morally. You only own what you +have earned and stored in your life, not merely in your pocket, +stomach or mind. + +I often think if it takes me thirty-four years to begin to learn +one sentence, I see the need of an eternity. + +To me that is one of the great arguments for eternal life--how slowly +I learn, and how much there is to learn. It will take an eternity! + + + + +Those Commencement Orations + + +The young person says, "By next June I shall have finished my +education." +Bless them all! They will have put another string on their fiddle. + +After they "finish" they have a commencement, not an end-ment, as +they think. This is not to sneer, but to cheer. Isn't it glorious +that life is one infinite succession of commencements and +promotions! + +I love to attend commencements. The stage is so beautifully +decorated and the joy of youth is everywhere. There is a row of +geraniums along the front of the stage and a big oleander on the +side. There is a long-whiskered rug in the middle. The graduates +sit in a semicircle upon the stage in their new patent leather. I +know how it hurts. It is the first time they have worn it. + +Then they make their orations. Every time I hear their orations I +like them better, because every year I am getting younger. Damsel +Number One comes forth and begins: + +"Beyond the Alps (sweep arms forward to the left, left arm leading) +lieth Italy!" (Bring arms down, letting fingers follow the wrist. +How embarrassing at a commencement for the fingers not to follow +the wrist! It is always a shock to the audience when the wrist +sweeps downward and the fingers remain up in the air. So by all +means, let the fingers follow the wrist, just as the elocution +teacher marked on page 69.) + +Applause, especially from relatives. + +Sweet Girl Graduate Number 2, generally comes second. S. G. G. No. +2 stands at the same leadpencil mark on the floor, resplendent in +a filmy creation caught with something or other. + +"We (hands at half-mast and separating) are rowing (business of +propelling aerial boat with two fingers of each hand, head +inclined). We are not drifting (hands slide downward)." + +Children, we are not laughing at you. We are laughing at ourselves. +We are laughing the happy laugh at how we have learned these great +truths that you have memorized, but not vitalized. + +You get the most beautiful and sublime truths from Emerson's +essays. (How did they ever have commencements before Emerson?) But +that is not knowing them. You cannot know them until you have lived +them. It is a grand thing to say, "Beyond the Alps lieth Italy," +but you can never really say that until you know it by struggling +up over Alps of difficulty and seeing the Italy of promise and +victory beyond. It is fine to say, "We are rowing and not +drifting," +but you cannot really say that until you have pulled on the oar. + +O, Gussie, get an oar! + + + + +My Maiden Sermon + + +Did you ever hear a young preacher, just captured, just out of a factory? +Did you ever hear him preach his "maiden sermon"? I wish you had heard +mine. I had a call. At least, I thought I had a call. I think now I +was "short-circuited." The "brethren" waited upon me and told me I had +been "selected": Maybe this was a local call, not long distance. + +They gave me six weeks in which to load the gospel gun and get +ready for my try-out. I certainly loaded it to the muzzle. + +But I made the mistake I am trying to warn you against. Instead of +going to the one book where I might have gotten a sermon--the book +of my experience, I went to the books in my father's library. "As +the poet Shakespeare has so beautifully said," and then I took a +chunk of Shakespeare and nailed it on page five of my sermon. "List +to the poet Tennyson." Come here, Lord Alfred. So I soldered these +fragments from the books together with my own native genius. I +worked that sermon up into the most beautiful splurges and spasms. +I bedecked it with metaphors and semaphores. I filled it with +climaxes, both wet and dry. I had a fine wet climax on page +fourteen, where I had made a little mark in the margin which meant +"cry here." This was the spilling-point of the wet climax. I was to +cry on the lefthand side of the page. + +I committed it all to memory, and then went to a lady who taught +expression, to get it expressed. You have to get it expressed. + +I got the most beautiful gestures nailed into almost every page. +You know about gestures--these things you make with your arms in +the air as you speak. You can notice it on me yet. + +I am not sneering at expression. Expression is a noble art. All +life is expression. But you have to get something to express. Here +I made my mistake. I got a lot of fine gestures. I got an +express-wagon and got no load for it. So it rattled. I got a +necktie, but failed to get any man to hang it upon. I got up before +a mirror for six weeks, day by day, and said the sermon to the +glass. It got so it would run itself. I could have gone to sleep +and that sermon would not have hesitated. + +Then came the grand day. The boy wonder stood forth and before his +large and enthusiastic concourse delivered that maiden sermon more +grandly than ever to a mirror. Every gesture went off the bat +according to the blueprint. I cried on page fourteen! I never knew +it was in me. But I certainly got it all out that day! + +Then I did another fine thing, I sat down. I wish now I had done +that earlier. I wish now I had sat down before I got up. I was the +last man out of the church--and I hurried. But they beat me +out--all nine of them. When I went out the door, the old sexton +said as he jiggled the key in the door to hurry me, "Don't feel +bad, bub, I've heerd worse than that. You're all right, bub, but +you don't know nothin' yet." + +I cried all the way to town. If he had plunged a dagger into me he +would not have hurt me so much. It has taken some years to learn +that the old man was right. I had wonderful truth in that sermon. +No sermon ever had greater truth, but I had not lived it. The old +man meant I did not know my own sermon. + + + + + +So, children, when you prepare your commencement oration, write +about what you know best, what you have lived. If you know more +about peeling potatoes than about anything else, write about +"Peeling Potatoes," and you are most likely to hear the applause +peal from that part of your audience unrelated to you. + +Out of every thousand books published, perhaps nine hundred of them +do not sell enough to pay the cost of printing them. As you study +the books that do live, you note that they are the books that have +been lived. Perhaps the books that fail have just as much of truth +in them and they may even be better written, yet they lack the +vital impulse. They come out of the author's head. The books that +live must come out of his heart. They are his own life. They come +surging and pulsating from the book of his experience. + +The best part of our schooling comes not from the books, but from +the men behind the books. + +We study agriculture from books. That does not make us an +agriculturist. We must take a hoe and go out and agricult. That is +the knowing in the doing. + + + + +You Must Live Your Song + + +"There was never a picture painted, +There was never a poem sung, +But the soul of the artist fainted, +And the poet's heart was wrung." + + +So many young people think because they have a good voice and they have +cultivated it, they are singers. All this cultivation and irritation +and irrigation and gargling of the throat are merely symptoms of +a singer--merely neckties. Singers look better with neckties. + +They think the song comes from the diaphragm. But it comes from the +heart, chaperoned by the diaphragm. You cannot sing a song you have +not lived. + +Jessie was singing the other day at a chautauqua. She has a +beautiful voice, and she has been away to "Ber-leen" to have it +attended to. She sang that afternoon in the tent, "The Last Rose of +Summer." She sang it with every note so well placed, with the +sweetest little trills and tendrils, with the smile exactly like +her teacher had taught her. Jessie exhibited all the machinery and +trimmings for the song, but she had no steam, no song. She sang the +notes. She might as well have sung, "Pop, Goes the Weasel." + +The audience politely endured Jessie. That night a woman sang in +the same tent "The Last Rose of Summer." She had never been to +Berlin, but she had lived that song. She didn't dress the notes +half so beautifully as Jessie did, but she sang it with the +tremendous feeling it demands. The audience went wild. It was a +case of Gussie and Bill Whackem. + +All this was gall and wormwood to Jessie. "Child," I said to her, +"this is the best singing lesson you have ever had. Your study is +all right and you have a better voice than that woman, but you +cannot sing "The Last Rose of Summer" yet, for you do not know very +much about the first rose of summer. And really, I hope you'll +never know the ache and disappointment you must know before you can +sing that song, for it is the sob of a broken-hearted woman. Learn +to sing the songs you have lived." + +Why do singers try to execute songs beyond the horizon of their +lives? That is why they "execute" them. + + + + +The Success of a Song-Writer + + +The guest of honor at a dinner in a Chicago club was a woman who is +one of the widely known song-writers of this land. As I had the +good fortune to be sitting at table with her I wanted to ask her, +"How did you get your songs known? How did you know what kind of +songs the people want to sing?" + +But in the hour she talked with her friends around the table I +found the answer to every question. "Isn't it good to be here? +Isn't it great to have friends and a fine home and money?" she +said. "I have had such a struggle in my life. I have lived on one +meal a day and didn't know where the next meal was coming from. I +know what it is to be left alone in the world upon my own +resources. I have had years of struggle. I have been sick and +discouraged and down and out. It was in my little back-room, the +only home I had, that I began to write songs. I wrote them for my +own relief. I was writing my own life, just what was in my own +heart and what the struggles were teaching me. No one is more +surprised and grateful that the world seems to love my songs and +asks for more of them." + +The woman was Carrie Jacobs-Bond, who wrote "The Perfect Day," +"Just a Wearyin' for You," "His Lullaby" and many more of those +simple little songs so full of the pathos and philosophy of life +that they tug at your heart and moisten your eyes. + +Anybody could write those songs--just a few simple words and notes. +No. Books of theory and harmony and expression only teach us how to +write the words and where to place the notes. These are not the +song, but only the skeleton into which our own life must breathe +the life of the song. + +The woman who sat there clad in black, with her sweet, expressive +face crowned with silvery hair, had learned to write her songs in +the University of Hard Knocks. She here became the song philosopher +she is today. Her defeats were her victories. If Carrie Jacobs-Bond +had never struggled with discouragement, sickness, poverty and +loneliness, she never would have been able to write the songs that +appeal to the multitudes who have the same battles. + +The popular song is the song that best voices what is in the +popular heart. And while we have a continual inundation of popular +songs that are trashy and voice the tawdriest human impulses, yet +it is a tribute to the good elements in humanity that the +wholesome, uplifting sentiments in Carrie Jacobs-Bond's songs +continue to hold their popularity. + + + + +Theory and Practice + + +My friends, I am not arguing that you and I must drink the dregs of +defeat, or that our lives must fill up with poverty or sorrow, or +become wrecks. But I am insisting upon what I see written all +around me in the affairs of everyday life, that none of us will +ever know real success in any line of human endeavor until that +success flows from the fullness of our experience just as the songs +came from the life of Carrie Jacobs-Bond. + +The world is full of theorists, dreamers, uplifters, reformers, who +have worthy visions but are not able to translate them into +practical realities. They go around with their heads in the clouds, +looking upward, and half the time their feet are in the flower-beds +or trampling upon their fellow men they dream of helping. Their +ideas must be forged into usefulness available for this day upon +the anvil of experience. + +Many of the most brilliant theorists have been the greatest +failures in practice. + +There are a thousand who can tell you what is the matter with +things to one person who can give you a practical way to fix them. + +I used to have respect amounting to reverence for great readers and +book men. I used to know a man who could tell in what book almost +anything you could think of was discussed, and perhaps the page. He +was a walking library index. I thought him a most wonderful man. +Indeed, in my childhood I thought he was the greatest man in the +world. + +He was a remarkable man--a great reader and with a memory that +retained it all. That man could recite chapters and volumes. +He could give you almost any date. He could finish almost any quotation. +His conversation was largely made up of classical quotations. + +But he was one of the most helpless men I have ever seen in +practical life. He seemed to be unable to think and reason for +himself. He could quote a page of John Locke, but somehow the page +didn't supply the one sentence needed for the occasion. The man was +a misfit on earth. He was liable to put the gravy in his coffee +and the gasoline in the fire. He seemed never to have digested any +of the things in his memory. Since I have grown up I always think +of that man as an intellectual cold storage plant. + +The greatest book is the textbook of the University of Hard Knocks, +the Book of Human Experience the "sermons in stones" and the "books +in running brooks." Most fortunate is he who has learned to read +understandingly from it. + + + + + +Note the sweeping, positive statements of the young person. + +Note the cautious, specific statements of the person who has lived +long in this world. + +Our education is our progress from the sweeping, positive, +wholesale statements we have not proved, to the cautious, specific +statements we have proved. + + + + +Tuning the Strings of Life + + +Many audiences are gathered into this one audience. Each person +here is a different audience, reading a different page in the Book +of Human Experience. Each has a different fight to make and a +different burden to carry. Each one of us has more trouble than +anybody else! + +I know there are chapters of heroism in the lives of you older +ones. You have cried yourselves to sleep, some of you, and walked +the floor when you could not sleep. You have learned that "beyond +the Alps lieth Italy." + +A good many of you were bumped today or yesterday, or maybe years +ago, and the wound has not healed. You think it never will heal. +You came here thinking that perhaps you would forget your trouble +for a little while. I know there are people in this audience in pain. + +Never do this many gather but what there are some with aching hearts. + +And you young people here with lives like June mornings, are not +much interested in this lecture. You are polite and attentive +because this is a polite and attentive neighborhood. But down in +your hearts you are asking, "What is this all about? What is that +man talking about? I haven't had these things and I'm not going to +have them, either!" + +Maybe some of you are naturally bright! + +You are going to be bumped. You are going to cry yourselves to +sleep. You are going to walk the floor when you cannot sleep. Some +of you are going to know the keen sorrow of having the one you +trust most betray you. Maybe, betray you with a kiss. You will go +through your Gethsemane. You will see your dearest plans wrecked. +You will see all that seems to make life livable lost out of your +horizon. You will say, "God, let me die. I have nothing more +to live for." + +For all lives have about the same elements. Your life is going to +be about like other lives. + + + + + +And you are going to learn the wonderful lesson thru the years, the +bumps and the tears, that all these things somehow are necessary to +promote our education. + +These bumps and hard knocks do not break the fiddle--they turn the pegs. + +These bumps and tragedies and Waterloos draw the strings of the +soul tighter and tighter, nearer and nearer to God's great concert +pitch, where the discords fade from our lives and where the music +divine and harmonies celestial come from the same old strings that +had been sending forth the noise and discord. + +Thus we know that our education is progressing, as the evil and +unworthy go out of our lives and as peace, harmony, happiness, love +and understanding come into our lives. + +That is getting in tune. + +That is growing up. + + + +Chapter VIII + +Looking Backward + +Memories of the Price We Pay + + +WHAT a price we pay for what we know! I laugh as I look +backward--and weep and rejoice. + +I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth, altho it is quite +evident that I could have handled a pretty good-sized spoon. But +father being a country preacher, we had tin spoons. We never had to +tie a red string around our spoons when we loaned them for the +ladies' aid society oyster supper. We always got our spoons back. +Nobody ever traded with us by mistake. + +Do you remember the first money you ever earned? I do. I walked +several miles into the country those old reaper days and gathered +sheaves. That night I was proud when that farmer patted me on the +head and said, "You are the best boy to work, I ever saw." Then the +cheerful old miser put a nickel in my blistered hand. That nickel +looked bigger than any money I have since handled. + + + + +That "Last Day of School" + + +Yet I was years learning it is much easier to make money than to +handle it, hence the tale that follows. + +I was sixteen years old and a school teacher. Sweet sixteen--which +means green sixteen. But remember again, only green things grow. +There is hope for green things. I was so tall and awkward then--I +haven't changed much since. I kept still about my age. I was +several dollars the lowest bidder. They said out that way, "Anybody +can teach kids." That is why I was a teacher. + +I had never studied pedagogy, but I had whittled out three rules +that I thought would make it go. My first rule was, Make 'em study. +My second, Make, em recite. That is, fill 'em up and then empty 'em. + +My third and most important rule was, Get your money! + +I walked thirteen miles a day, six and a half miles each way, most of +the time, to save money. I think I had all teaching methods in use. +With the small fry I used a small paddle to win their confidence and +arouse their enthusiasm for an education. With the pupils larger and +more muscular than their teacher I used love and moral suasion. + +We ended the school with an "exhibition." Did you ever attend the +old back-country "last day of school exhibition"? The people that +day came from all over the township. They were so glad our school +was closing they all turned out to make it a success. They brought +great baskets of provender and we had a feast. We covered the +school desks with boards, and then covered the boards with piles of +fried chicken, doughnuts and forty kinds of pie. + +Then we had a "doings." Everybody did a stunt. We executed a lot of +literature that day. Execute is the word that tells what happened +to literature in District No. 1, Jackson Township, that day. I can +shut my eyes and see it yet. I can see my pupils coming forward to +speak their "pieces." I hardly knew them and they hardly knew me, +for we were "dressed up." Many a head showed father had mowed it +with the sheepshears. Mother had been busy with the wash-rag--clear +back of the ears! And into them! So many of them wore collars that +stuck out all stiff like they had pushed their heads on thru their +big straw hats. + +I can see them speaking their "pieces." I can see "The Soldier of +the Legion lay dying in Algiers." We had him die again that day, +and he had a lingering end as we executed him. I can see "The boy +stood on the burning deck, whence all but he had fled." I can see +"Mary's little lamb" come slipping over the stage. I see the +tow-headed patriot in "Give me liberty or give me death." I feel +now that if Patrick Henry had been present, he would have said, +"Give me death." + +There came a breathless hush as "teacher" came forward as the last +act on the bill to say farewell. It was customary to cry. I wanted +to yell. Tomorrow I would get my money! I had a speech I had been +saying over and over until it would say itself. But somehow when I +got up before that "last day of school" audience and opened my +mouth, it was a great opening, but nothing came out. It came out of +my eyes. Tears rolled down my cheeks until I could hear them +spatter on my six-dollar suit. + +And my pupils wept as their dear teacher said farewell. Parents +wept. It was a teary time. I only said, "Weep not for me, dear +friends. I am going away, but I am coming back." I thought to cheer +them up, but they wept the more. + + + + + +Next day I drew my money. I had it all in one joyous wad--$240. I +was going home with head high and aircastles even higher. But I +never got home with the money. Talk about the fool and his money +and you get very personal. + +For on the way home I met Deacon K, and he borrowed it all. Deacon K +was "such a good man" and