The University of Hard Knocks Part 20

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, succ.u.mb 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 d.a.m.nation of the race.

The ma.s.s 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 cla.s.s.

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 p.r.o.ne 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 G.o.d'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 gla.s.s 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 pa.s.s 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 s.h.i.+ver as I think what I was saying then. I want to go on south s.h.i.+vering 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.