The University of Hard Knocks

n So

in the Ru

innesota called Lake Itasca. There is a place

e lake is leaking. What is t

o creek. It bane

the baby river leaps forth. We all start about alike. It wabbles around thru th

to the place where all of us get sooner or later. The place where Pa

"Little Mississippi, do you want to

t Itascaville say, "Why, Mississippi, you are foolish. You hain't got water enough to get out of the county

south. He is only trying to go south. He has not much water, but he does not wait for a relative to die and

he has some more water. He goes on south. He picks up another stream and grows some more. Day by da

any orations, especially in high school commencements, entitled, "The Value of a Goal in Life." But the direction is vastly mo

eed along the way. All we have to do is to start and we will find the resources all

e end of the journey, for there is no end. Success is every day in flowing

keep our ear to the receiver and live a more natural life, so that we can hear the ca

h. If he had gone any other directi

s develop as the Miss

oing on south an

is obstacles and

lley, but the valley

th and Gr

hat he is going on south and growing greater. You never mee

the state. But he does not retire upon his laurels. He goes on south and grows greater. He goes on so

im he is going on sou

the Mississippi. If he should stop and stagnate, he would not be

south, they keep on living. When

t over each day. I wish I could write it over the pulpits, over the schoolrooms, over the business houses and homes-GO ON SO

and make some little knee-pants achievement, some kindergarten touchdown, succumb to their press notices. Thei

canned. They think they have gotten to the Gulf of Mexico when

ell from our enemies, but heaven

s better than one victory. Success goes to the head an

ue of In

conspiracy to keep us f

ing south defies custom

esent achievement is th

s. The young people get a smattering and squeeze into the bottom position and never go on south to e

r keyboard. They think that is being a stenographer, when it is merely a symptom of a stenographer. They mangle the

rtise to do, because they have never gone south far enough to

getting competents to repair

our job if you are contented to do today just what you did y

o on south

ractice." The poor fellow did not know how poor a fiddler he really was. Well did Strickland Gillilan, America

s Our

o say, "I am aging rapidly." It pays to advertise. We always get results. See the

the undertaker goes and greases his

days. This is the best day so far, and

it of sentiment, but as the great fundamental of our life. I hope the oldest in years sees that best.

uth. It is the one who stops who "ages rapidly." Each day brings us a lar

de this moment for all the years before it. I have their f

ys and

the glass and communed with my feature

t a headmark in school? Gray hairs are silver

urn hair and the other first reader hair will

on the inside of the head, worry. Do you know why corporations sometimes say they do not want to employ gray-hea

y on the outside and green on the inside. They are the most valuable, for they have t

ho gets put on the retired list, ret

ut has kept young and fresh on the inside. Put that person in the pulpit, in the schoolroom, in the office, behind the ticket-window o

ow long, for I ought to know more about it by this time. But when anybody says, "I heard you lecture twenty years ago over

e. If anybody wants to be my best friend, let him come to me and tell me how t

e 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,

hen we have a new birth. The days when we go on south to l

dred years with mighty few birthdays. Some p

he never grew past copper-toed boot

have, the nearer we

, Davis a

th, is inspiring. No obstacle can daunt her. Losing a leg does not end her acting, for she remains the "Divine Sarah

s 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 th

senator and said, "Senator, you'll have to excuse me from getting up.

t. But, my man,

body and old in spi

Davis, "I was an Odd Fel

ounger than the man "past sixty

ograph that Mr. Edison invented into the meeting at Lak

linder, it screeched and stuttered. You would no

mas 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.

ded in getting into his laboratory the other day, and she wrote me that the great inventor show

so many ex

even thousand ways

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 repo

reme. Not "succeede

ng"! The difference between death and

egins a

ok him eighty years to get ready. Moses did not even get on the back page of the Egypt

board in the grocery store or to pitching horseshoes up the alley and talking about "ther winter of f

of the Young Man" and the Ostler idea that you are going down hill at fifty. Imagi