a "pillar of the church." I used to wonder, +tho, why he didn't take a pillow to church. I took his note for $240, +"due at corncutting," as we termed that annual fall-time paying up +season. I really thought a note was not necessary, such was my +confidence in the deacon. + +For years I kept a faded, tear-spattered, yellow note for $240, +"due at corncutting," as a souvenir of my first schoolteaching. +Deacon K has gone from earth. He has gone to his eternal reward. I +scarcely know whether to look up or down as I say that. He never +left any forwarding address. + +I was paid thousands in experience for that first schoolteaching, +but I paid all the money I got from it--two hundred and forty +thirteen-mile-a-day dollars to learn one thing I could not learn +from the books, that it takes less wisdom to make money, than it +does to intelligently handle it afterwards. Incidentally I learned +it may be safer to do business with a first-class sinner than with +a second-class saint. + +Which is no slap at the church, but at its worst enemies, the foes +of its own household. + + + + +Calling the Class-Roll + + +A lyceum bureau once sent me back to my home town to lecture. I +imagine most lecturers have a hard time lecturing in the home town. +Their schoolmates and playmates are apt to be down there in the +front rows with their families, and maybe all the old scores have +not yet been settled. The boy he fought with may be down there. +Perhaps the girl who gave him the "mitten" is there. + +And he has gotten his lecture out of that home town. The heroes and +villains live there within striking distance. Perhaps they have +come to hear him. "Is not this the carpenter's son?" Perhaps this +is why some lecturers and authors are not so popular in the home +town until several generations pass. + +I went back to the same hall to speak, and stood upon the same platform +where twenty-one years before I had stood to deliver my graduating oration, +when in impassioned and well modulated tones I had exclaimed, +"Greece is gone and Rome is no more, but fe-e-e-e-ear not, +for I will sa-a-a-a-ave you!" or words to that effect. + + + + + +Then I went back to the little hotel and sat up alone in my room +half the night living it over. Time was when I thought anybody who +could live in that hotel was a superior order of being. But the +time had come when I knew the person who could go on living in any +hotel has a superior order of vitality. + +I held thanksgiving services that night. I could see better. I had +a picture of the school in that town that had been taken twenty-one +years before, just before commencement. I had not seen the picture +these twenty-one years, for I could not then afford to buy one. The +price was a quarter. + +I got a truer perspective of life that night. Did you ever sit +alone with a picture of your classmates taken twenty-one years +before? It is a memorable experience. + +A class of brilliant and gifted young people went out to take +charge of the world. They were so glad the world had waited so long +on them. They were so willing to take charge of the world. They +were going to be presidents and senators and authors and +authoresses and scientists and scientist-esses and geniuses and +genius-esses and things like that. + +There was one boy in the class who was not naturally bright. It was +not the one you may be thinking of! No, it was Jim Lambert. He had +no brilliant career in view. He was dull and seemed to lack +intellect. He was "conditioned" into the senior class. We all felt +a little sorry for Jim. + +As commencement day approached, the committee of the class +appointed for that purpose took Jim back of the schoolhouse and +broke the news to him that they were going to let him graduate, but +they were not going to let him speak, because he couldn't make a +speech that would do credit to such a brilliant class. They hid Jim +on the stage back of the oleander commencement night. + +Shake the barrel! + +The girl who was to become the authoress became the helloess in the +home telephone exchange, and had become absolutely indispensable to +the community. The girl who was to become the poetess became the +goddess at the general delivery window and superintendent of the +stamp-licking department of the home postoffice. The boy who was +going to Confess was raising the best corn in the county, and his +wife was speaker of the house. + +Most of them were doing very well even Jim Lambert. Jim had become +the head of one of the big manufacturing plants of the South, with +a lot of men working for him. The committee that took him out +behind the schoolhouse to inform him he could not speak at +commencement, would now have to wait in line before a frosted door +marked, "Mr. Lambert, Private." They would have to send up their +cards, and the watchdog who guards the door would tell them, "Cut +it short, he's busy!" before they could break any news to him +today. + +They hung a picture of Mr. Lambert in the high school at the last +alumni meeting. They hung it on the wall near where the oleander +stood that night. + +Dull boy or girl--you with your eyes tear-dimmed sometimes because +you do not seem to learn like some in your classes can you not get +a bit of cheer from the story of Jim? + + + + + +Hours pass, and still as I sat in that hotel room I was lost in +that school picture and the twenty-one years. There were fifty-four +young people in that picture. They had been shaken these years in +the barrel, and now as I called the roll on them, most of them that +I expected to go up had shaken down and some that I expected to +stay down had shaken up. + +Out of that fifty-four, one had gone to a pulpit, one had gone to +Congress and one had gone to the penitentiary. Some had gone to +brilliant success and some had gone down to sad failure. Some had +found happiness and some had found unhappiness. It seemed as tho +almost every note on the keyboard of human possibility had been +struck by the one school of fifty-four. + +When that picture was taken the oldest was not more than eighteen, +yet most of them seemed already to have decided their destinies. +The twenty-one years that followed had not changed their courses. + +The only changes had come where God had come into a life to uplift +it, or where Mammon had entered to pull it down. And I saw better +that the foolish dreams of success faded before the natural +unfolding of talents, which is the real success. I saw better that +"the boy is father to the man." + +The boy who skimmed over his work in school was skimming over his +work as a man. The boy who went to the bottom of things in school +was going to the bottom of things in manhood. Which had helped him +to go to the top of things! + +Jim Lambert had merely followed the call of talents unseen in him +twenty-one years before. + +The lazy boy became a "tired" man. The industrious boy became an +industrious man. The sporty boy became a sporty man. The +domineering egotist boy became the domineering egotist man. + +The boy who traded knives with me and beat me--how I used to envy +him! Why was it he could always get the better of me? Well, he went +on trading knives and getting the better of people. Now, twenty-one +years afterwards, he was doing time in the state penitentiary for +forgery. He was now called a bad man, when twenty-one years ago +when he did the same things on a smaller scale they called him +smart and bright. + +The "perfectly lovely" boy who didn't mix with the other boys, who +didn't whisper, who never got into trouble, who always had his hair +combed, and said, "If you please," used to hurt me. He was the +teacher's model boy. All the mothers of the community used to say +to their own reprobate offspring, "Why can't you be like Harry? +He'll be President of the United States some day, and you'll be in +jail." But Model Harry sat around all his life being a model. I +believe Mr. Webster defines a model as a small imitation of the +real thing. Harry certainly was a successful model. He became a +seedy, sleepy, helpless relic at forty. He was "perfectly lovely" +because he hadn't the energy to be anything else. It was the boys +who had the hustle and the energy, who occasionally needed +bumping--and who got it--who really grew. + +I have said little about the girls of the school. Fact was, at that +age I didn't pay much attention to them. I regarded them as in the +way. But I naturally thought of Clarice, our social pet of the +class--our real pretty girl who won the vase in the home paper +beauty contest. Clarice went right on remaining in the social +spotlight, primping and flirting. She outshone all the rest. But it +seemed like she was all out-shine and no in-shine. She mistook +popularity for success. The boys voted for her, but did not marry +her. Most of the girls who shone with less social luster became the +happy homemakers of the community. + +But as I looked into the face of Jim Lambert in the picture, my +heart warmed at the sight of another great success--a sweet-faced +irish lass who became an "old maid." She had worked day by day all +these years to support a home and care for her family. She had kept +her grace and sweetness thru it all, and the influence of her +white, loving life radiated far. + + + + +The Boy I Had Envied + + +Frank was the boy I had envied. He had everything--a fine home, +a loving father, plenty of money, opportunity and a great career +awaiting him. And he was bright and lovable and talented. +Everybody said Frank would make his mark in the world and make +the town proud of him. + +I was the janitor of the schoolhouse. Some of my classmates will +never know how their thoughtless jeers and jokes wounded the +sensitive, shabby boy who swept the floors, built the fires and +carried in the coal. After commencement my career seemed to end and +the careers of Frank and the rest of them seemed to begin. They +were going off to college and going to do so many wonderful things. + +But the week after commencement I had to go into a printing office, +roll up my sleeves and go to work in the "devil's corner" to earn +my daily bread. Seemed like it took so much bread! + +Many a time as I plugged at the "case" I would think of Frank and wonder +why some people had all the good things and I had all the hard things. + +How easy it is to see as you look backward. But how hard it is to +see when you look forward. + +Twenty-one years afterward as I got off the train in the home town, +I asked, "Where is he?" We went out to the cemetery, where I stood +at a grave and read on the headstone, "Frank." + +I had the story of a tragedy--the tragedy of modern unpreparedness. +It was the story of the boy who had every opportunity, but who had +all the struggle taken out of his life. He never followed his +career, never developed any strength. He disappointed hopes, spent +a fortune, broke his father's heart, shocked the community, and +finally ended his