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Getting at the Inner Man
Millions of Hearers
How a University Was Founded
Conwell's Splendid Efficiency
The Story of "Acres of Diamonds"
By ROBERT SHACKLETON
and
Fifty Years on the Lecture Platform
By RUSSELL H. CONWELL
VOLUME 7
NATIONAL
EXTENSION UNIVERSITY
597 Fifth Avenue, New York
ACRES OF DIAMONDS
Copyright, 1915, by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the United States of America
I
MILLIONS OF HEARERS
That Conwell is not primarily a minister--that he is a minister because
he is a sincere Christian, but that he is first of all an Abou Ben
Adhem, a man who loves his fellow-men, becomes more and more apparent as
the scope of his life-work is recognized. One almost comes to think that
his pastorate of a great church is even a minor matter beside the
combined importance of his educational work, his lecture work, his
hospital work, his work in general as a helper to those who need help.
For my own part, I should say that he is like some of the old-time
prophets, the strong ones who found a great deal to attend to in
addition to matters of religion. The power, the ruggedness, the physical
and mental strength, the positive grandeur of the man--all these are
like the general conceptions of the big Old Testament prophets. The
suggestion is given only because it has often recurred, and therefore
with the feeling that there is something more than fanciful in the
comparison; and yet, after all, the comparison fails in one important
particular, for none of the prophets seems to have had a sense of humor!
It is perhaps better and more accurate to describe him as the last of
the old school of American philosophers, the last of those
sturdy-bodied, high-thinking, achieving men who, in the old days, did
their best to set American humanity in the right path--such men as
Emerson, Alcott, Gough, Wendell Phillips, Garrison, Bayard Taylor,
Beecher;[1] men whom Conwell knew and admired in the long ago, and all
of whom have long since passed away.
[Footnote 1: The life of Henry Ward Beecher parallels that of Russell H.
Conwell in many respects. His Plymouth Church in Brooklyn became the
largest in America with a seating capacity of nearly 3,000. But it was
not to this audience alone that he preached; for, believing as Dean
Conwell did after him, that all things concerning the public welfare are
fit subjects for a minister's attention, his opinions on all questions
were eagerly followed by the public at large. He was, perhaps, the most
popular lecturer in the country of his day, and was an unrivaled
after-dinner speaker. He allied himself with the Republican party as
soon as it was formed, lent his pen and pulpit to further its aims, and
during the canvass of 1856 traveled far and wide to speak at mass
meetings.
Beecher visited Europe in 1863 for his health and when in Great Britain
he addressed vast audiences on the purpose and issues of the Civil War,
speaking in one instance for three hours consecutively, and changing
materially the state of public opinion. He was a strong advocate of free
trade and of woman suffrage. His last public speech was in favor of high
license, at Chickering Hall, New York, Feb. 25, 1887.
It was as a speaker that Beecher was seen at his best. His mastery of
the English tongue, his dramatic power, his instinctive art of
impersonation which had become a second nature, his vivid imagination,
his breadth of intellectual view, the catholicity of his sympathies, and
his passionate enthusiasm made him a preacher without a peer in his own
time and country. Later, like Beecher, Conwell was without peer in his
day and the description which characterizes the former applies with
equal force to Conwell himself.]
And Conwell, in his going up and down the country, inspiring his
thousands and thousands, is the survivor of that old-time group who used
to travel about, dispensing wit and wisdom and philosophy and courage to
the crowded benches of country lyceums, and the chairs of school-houses
and town halls, or the larger and more pretentious gathering-places of
the cities.
Conwell himself is amused to remember that he wanted to talk in public
from his boyhood, and that very early he began to yield to the inborn
impulse. He laughs as he remembers the variety of country fairs and
school commencements and anniversaries and even sewing-circles where he
tried his youthful powers, and all for experience alone, in the first
few years, except possibly for such a thing as a ham or a jack-knife!