Israelites to the Promised Land? Why, Moses, you are an old man. Why don't you act like an old man? You are liab

t beginning to see what to do. Watch things happe

up. Moses is eighty-five and busier and more enthusiastic than ever. The people

The committee gets out the invitations and makes all the arrangements for a gorgeous funeral

his committee goes up to General Moses' private office. It is his busy day. They have to stand in line and wait

eighty-five years old and full of honors. We are the committee duly authorized

sday? Why, boys, every hour is taken next Thursday

to attend his own funeral! You cannot bury anybody until he consents. It is bad

day?" And Moses says, "No, boys, you'll just have to hold that funeral until I get th

n ever. He is doing ten men's work and his friends all s

the candle at both ends. He is

e is a hundred and twenty. Even then I read, "His eye was not dim,

is joyful reverence. It is the message to all of us, Go on south to the greater thi

rness. They were afraid to go on south. Only two of them went

other crop of Americans came into the limelight. If we modern America

Sob S

o quit, retire, "get on the sh

ly join the

oing to the dogs." They cry on my shoul

e person going on south has not time to

hich is often a fact. Nobody

d I'll be in that bright and happy land." What will they do with them when t

y when I was a child and I'm not happy now. Them w

gain is confessing he has lost his memory. Anybody who can remember

nybody who gets shortchanged regularly, it is a child. I am so s

ll the "Se

y childhood memories. I remembe

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 exam

dren going sadly into the next room to "wait till the second table

" We always had a big dinner on "quart'ly meeting day." Elder Berry would stay for

r. He was one of the easiest men to

brethren" brought in at the last donation. We had one of those stretchable tables, and mother would stretch i

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

the top and fill it with butter. I would see the butter melt and run down the sides, and I would say,

er 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 l

Did you ever hear a big dinner when you felt like the Mammoth Cave? I used to think as I would

piece of chicken left. It was the neck. O, Lord, spare the neck! And I would

rry would ta

e would say, "Brother Parlette, is this your boy?" He would come over to the remains

e place that neede

When all the chicken was gone and he had taken the neck! "My boy,

ortchanged-if there is anybody who doesn't have a good time, it's a child. Life h

etter

a child. A boy can be happy with fuzz on his upper lip, but he'll be happier when his lip feels mor

nd only hold a pint. But afterwhil

do not mean circumference. But every year we go south increases our capacity for joy. Our life is one continua

is 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 o

. I used to say, "I have not time to answer you now!" But today it i

know." I often think if people in an audience only k

for the answer. Every day brings the answe

eternity to kn

happiness to go

Obstacles D

ds obstacles along the way. You and I find ob

, Iowa, for

. It is many feet high, and many, many feet long. The river cannot go on sou

the obstacle develops light and power to vitalize the valley. A hundred towns and cities radiate the li

ight and the power. The light and the power were latent in the river, but

evelop our light and power. We are rivers of light and power, but it is

e power stations

us do not understand that. We look southward and we see the obstacles in the road. "I am s

e presence of the obstacles means that there is a lot of light and power in y

en I shall have no more obstacles to overcome!" When that t

d overcoming the obstacles

cks 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 s

thought the past month. Sometimes they sit and think, but genera

ried to the livest woman. Nature

he people trying to go on south. They say of the people t

y growl at the lyceum courses and chautauquas, because they "take money outa town." Th

I weep. I wish I could squirt some "p

ng this, so I hurry on to the last gli

uth From

character. That is, Why go on south? Not for blessing nor cursing, not for popularity no

nk 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 Min

not appreciated. My genius is not understood. I am not going a step farther south. I am

ow, by some mysterious alchemy of Nature, the Mississippi has taken over all the poison and the defilement,

d you push him farther south. "Hand

and three inches deep; the peevish, destructive Kaw, and all those streams that unite to form the treacherous, sinful, irresponsi

d making them a part of himself. Nothing can discourage, divert nor defile him. No ma

regrets. We carry along such a heart full of the injuries that other people have done us, that sometimes we

in. We forget what we ought to remember and remember what we ought to forg

ley does not bless you very much? Have you sadly noted that the

use that is the way to be happy, but do not wait for a receipt for your good

the teacher, the editor, the man in office, the business man, the father and mother-every one who tries to carry on the wor

own completely discouraged and say, "I'm done. I'm going to quit. I have do

is to stop you from going south. His most successful tool is discouragement, which is a wedge

praise or blame, for appreciation or lack of it. You do it to live. You

RSELF BY SAVING OT

d 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 peo

y these things, and how

ing t

in I was riding stopped in Louisiana. We had come to a river s

ferry-boat, I could look down into the lordly river and then far north perhaps fifteen hundred miles to the little struggling stre

e conquering gloriously. You bear upon your bosom the commerce of many nations. I know why. I saw you born, saw your struggle

en keep on going south-on and on, overcoming, getting the lessons of the bumps, the str

South

p going south? At

es the gulf. Then he pushes right on into the gulf as tho nothing had happene

l banks, he pushes on south into the gulf,

ical banks years farther into the gulf. And when physical banks fail, we go on south beyond

STOP GO