wasted life with a bullet fired by his own hand. + + + +Why Ben Hur Won + + +It revived the memory of the story of Ben Hur. + +Do you remember it? The Jewish boy is torn from his home in +disgrace. He is haled into court and tried for a crime he never +committed. Ben Hur did not get a fair trial. Nobody can get a fair +trial at the hands of this world. That is why the great Judge has +said, judge not, for you have not the full evidence in the case. I +alone have that. + +Then they condemn him. They lead him away to the galleys. They +chain him to the bench and to the oar. There follow the days and +long years when he pulls on the oar under the lash. Day after day +he pulls on the oar. Day after day he writhes under the sting of +the lash. Years of the cruel injustice pass. Ben Hur is the +helpless victim of a mocking fate. + +That seems to be your life and my life. In the kitchen or the +office, or wherever we work we seem so often like slaves bound to +the oar and pulling under the sting of the lash of necessity. Life +seems one futureless round of drudgery. We wonder why. We often +look across the street and see somebody who lives a happier life. +That one is chained to no oar. See what a fine time they all have. +Why must we pull on the oar? + +How blind we are! We can only see our own oar. We cannot see that +they, too, pull on the oar and feel the lash. Most likely they are +looking back at us and envying us. For while we envy others, others +are envying us. + +But look at the chariot race in Antioch. See the thousands in the +circus. See Messala, the haughty Roman, and see! Ben Hur from the +galleys in the other chariot pitted against him. Down the course +dash these twin thunderbolts. The thousands hold their breath. "Who +will win?" "The man with the stronger forearms," they whisper. + +There comes the crucial moment in the race. See the man with the +stronger forearms. They are bands of steel that swell in the +forearms of Ben Hur. They swing those flying Arabians into the +inner ring. Ben Hur wins the race! Where got the Jew those huge +forearms? From the galleys! + +Had Ben Hur never pulled on the oar, he never could have won the +chariot race. + +Sooner or later you and I are to learn that Providence makes no +mistakes in the bookkeeping. As we pull on the oar, so often lashed +by grim necessity, every honest effort is laid up at compound +interest in the bank account of strength. Sooner or later the time +comes when we need every ounce. Sooner or later our chariot race is +on--when we win the victory, strike the deciding blow, stand while +those around us fall--and it is won with the forearms earned in the +galleys of life by pulling on the oar. + + + + + +That is why I thanked God as I stood at the grave of my classmate. +I thanked God for parents who believed in the gospel of struggle, +and for the circumstances that compelled it. + +I am not an example of success. + +But I am a very grateful pupil in the first reader class of The +University of Hard Knocks. + + + +Chapter IX + +Go On South! + +The Book in the Running Brook + +THERE is a little silvery sheet of water in Minnesota called Lake Itasca. +There is a place where a little stream leaps out from the lake. + +"Ole!" you will exclaim, "the lake is leaking. What is the name of +this little creek?" + +"Creek! It bane no creek. It bane Mississippi river." + +So even the Father of Waters has to begin as a creek. We are at the +cradle where the baby river leaps forth. We all start about alike. +It wabbles around thru the woods of Minnesota. It doesn't know +where it is going, but it is "on the way." + +It keeps wabbling around, never giving up and quitting, and it gets +to the place where all of us get sooner or later. The place where +Paul came on the road to Damascus. The place of the "heavenly vision." + +It is the place where gravity says, "Little Mississippi, do you +want to grow? Then you will have to go south." + +The little Mississippi starts south. He says to the people, +"Goodbye, folks, I am going south." The folks at Itascaville say, +"Why, Mississippi, you are foolish. You hain't got water enough to +get out of the county." That is a fact, but he is not trying to get +out of the county. The Mississippi is only trying to go south. + +The Mississippi knows nothing about the Gulf of Mexico. He does not +know that he has to go hundreds of miles south. He is only trying +to go south. He has not much water, but he does not wait for a +relative to die and bequeath him some water. That is a beautiful +thought! He has water enough to start south, and he does that. + +He goes a foot south, then another foot south. He goes a mile +south. He picks up a little stream and he has some more water. He +goes on south. He picks up another stream and grows some more. Day +by day he picks up streamlets, brooklets, rivulets. Business is +picking up! He grows as he flows. Poetry! + +My friends, here is one of the best pictures I can find in nature +of what it seems to me our lives should be. I hear a great many +orations, especially in high school commencements, entitled, "The +Value of a Goal in Life." But the direction is vastly more +important than the goal. Find the way your life should go, and then +go and keep on going and you'll reach a thousand goals. + +We do not have to figure out how far we have to go, nor how many +supplies we will need along the way. All we have to do is to start +and we will find the resources all along the way. We will grow as +we flow. All of us can start! And then go on south! + +Success is not tomorrow or next year. Success is now. Success is +not at the end of the journey, for there is no end. Success is +every day in flowing and growing. The Mississippi is a success in +Minnesota as well as on south. + +You and I sooner or later hear the call, "Go on south." If we +haven't heard it, let us keep our ear to the receiver and live a +more natural life, so that we can hear the call. We are all called. +It is a divine call--the call of our unfolding talents to be used. + +Remember, the Mississippi goes south. If he had gone any other +direction he would never have been heard of. + + + + + +Three wonderful things develop as the Mississippi goes on south. + +1. He keeps on going on south and growing greater. + +2. He overcomes his obstacles and develops his power. + +3. He blesses the valley, but the valley does not bless him. + + + + +Go On South and Grow Greater + + +You never meet the Mississippi after he starts south, but what he +is going on south and growing greater. You never meet him but what +he says, "Excuse me, but I must go on south." + +The Mississippi gets to St. Paul and Minneapolis. He is a great +river now--the most successful river in the state. But he does not +retire upon his laurels. He goes on south and grows greater. He +goes on south to St. Louis. He is a wonderful river now. But he +does not stop. He goes on south and grows greater. + +Everywhere you meet him he is going on south and growing greater. + +Do you know why the Mississippi goes on south? To continue to be +the Mississippi. If he should stop and stagnate, he would not be +the Mississippi, river. he would become a stagnant, poisonous pond. + +As long as people keep on going south, they keep on living. When +they stop and stagnate, they die. + +That is why I am making it the slogan of my life--GO ON SOUTH AND +GROW GREATER! I hope I can make you remember that and say it over +each day. I wish I could write it over the pulpits, over the +schoolrooms, over the business houses and homes--GO ON SOUTH AND +GROW GREATER. For this is life, and there is no other. This is +education--and religion. And the only business of life. + +You and I start well. We go on south a little ways, and then we +retire. Even young people as they start south and make some little +knee-pants achievement, some kindergarten touchdown, succumb to +their press notices. Their friends crowd around them to congratulate +them. "I must congratulate you upon your success. You have arrived." + +So many of those young goslings believe that. They quit and get +canned. They think they have gotten to the Gulf of Mexico when they +have not gotten out of the woods of Minnesota. Go on south! + +We can protect ourselves fairly well from our enemies, but heaven +deliver us from our fool friends. + +Success is so hard to endure. We can endure ten defeats better than +one victory. Success goes to the head and defeat goes to "de feet." +It makes them work harder. + + + + +The Plague of Incompetents + + +Civilization is mostly a conspiracy to keep us from going very far south. + +The one who keeps on going south defies custom and becomes unorthodox. + +But contentment with present achievement is the damnation of the race. + +The mass of the human family never go on south far enough to +become good servants, workmen or artists. The young people get a +smattering and squeeze into the bottom position and never go on +south to efficiency and promotion. They wonder why their genius is +not recognized. They do not make it visible. + +Nine out of ten stenographers who apply for positions can write a +few shorthand characters and irritate a typewriter keyboard. They +think that is being a stenographer, when it is merely a symptom of +a stenographer. They mangle the language, grammar, spelling, +capitalization and punctuation. Their eyes are on the clock, their +minds on the movies. + +Nine out of ten workmen cannot be trusted to do what they advertise +to do, because they have never gone south far enough to become +efficient. Many a professional man is in the same class. + +Half of our life is spent in getting competents to repair the +botchwork of incompetents. + +No matter how well equipped you are, you are never safe in your job +if you are contented to do today just what you did yesterday. +Contented to think today what you thought yesterday. + +You must go on south to be safe. + +I used to know a violinist who would say, "If I were not a genius, +I could not play so well with such little practice." The poor +fellow did not know how poor a fiddler he really was. Well did +Strickland Gillilan, America's great poet-humorist, say, "Egotism +is the opiate that Nature administers to deaden the pains of mediocrity. + + + + +This Is Our Best Day + + +Just because our hair gets frosty or begins to rub off in spots, we +are so prone to say, "I am aging rapidly." It pays to advertise. We +always get results. See the one shrivel who goes around +front-paging his age. Age is not years; age is grunts. + +We say, "I've seen my best days." And the undertaker goes and +greases his buggy. He believes in "preparedness." + +Go on south! We have not seen our best days. This is the best day +so far, and tomorrow is going to be better on south. + +We are only children in God's great kindergarten, playing with our +A-B-C's. I do not utter that as a bit of sentiment, but as the +great fundamental of