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Every Man His Own University By: Russell H. Conwell |
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By RUSSELL H. CONWELL
Every Man's University
Animals and "The Least Things"
The Bottom Rung
Thoughtfulness
Instincts and Individuality
VOLUME 4 NATIONAL
EXTENSION UNIVERSITY 597 Fifth Avenue, New York
OBSERVATION EVERY MAN HIS OWN UNIVERSITY Copyright, 1917, by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the United States of America
I EVERY MAN'S UNIVERSITY
A distinct university walks about under each man's hat. The only man who
achieves success in the other universities of the world, and in the
larger university of life, is the man who has first taken his graduate
course and his post graduate course in the university under his hat.
There observation furnishes a daily change in the curriculum. Books
are not the original sources of power, but observation, which may bring
to us all wide experience, deep thinking, fine feeling, and the power to
act for oneself, is the very dynamo of power. Without observation, literature and meditation are shower and sunshine
upon unbroken soil. Only those schools and colleges are true schools
and colleges which regard it as the chief business of all their
teaching to persuade those under their charge to see more perfectly what
they are looking at, to find what they should have been unable to
observe had it not been for their school instruction. You can't make a
good arrow from a pig's tail, and you can seldom get a man worth while
out of one who has gone through the early part of his life without
having learned to be alert when things are to be seen or heard. John
Stuart Blackie says that it is astonishing how much we all go about with
our eyes wide open and see nothing, and Doctor Johnson says that some
men shall see more while riding ten miles upon the top of an omnibus,
than some others shall see in riding over the continent. How to observe should be the motto, not only in the beginning of our
life, but throughout our career. With the same intellectual gifts,
interested in the same ideas, two men walk side by side through the same
scenery and meet the same people. One man has had much inspiration from
the country traversed, and has been intent upon all that he has seen and
heard among the people. The other has caught no inspiration from beauty
or bird or blossom, and only the trivialities of the people have amused
him.[1] A traveler in Athens or Rome, Paris or London, may be shown these cities
by a professional guide, and yet gain only a smattering of what these
cities hold in store for him, and remember little of what he has seen.
Another traveler, unattended by a guide, but observant of everything
that comes to his eyes and ears, will carry away stores from his visit
to those cities, which shall be of life long interest and be
serviceable to all who shall travel his way. The solitary but observant
stranger in a country almost always profits most from his travels. He is
compelled to notice boulevards and buildings, parks and people; and
every day of his travels is a lesson in observation that accustoms him
to remember all he has once seen. The newspaper correspondents of other
days had no guide books or guides, and they were entire strangers in the
places they visited. They relied entirely upon themselves to find their
way, and to discover everything that was valuable and interesting. They
found much that the modern guide either overlooks or disregards, and
wrote for the papers at home what would most interest and instruct their
readers. When Henry M. Stanley first visited Jerusalem he insisted that the
dragoman in charge of his party should keep all guides and guide books
out of his sight. In two days Stanley knew the streets and the location
of the Temple and the Holy Sepulcher and all the notable places in that
old city. If Stanley is to day known as one of the most intelligent of
travelers, it is mainly because he excelled in daily observation ,
which every one who thinks for himself recognizes as the supreme
acquisition of a liberal education... Continue reading book >>
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