our life. I hope the oldest in years sees that +best. I hope he says, "I am just beginning. Just beginning to +understand. Just beginning to know about life." + +We are not going on south to old age, we are going on south to +eternal youth. It is the one who stops who "ages rapidly." Each day +brings us a larger vision. Infinity, Eternity, Omnipotence, +Omniscience are all on south. + +We have left nothing behind but the husks. I would not trade this +moment for all the years before it. I have their footings at +compound interest! They are dead. This is life. + + + + +Birthdays and Headmarks + + +Yesterday I had a birthday. I looked in the glass and communed with +my features. I saw some gray hairs coming. Hurrah! + +You know what gray hairs are? Did you ever get a headmark in school? +Gray hairs are silver headmarks in our education as we go on south. + +You children cheer up. Your black hair and auburn hair and the other +first reader hair will pass and you'll get promoted as you go on south. + +Don't worry about gray hair or baldness. Only worry about the location +of your gray hair or baldness. If they get on the inside of the head, +worry. Do you know why corporations sometimes say they do not want +to employ gray-headed men? They have found that so many of them +have quit going on south and have gotten gray on the inside--or bald. + +These same corporations send out Pinkertons and pay any price for +gray-headed men--gray on the outside and green on the inside. They +are the most valuable, for they have the vision and wisdom of many +years and the enthusiasm and "pep" and courage of youth. + +The preacher, the teacher--everyone who gets put on the retired +list, retires himself. He quits going on south. + +The most wonderful person in the world is the one who has lived +years and years on earth and has perhaps gotten gray on the +outside, but has kept young and fresh on the inside. Put that +person in the pulpit, in the schoolroom, in the office, behind the +ticket-window or on the bench--or under the hod--and you find the +whole world going to that person for direction, advice, vision, +help, sympathy, love. + + + + + +I am happy today as I look back over my life. I have been trying to +lecture a good while. I am almost ashamed to tell you how long, for +I ought to know more about it by this time. But when anybody says, +"I heard you lecture twenty years ago over at----" I stop him. +"Please don't throw it up to me now. I am just as ashamed of it as +you are. I am trying to do better now." + +O, I want to forget all the past, save its lessons. I am just +beginning to live. If anybody wants to be my best friend, let him +come to me and tell me how to improve--what to do and what not to +do. Tell me how to give a better lecture. + +Years ago a bureau representative who booked me told me my lectures +were good enough. I told him I wanted to get better lectures, for +I was so dissatisfied with what little I knew. He told me I could +never get any better. I had reached my limit. Those lectures were +the "limit." I shiver as I think what I was saying then. I want to +go on south shivering about yesterday. These years I have noticed +the people on the platform who were contented with their offerings, +were not trying to improve them, and were lost in admiration of +what they were doing, did not stay long on the platform. I have +watched them come and go, come and go. I have heard their fierce +invectives against the bureaus and ungrateful audiences that were +"prejudiced" against them. + +Birthdays are not annual affairs. Birthdays are the days when we +have a new birth. The days when we go on south to larger visions. +I wish I could have a birthday every minute! + +Some people seem to string out to near a hundred years with mighty +few birthdays. Some people spin up to Methuselahs in a few years. + +From what I can learn of Methuselah, he never grew past copper-toed +boots. He just hibernated and "chawed on." + +The more birthdays we have, the nearer we approach eternal youth! + + + + +Bernhardt, Davis and Edison + + +The spectacle of Sarah Bernhardt, past seventy, thrilling and +gripping audiences with the fire and brilliancy of youth, is +inspiring. No obstacle can daunt her. Losing a leg does not end her +acting, for she remains the "Divine Sarah" with no crippling of her +work. She looks younger than many women of half her years. "The +years are nothing to me." + +Senator Henry Gassaway Davis, West Virginia's Grand Old Man, at +ninety-two was working as hard and hopefully as any man of the +multitudes in his employ. He was an ardent Odd Fellow, and one day +at ninety-two--just a short time before his passing--he went out to +the Odd Fellows' Home near Elkins, where he lived. On the porch of +the home was a row of old men inmates. The senator shook hands with +these men and one by one they rose from the bench to return his +hearty greetings. + +The last man on the bench did not rise. He helplessly looked up at +the senator and said, "Senator, you'll have to excuse me from +getting up. I'm too old. When you get as old as I am, you'll not +get up, either." + +"That's all right. But, my man, how old are you?" + +"Senator, I'm old in body and old in spirit. I'm past sixty." + +"My boy," laughed Senator Davis, "I was an Odd Fellow before +you were born." + +The senator at ninety-two was younger than the man "past sixty," +because he was going on south. + + + + + +When I was a little boy I saw them bring the first phonograph that +Mr. Edison invented into the meeting at Lakeside, Ohio. The people +cheered when they heard it talk. + +You would laugh at it today. It had a tinfoil cylinder, it +screeched and stuttered. You would not have it in your barn today +to play to your ford! + +But the people said, "Mr. Edison has succeeded." There was one man +who did not believe that Mr. Edison had succeeded. His name was +Thomas Alva Edison. He had gotten to St. Paul, and he went on +south. A million people would have stopped there and said, "I have +arrived." They would have put in their time litigating for their +rights with other people who would have gone on south with the +phonograph idea. + +Mr. Edison has said that his genius is mainly his ability to keep +on south. A young lady succeeded in getting into his laboratory the +other day, and she wrote me that the great inventor showed her one +invention. "I made over seven thousand experiments and failed +before I hit upon that." + +"Why make so many experiments?" + +"I know more than seven thousand ways now that won't work." + +I doubt if there are ten men in America who could go on south in +the face of seven thousand failures. Today he brings forth a +diamond-pointed phonograph. I am sure if we could bring Mr. Edison +to this platform and ask him, "Have you succeeded?" he would say +what he has said to reporters and what he said to the young lady, +"I have not succeeded. I am succeeding. All I have done only shows +me how much there is yet to do." + +That is success supreme. Not "succeeded" but "succeeding." + +What a difference between "ed" and "ing"! The difference between +death and life. Are you "ed-ing" or "ing-ing"? + + + + +Moses Begins at Eighty + + +Moses, the great Hebrew law-giver, was eighty years old before he +started south. It took him eighty years to get ready. Moses did not +even get on the back page of the Egyptian newspapers till he was +eighty. He went on south into the extra editions after that! + +If Moses had retired at seventy-nine, we'd never have heard of him. +If Moses had retired to a checkerboard in the grocery store or to +pitching horseshoes up the alley and talking about "ther winter of +fifty-four," he would have become the seventeenth mummy on the +thirty-ninth row in the green pickle-jar! + +Imagine Moses living today amidst the din of the high school +orations on "The Age of the Young Man" and the Ostler idea that you +are going down hill at fifty. Imagine Moses living on "borrowed +time" when he becomes the leader of the Israelite host. + +I would see his scandalized friends gather around him. "Moses! Moses! +what is this we hear? You going to lead the Israelites to the Promised Land? +Why, Moses, you are an old man. Why don't you act like an old man? +You are liable to drop off any minute. Here is a pair of slippers. +And keep out of the night air. It is so hard on old folks." + +I think I would hear Moses say, "No, no, I am just beginning to see +what to do. Watch things happen from now on. Children of +Israel, forward, march!" + +I see Moses at eighty starting for the Wilderness so fast Aaron +can hardly keep up. Moses is eighty-five and busier and more +enthusiastic than ever. The people say, "Isn't Moses dead?" "No." +"Well, he ought to be dead, for he is old enough." + +They appoint a committee to bury Moses. You cannot do anything in +America without a committee. The committee gets out the invitations +and makes all the arrangements for a gorgeous funeral next +Thursday. They get ready the resolutions of respect-- +"Whereas,--Whereas,--Resolved,--Resolved." + +Then I see the committee waiting on Moses. That is what a committee +does--it "waits" on something or other. And this committee goes up +to General Moses' private office. It is his busy day. They have to +stand in line and wait their turn. When they get up to Moses' desk, +the great prophet says, "Boys, what is it? Cut it short, I'm busy." + +The committee begins to weep. "General Moses, you are a very old +man. You are eighty-five years old and full of honors. We are the +committee duly authorized to give you gorgeous burial. The funeral +is to be next Thursday. Kindly die." + +I see Moses look over his appointments. "Next Thursday? +Why, boys, every hour is taken next Thursday. I simply cannot +attend my funeral next Thursday." + +They cannot bury Moses. He cannot attend. You cannot bury anybody +who is too busy to attend his own funeral! You cannot bury anybody +until he consents. It is bad manners! The committee is so +mortified, for all the invitations are out. It waits. + +Moses is eighty-six and the committee 'phones over, "Moses, can you +attend next Thursday?" And Moses says, "No, boys, you'll just have +to hold that funeral until I get this work pushed off so I can +attend it. I haven't even time to think about getting old." + +The committee waits. Moses is ninety and rushed more than ever. +He is doing ten men's work and his friends all say he is killing +himself. But he makes the committee wait. + +Moses is ninety-five and burning the candle at both ends. +He is a hundred. And the committee dies! + +Moses goes right on shouting, "Onward!" He is a hundred and ten. He +is a hundred and twenty. Even then I read, "His eye was not dim, +nor his natural force abated." He had not time to stop and abate. + +So God buried him. The committee was dead. O, friends, this is not +irreverence. It is joyful reverence. It is the message to all of +us, Go on south to the greater things, and get so enthused and +absorbed in our going that we'll fool the "committee." + + + + + +All the multitudes of the Children of Israel died in the Wilderness. +They were afraid to go on south. Only two of them went on south-- +Joshua and Caleb. They put the giants out of business. + +The Indians once owned America. But they failed to go on south. +So another crop of Americans came into the limelight. If we modern +Americans do not go on south we will join the Indians, the auk +and the dodo. + + + + +The "Sob Squad" + + +I am so sorry for the folks who quit, retire, "get on the shelf" or +live on "borrowed time." + +They generally join the "sob squad." + +They generally discover the world is "going to the dogs." They cry +on my shoulder, no matter how good clothes I wear. + +They tell me nobody uses them right. The person going on south has +not time to look back and see how anybody uses him. + +They say nobody loves them. Which is often a fact. Nobody loves the +clock that runs down. + +They say, "Only a few more days of trouble, only a few more +tribulations, and I'll be in that bright and happy land." What will +they do with them when they get them there? They would be dill +pickles in the heavenly preserve-jar. + +They say, "I wish I were a child again. I was happy when I was a +child and I'm not happy now. Them was the best days of my life +childhood's palmy days." + +Wake up! Your clock has run down. Anybody who wants to be a child +again is confessing he has lost his memory. Anybody who can remember +the horrors of childhood could not be hired to live it over again. + +If there is anybody who does not have a good time, if there is +anybody who gets shortchanged regularly, it is a child. I am so +sorry for a child. Hurry up and go on south. It is better on south. + + + + +Waiting till the "Second Table" + + +I wish I could forget many of my childhood memories. I remember the +palmy days. And the palm! + +I often wonder how I ever lived thru my childhood. I would not take +my chances living it thru again. I am not ungrateful to my parents. +I had advantages. I was born in a parsonage and was reared in the +nurture and admiration of the Lord. I am not just sure I quoted +that correctly, but I know I was reared in a parsonage. About all +I inherited was a Godly example and a large appetite. That was +about all there was to inherit. I cannot remember when I was not +hungry. I used to go around feeling like the Mammoth Cave, never +thoroly explored. + +I never sit down as "company" at a dinner and see some little +children going sadly into the next room to "wait till the second +table" +that my heart does not go out to them. I remember when I did that. + +I can only remember about four big meals in a year. That was +"quart'ly meeting day." We always had a big dinner on "quart'ly +meeting day." Elder Berry would stay for dinner. His name was +Berry, but being "presiding elder," we called him Elder Berry. + +Elder Berry always stayed for dinner. He was one of the easiest men +to get to stay for dinner I ever saw. + +Mother would stay home from "quart'ly meeting" to get the big +dinner ready. She would cook up about all the "brethren" brought in +at the last donation. We had one of those stretchable tables, +and mother would stretch it clear across the room and put on two +table-cloths. She would lap them over in the middle, where the hole was. + +I would watch her get the big dinner ready. I would look over the +long table and view the "promised land." I would see her set on the +jelly. We had so much jelly--red jelly, and white jelly, and blue +jelly. I don't just remember if they had blue jelly, but if they +had it we had it on that table. All the jelly that ever "jelled" +was represented. I didn't know we had so much jelly till "quart'ly +meeting" day. I would watch the jelly tremble. Did you ever see +jelly tremble? I used to think it ought to tremble, for Elder Berry +was coming for dinner. + +I would see mother put on the tallest pile of mashed potatoes you +ever saw. She would make a hollow in the top and fill it with +butter. I would see the butter melt and run down the sides, and I +would say, "Hurry, mother, it is going to spill!" O, how I wanted +to spill it! I could hardly hold out faithful. + +And then Elder Berry would sit down at the table, at the end +nearest the fried chicken. The "company" would sit down. I used to +wonder why we never could have a big dinner but what a lot of +"company" had to come and gobble it up. They would fill the table +and father would sit down in the last seat. There was no place for +me to sit. Father would say, "You go into the next room, my boy, +and wait. There's no room for you at the table." + +The hungriest one of that assemblage would have to go in the next +room and hear the big dinner. Did you ever hear a big dinner when +you felt like the Mammoth Cave? I used to think as I would sit in +the next room that heaven would be a place where everybody would +eat at the first table. + +I would watch them thru the key-hole. It was going so fast. There +was only one piece of chicken left. It was the neck. O, Lord, spare +the neck! And I would hear them say, "Elder Berry, may we help you +to another piece of the chicken?" + +And Elder Berry would take the neck! + +Many a time after that, Elder Berry would come into the room where +I was starving. He would say, "Brother Parlette, is this your +boy?" He would come over to the remains of Brother Parlette's boy. +He would often put his hand in benediction upon my head. + +My head was not the place that needed the benediction. + +He would say, "My boy, I want you to have a good time now." Now! +When all the chicken was gone and he had taken the neck! "My boy, +you are seeing the best days of your life right now as a child." + +The dear old liar! I was seeing the worst days of my life. If there +is anybody shortchanged--if there is anybody who doesn't have a +good time, it's a child. Life has been getting better ever since, +and today is the best day of all. Go on south! + + + + +It's Better on South + + +Seeing your best days as a child? No! You are seeing your worst +days. Of course, you can be happy as a child. A boy can be happy +with fuzz on his upper lip, but he'll be happier when his lip feels +more like mine like a piece of sandpaper. There are chapters of +happiness undreamed of in his philosophy. + +A child can be full of happiness and only hold a pint. But +afterwhile the same child will hold a quart. + +I think I hold a gallon now. And I see people in the audience who +must hold a barrel! Go on south. Of course, I do not mean +circumference. But every year we go south increases our capacity +for joy. Our life is one continual unfolding as we go south. +Afterwhile this old world gets too small for us and we go on south +into a larger one. + +So we cannot grow old. Our life never stops. It goes on and on +forever. Anything that does not stop cannot grow old or have age. +Material things will grow old. This stage will grow old and stop. +This hall will grow old and stop. This house we live in will grow +old and stop. This flesh and blood house we live in will grow old +and stop. This lecture even will grow old--and stop! But you and I +will never grow old, for God cannot grow old. You and I will go on +living as long as God lives. + +I am not worried today over what I do not know. I used to be +worried. I used to say, "I have not time to answer you now!" But +today it is such a relief to look people in the face and say, +"I do not know." + +And I have to say that to many questions, "I do not know." I often +think if people in an audience only knew how little I know, they +would not stay to hear me. + +But some day I shall know! I patiently wait for the answer. Every +day brings the answer to something I could not answer yesterday. + +It will take an eternity to know an infinity! + +What a wonderful happiness to go on south to it! + + + + +Overcoming Obstacles Develops Power + + +As the Mississippi River goes on south he finds obstacles along the +way. You and I find obstacles along our way south. What shall we do? + +Go to Keokuk, Iowa, for your answer. + +They have built a great concrete obstacle clear across the path of +the river. It is many feet high, and many, many feet long. The +river cannot go on south. Watch him. He rises higher than the +obstacle and sweeps over it on south. + +Over the great power dam at Keokuk sweeps the Mississippi. And then +you see the struggle of overcoming the obstacle develops light and +power to vitalize the valley. A hundred towns and cities radiate +the light and power from the struggle. The great city of St. Louis, +many miles away, throbs with the victory. + +So that is why they spent the millions to build the obstacle--to +get the light and the power. The light and the power were latent in +the river, but it took the obstacle and the overcoming to develop +it and make it useful. + +That is exactly what happens when you and I overcome our obstacles. +We develop our light and power. We are rivers of light and power, +but it is all latent and does no good until we overcome obstacles +as we go on south. + +Obstacles are the power stations on our way south! + +And where the most obstacles are, there you find the most power to +be developed. So many of us do not understand that. We look +southward and we see the obstacles in the road. "I am so +unfortunate. I could do these great things, but alas! I have so +many obstacles in the way." + +Thank God! You are blessed of Providence. They do not waste the +obstacles. The presence of the obstacles means that there is a lot +of light and power in you to be developed. If you see no obstacles, +you are confessing to blindness. + +I hear people saying, "I hope the time may speedily come when I +shall have no more obstacles to overcome!" When that time comes, +ring up the hearse, for you will be a "dead one." + + + + + +Life is going on south, and overcoming the obstacles. Death is +merely quitting. + +The fact that we are not buried is no proof that we are alive. Go +along the street in almost any town and see the dead ones. There +they are decorating the hitching-racks and festooning the +storeboxes. There they are blocking traffic at the postoffice and +depot. There they are in the hotel warming the chairs and making +the guests stand up. There they are--rows of retired farmers who +have quit work and moved to town to block improvements and die. But +they will never need anything more than burying. + +For they are dead from the ears up. They have not thought a new +thought the past month. Sometimes they sit and think, but generally +they just sit. They have not gone south an inch the past year. + +Usually the deadest loafer is married to the livest woman. Nature +tries to maintain an equilibrium. + +They block the wheels of progress and get in the way of the people +trying to go on south. They say of the people trying to do things. +"Aw, he's always tryin' to run things." + +They do not join in to promote the churches and schools and big +brother movements. They growl at the lyceum courses and chautauquas, +because they "take money outa town." They do not take any of their +money "outa town." Ringling and Barnum & Bailey get theirs. + +I do not smile as I refer to the dead. I weep. I wish I could +squirt some "pep" into them and start them on south. + +But all this lecture has been discussing this, so I hurry on to the +last glimpse of the book in the running brook. + + + + +Go on South From Principle + + +Here we come to the most wonderful and difficult thing in life. It +is the supreme test of character. That is, Why go on south? Not for +blessing nor cursing, not for popularity nor for selfish ends, not +for anything outside, but for the happiness that comes from within. + +The Mississippi blesses the valley every day as he goes on south +and overcomes. But the valley does not bless the river in return. +The valley throws its junk back upon the river. The valley pours +its foul, muddy, poisonous streams back upon the Mississippi to +defile him. The Mississippi makes St. Paul and Minneapolis about +all the prosperity they have, gives them power to turn their mills. +But the Twin Cities merely throw their waste back upon their +benefactor. + +The Mississippi does not resign. He does not tell a tale of woe. He +does not say, "I am not appreciated. My genius is not understood. +I am not going a step farther south. I am going right back to Lake +Itasca." No, he does not even go to live with his father-in-law. + +He says, "Thank you. Every little helps, send it all along." Go a +few miles below the Twin Cities and see how, by some mysterious +alchemy of Nature, the Mississippi has taken over all the poison +and the defilement, he has purified it and clarified it, and has +made it a part of himself. And he is greater and farther south! + +He fattens upon bumps. Kick him, and you push him farther south. +"Hand him a lemon," and he makes lemonade. + +Civilization conspires to defeat the Mississippi. Chicago's +drainage canal pollutes him. The flat, lazy Platte, three miles +wide and three inches deep; the peevish, destructive Kaw, and all +those streams that unite to form the treacherous, sinful, +irresponsible lower Missouri; the big, muddy Ohio, the Arkansas, +the Red, the black and the blue floods--all these pour into the +Mississippi. + +Day by day the Father of Waters goes on south, taking them over and +purifying them and making them a part of himself. Nothing can +discourage, divert nor defile him. No matter how poisonous he +becomes, he goes a few miles on south and he is all pure again. + + + + + +Wonderful the book in the running brook! We let our life stream +become poisoned by bitter memories and bitter regrets. We carry +along such a heart full of the injuries that other people have done +us, that sometimes we are bank to bank full of poison and a menace +to those around us. We say, "I can forgive, but I cannot forget." + +Oh, forget it! Drop it all. Purify your life and go on south all +sweet again. We forget what we ought to remember and remember what +we ought to forget. We need schools of memory, but we need schools +of forgettery, even more. + +As you go on south and bless your valley, do you notice the valley +does not bless you very much? Have you sadly noted that the people +you help the most often are the least grateful in return? + +Don't wait to be thanked. Hurry on to avoid the kick! Do good to +others because that is the way to be happy, but do not wait for a +receipt for your goodness; you will need a poultice every time you +wait. I know, for I have waited! + + + + + +We get so discouraged. We say, "I have gone far enough south." +There is nobody who does not have that to meet. The preacher, the +teacher, the editor, the man in office, the business man, the +father and mother--every one who tries to carry on the work of the +church, the school, the lyceum and chautauqua, the work that makes +for a better community, gets discouraged at times. + +We fail to see what we are doing or why we are doing it. Sometimes +we sit down completely discouraged and say, "I'm done. I'm going to +quit. I have done my share. Nobody appreciates what I do. Let +somebody else do it awhile." + +Stop! You are not saying that. The evil one is whispering that into +your heart. His business is to stop you from going south. His most +successful tool is discouragement, which is a wedge, and if he can +get the sharp edge started into your thought, he is going to drive +it deeper. + +You do not go south and overcome your obstacles and bless the +valley for praise or blame, for appreciation or lack of it. You do +it to live. You do it to remain a living river and not a stagnant, +unhappy pond or swamp. + +YOU ARE SAVING YOURSELF BY SAVING OTHERS. GO ON SOUTH! + + + + + +Almost everybody is deceived. We work from mixed motives. We fool +ourselves that we are working to do good, when as we do the good, +if we are not praised or thanked for it, if people do not present +us a medal or resolutions, we want to quit. That is why there are +so many disappointed and disgruntled people in the world. They worked +for outside thanks instead of inside thanks. They were trying to +be personal saviours. They say this is an ungrateful world. + +O, how easy it is to say these things, and how hard it is to do them! + + + + +Reaching the Gulf + + +But because the Mississippi does these things, one day the train I +was riding stopped in Louisiana. We had come to a river so great +science has not yet been able to put a bridge across it. + +I watched them pile the steel train upon a ferry-boat. I watched +the boat crossing a river more than a mile wide. Standing upon the +ferry-boat, I could look down into the lordly river and then far +north perhaps fifteen hundred miles to the little struggling +streamlet starting southward thru the forests of Minnesota, there +writing the first chapter of this wonderful book in the running brook. + +I thank God that I had gone a little farther southward in my own +life. Father of Waters, you have fought a good fight. You are +conquering gloriously. You bear upon your bosom the commerce of +many nations. I know why. I saw you born, saw your struggles, saw +you get in the right channel, saw you learn the lessons of your +knocks, and saw that you never stopped going southward. + +And may we read it into our own lives. May we get the vision of +which way to go, and then keep on going south--on and on, overcoming, +getting the lessons of the bumps, the strength from the struggle +and thus making it a part of ourselves, and thus growing greater. + + + + +Go on South Forever! + + +Where shall we stop going south? At the Gulf of Mexico? + +The Mississippi knows nothing about the gulf. He goes on south +until he reaches the gulf. Then he pushes right on into the gulf as +tho nothing had happened. So he pushes his physical banks on south +many miles right out into the gulf. + +And when he comes to the end of his physical banks, he pushes on +south into the gulf, and goes on south round and round the globe. + +When you and I come to our Gulf of Mexico, we must push right on +south. So we push our physical banks years farther into the gulf. +And when physical banks fail, we go on south beyond this mere husk, +into the great Gulf of the Beyond, to go on south unfolding thru eternity. + +WE NEVER STOP GOING SOUTH. + + + +Chapter X + +Going Up Life's Mountain + +The Defeats that are Victories + +HOW often we say, "I wish I had a million!" Perhaps it is a +blessing that we have not the million. Perhaps it would make us +lazy, selfish and unhappy. Perhaps we would go around giving it to +other people to make them lazy, selfish and unhappy. + +O, the problem is not how to get money, but how to get rid of +money with the least injury to the race! + +Perhaps getting the million would completely spoil us. Look at the +wild cat and then look at the tabby cat. The wild cat supports +itself and the tabby cat has its million. So the tabby cat has to +be doctored by specialists. + +If the burden were lifted from most of us we would go to wreck. +Necessity is the ballast in our life voyage. + +When you hear the orator speak and you note the ease and power of +his work, do you think of the years of struggle he spent in +preparing? Do you ever think of the times that orator tried to +speak when he failed and went back to his room in disgrace, +mortified and broken-hearted? Thru it all there came the +discipline, experience and grim resolve that made him succeed. + +When you hear the musician and note the ease and grace of the +performance, do you think of the years of struggle and overcoming +necessary to produce that finish and grace? That is the story of +the actor, the author and every other one of attainment. + +Do you note that the tropics, the countries with the balmiest +climates, produce the weakest peoples? Do you note that the +conquering races are those that struggle with both heat and cold? +The tropics are the geographical Gussielands. + +Do you note that people grow more in lean years than in fat years? +Crop failures and business stringencies are not calamities, but +blessings in disguise. People go to the devil with full pockets; +they turn to God when hunger hits them. "Is not this Babylon that +I have builded?" says the Belshazzar of material prosperity as he +drinks to his gods. Then must come the Needful and Needless Knocks +handwriting upon the wall to save him. + +You have to shoot many men's eyes out before they can see. You have +to crack their heads before they can think, knock them down before +they can stand, break their hearts before they can sing, and +bankrupt them before they can be rich. + +Do you remember that they had to lock John Bunyan in Bedford jail +before he would write his immortal "Pilgrim's Progress"? It may be +that some of us will have to go to jail to do our best work. + +Do you remember that one musician became deaf before he wrote music +the world will always hear? Do you remember that one author became +blind before writing "Paradise Lost" the world will always read? + +Do you remember that Saul of Tarsus would have never been +remembered had he lived the life of luxury planned for him? He had +to be blinded before he could see the way to real success. He had +to be scourged and fettered to become the Apostle to the Gentiles. +He, too, had to be sent to prison to write his immortal messages to +humanity. What throne-rooms are some prisons! And what prisons are +some throne-rooms! + +Do you not see all around you that success is ever the phoenix +rising from the ashes of defeat? + +Then, children, when you stand in the row of graduates on +commencement day with your diplomas in your hands, and when your +relatives and friends say, "Success to you!" I shall take your hand +and say, "Defeat to you! And struggles to you! And bumps to you!" + +For that is the only way to say, "Success to you!" + + + + +Go Up the Mountain + +O UNIVERSITY OF HARD KNOCKS, we learn to love you more with each +passing year. We learn that you are cruel only to be kind. We learn +that you are saving us from ourselves. But O, how most of us must +be bumped to see this! + +I know no better way to close this lecture than to tell you of a +great bump that struck me one morning in Los Angeles. It seemed as +tho twelve years of my life had dropped out of it, and had been +lost. + +Were you ever bumped so hard you were numb? I was numb. I wondered +why I was living. I thought I had nothing more to live for. When a +dog is wounded he crawls away alone to lick his wounds. I felt like +the wounded dog. I wanted to crawl away to lick my wounds. + +That is why I climbed Mount Lowe that day. I wanted to get alone. + + + + + +It is a wonderful experience to climb Mount Lowe. The tourists go +up half a mile into Rubio Canyon, to the engineering miracle, the +triangular car that hoists them out of the hungry chasm thirty-five +hundred feet up the side of a granite cliff, to the top of Echo Mountain. + +Here they find that Echo Mountain is but a shelf on the side of +Mount Lowe. Here they take an electric car that winds five miles on +towards the sky. There is hardly a straight rail in the track. +Every minute a new thrill, and no two thrills alike. Five miles of +winding and squirming, twisting and ducking, dodging and summersaulting. + +There are places where the tourist wants to grasp his seat and +lift. There is a wooden shelf nailed to the side of the perpendicular +rockwall where his life depends upon the honesty of the man who drove +the nails. He may wonder if the man was working by the day or by the job! +He looks over the edge of the shelf downward, and then turns to the other +side to look at the face of the cliff they are hugging, and discovers +there is no place to resign! + +The car is five thousand feet high where it stops on that last shelf, +Alpine Tavern. One cannot ride farther upward. This is not the summit, +but just where science surrenders. There is a little trail that winds +upward from Alpine Tavern to the summit. It is three miles long +and rises eleven hundred feet. + +To go up that last eleven hundred feet and stand upon the flat rock +at the summit of Mount Lowe is to get a picture so wonderful it +cannot be described with this poor human vocabulary. It must be +lived. On a pure, clear day one looks down this sixty-one hundred +feet, more than a mile, into the orange belt of Southern California. +It spreads out below in one great mosaic of turquoise and amber +and emerald, where the miles seem like inches, and where his +field-glass sweeps one panoramic picture of a hundred miles or more. + +Just below is Pasadena and Los Angeles. To the westward perhaps +forty miles is the blue stretch of the Pacific Ocean, on westward +the faint outlines of Catalina Islands. The ocean seems so close +one could throw a pebble over into it. How a mountain does reduce +distances. You throw the pebble and it falls upon your toes! + +And Mount Lowe is but a shelf on the side of the higher Sierras. +The granite mountains rise higher to the northward, and to the east +rises "Old Baldy," twelve thousand feet high and snow eternally +on his head. + +This is one of the workshops of the infinite! + + + + + +All alone I scrambled up that three-mile trail to the summit. All +alone I stood upon the flat rock at the summit and looked down into +the swimming distances. I did not know why I had struggled up into +that mountain sanctuary, for I was not searching for sublimity. I +was searching for relief. I was heartsick. + +I saw clouds down in the valley below me. I had never before looked +down upon clouds. I thought of the cloud that had covered me in the +valley below, and dully watched the clouds spread wider and blacker. + +Afterwhile the valley was all hidden by the clouds. I knew rain +must be falling down there. The people must be saying, "The sun +doesn't shine. The sky is all gone." But I saw the truth--the sun +was shining. The sky was in place. A cloud had covered down over +that first mile. The sun was shining upon me, the sky was all blue +over me, and there were millions of miles of sunshine above me. I +could see all this because I had gone above the valley. I could see +above the clouds. + +A great light seemed to break over my stormswept soul. I am under +the clouds of trouble today, BUT THE SUN IS SHINING! + +I must go on up the mountain to see it. + +The years have been passing, the stormclouds have many times hidden +my sun. But I have always found the sun shining above them. No +matter how black and sunless today, when I have struggled on up the +mountain path, I have gotten above the clouds and found the sun +forever shining and God forever in His heavens. + +Each day as I go up the mountain I get a larger vision. The miles +that seem so great down in the valley, seem so small as I look down +upon them from higher up. Each day as I look back I see more +clearly the plan of a human life. The rocks, the curves and the +struggles fit into a divine engineering plan to soften the +steepness of the ascent. The bumps are lifts. The things that seem +so important down in the smudgy, stormswept valley, seem so +unimportant as we go higher up the mountain to more important +things. + +Today I look back to the bump that sent me up Mount Lowe. I did not +see how I could live past that bump. The years have passed and I now +know it was one of the greatest blessings of my life. It closed one +gate, but it opened another gate to a better pathway up the mountain. + +Late that day I was clambering down the side of Mount Lowe. Down in +the valley below me I saw shadows. Then I looked over into the +southwest and I could see the sun going down. I could see him sink +lower and lower until his red lips kissed the cheek of the Pacific. +The glory of the sunset filled sea and sky with flames of gold and +fountains of rainbows. Such a sunset from the mountain-side is a +promise of heaven. + +The shadows of sunset widened over the valley. Presently all the +valley was black with the shadow. It was night down there. The +people were saying, "The sun doesn't shine." But it was not night +where I stood. I was farther up the mountain. I turned and looked +up to the summit. The beams of the setting sun were yet gilding +Mount Lowe's summit. It was night down in the valley, but it was +day on the mountain top! + + + + + +Go on south! + + +That means, go on up! + + +Child of humanity, are you in the storm? Go on upward. Are you in +the night? Go on upward. + + +For the peace and the light are always above the storm and the +night, and always in our reach. + + +I am going on upward. Take my hand and let us go together. Mount Lowe +showed the way that dark day. There I heard the "sermons in stones." + + +Some day my night will come. It will spread over all this valley of +material things where the storms have raged. + + +But I shall be on the mountain top. I shall look down upon the +night, as I am learning to climb and look down upon the storms. I +shall be in the new day of the mountain-top, forever above the night. + + +I shall find this mountain-top just another shelf on the side of +the Mountain of Infinite Unfolding. I shall have risen perhaps only +the first mile. I shall have millions of miles yet to rise. + + +This will be another Commencement Day and Master's Degree. Infinite +the number on up. "Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have +entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared +for them that love Him." + +We are not growing old. We are going up to Eternal Life. + +Rejoice and Go Upward! + + + + + +ANOTHER BEGINNING + + + +The Big Business of Life +Turning work Into Play + +By Ralph Parlette + +This book proves that the real big business is that of getting our +happiness now in our work, and not tomorrow for our work. + +Judge Ben B. Lindsey, the kids' Judge, says: +"It is a great big boost for everybody who will read it. People +ought to buy them by the gross and send them to their friends." + +Dr. J. G. Crabbe, President of the State Teachers College, +Greeley, Colo., says: +"The Big Business of Life is a real joy to read. It is big and +ought to be read today and tomorrow and forevermore every +where. It is truly `A Book of Rejoicing'." + +The Augsberg Teacher, a Magazine for Teachers, says: +"In The Big Business of Life we have the practical philosophy +that it is everyone's business to abolish work and turn this +world into a playground. Who will not confess that many +mortals take their work too seriously, and that to them it is a +joyless, cheerless thing? To be able to find happiness, and to +find it when we are bending to our duties is to possess the +secret of living to the full. And happiness is to be sought +within, and not among the things that lie at our feet. The +book before us is wholesome and vivacious. It provokes many +a smile, and beneath each one is a bit of wisdom it would do us +a world of good to learn. It recalls the saying of the wise man +`A merry heart doeth good like a medicine'." + + +Many who have read The Big Business of Life +write us that they think it is even better than "The +University of Hard Knocks," which, they add, is +mighty hard to beat. + + + +It's Up To You! +Are You Shaking Up or Rattling Down? + +Go On South! +The Best is Yet to Come + +The Salvation of a Sucker +You Can't Get Something for Nothing + + +These booklets by Ralph Parlette are short stories adapted from +chapters in "The University of Hard Knocks." + + +John C. Carroll, President of the Hyde Park State Bank of Chicago, +bought 1000 copies of the booklet "It's Up to You!" and of it he +says. "Parlette's Beans and Nuts is just as good as the Message to +Garcia and will be handed around just us much. I have handed the book +to business men, to young fellows, bond salesmen and such, to our +own vice president, and they all want another copy to send to some +friend. I would rather be author of it than president of the bank." + + +Employers in every line of business are buying quantities of "It's +Up to You!" for their workers. + + +William Jennings Bryan says of the booklet "Go On South": "It is +one of the great stories of the day." + + +Charles Grilk of Davenport, says: "My two children and I read the +Mississippi River story together and we were thoroly delighted." + + +Instruct us to send one of these booklets to your friends. It will +delight them more than any small present you can make. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg etext of "The University of Hard Knocks" + diff --git a/old/hdknk10.zip b/old/hdknk10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6aa280d --- /dev/null +++ b/old/hdknk10.zip |