The first money that he ever received for speaking was, so he remembers
with glee, seventy-five cents; and even that was not for his talk, but
for horse hire! But at the same time there is more than amusement in
recalling these experiences, for he knows that they were invaluable to
him as training. And for over half a century he has affectionately
remembered John B. Gough, who, in the height of his own power and
success, saw resolution and possibilities in the ardent young hill-man,
and actually did him the kindness and the honor of introducing him to an
audience in one of the Massachusetts towns; and it was really a great
kindness and a great honor, from a man who had won his fame to a young
man just beginning an oratorical career.
Conwell's lecturing has been, considering everything, the most important
work of his life, for by it he has come into close touch with so many
millions--literally millions!--of people.
I asked him once if he had any idea how many he had talked to in the
course of his career, and he tried to estimate how many thousands of
times he had lectured, and the average attendance for each, but desisted
when he saw that it ran into millions of hearers. What a marvel is such
a fact as that! Millions of hearers!
I asked the same question of his private secretary, and found that no
one had ever kept any sort of record; but as careful an estimate as
could be made gave a conservative result of fully eight million hearers
for his lectures; and adding the number to whom he has preached, who
have been over five million, there is a total of well over thirteen
million who have listened to Russell Conwell's voice! And this
staggering total is, if anything, an underestimate. The figuring was
done cautiously and was based upon such facts as that he now addresses
an average of over forty-five hundred at his Sunday services (an average
that would be higher were it not that his sermons in vacation time are
usually delivered in little churches; when at home, at the Temple, he
addresses three meetings every Sunday), and that he lectures throughout
the entire course of each year, including six nights a week of
lecturing during vacation-time. What a power is wielded by a man who has
held over thirteen million people under the spell of his voice! Probably
no other man who ever lived had such a total of hearers. And the total
is steadily mounting, for he is a man who has never known the meaning of
rest.
I think it almost certain that Dr. Conwell has never spoken to any one
of what, to me, is the finest point of his lecture-work, and that is
that he still goes gladly and for small fees to the small towns that are
never visited by other men of great reputation. He knows that it is the
little places, the out-of-the-way places, the submerged places, that
most need a pleasure and a stimulus, and he still goes out, man of well
over seventy that he is, to tiny towns in distant states, heedless of
the discomforts of traveling, of the poor little hotels that seldom have
visitors, of the oftentimes hopeless cooking and the uncleanliness, of
the hardships and the discomforts, of the unventilated and overheated or
underheated halls. He does not think of claiming the relaxation earned
by a lifetime of labor, or, if he ever does, the thought of the sword of
John Ring restores instantly his fervid earnestness.
How he does it, how he can possibly keep it up, is the greatest marvel
of all. I have before me a list of his engagements for the summer weeks
of this year, 1915, and I shall set it down because it will
specifically show, far more clearly than general statements, the kind
of work he does. The list is the itinerary of his vacation. Vacation!
Lecturing every evening but Sunday, and on Sundays preaching in the town
where he happens to be!
June 24 Ackley, Ia.
" 25 Waterloo, Ia.
" 26 Decorah, Ia.
" 27 [2]Waukon, Ia.
" 28 Red Wing, Minn.
" 29 River Ralls, Wis.
" 30 Northfield, Minn.
July 1 Faribault, Minn.
" 2 Spring Valley, Minn.
" 3 Blue Earth, Minn.
" 4 [2]Fairmount, Minn.
" 5 Lake Crystal, Minn.
" 6 Redwood Falls,
Minn.
" 7 Willmer, Minn.
" 8 Dawson, Minn.
" 9 Redfield, S. D.
" 10 Huron, S. D.
" 11 [2]Brookings, S. D.
" 12 Pipestone, Minn.
" 13 Hawarden, Ia.
" 14 Canton, S. D.
" 15 Cherokee, Ia.
" 16 Pocahontas, Ia.
" 17 Glidden, Ia.
" 18 [2]Boone, Ia.
" 19 Dexter, Ia.
" 20 Indianola, Ia.
" 21 Corydon, Ia.
" 22 Essex, Ia.
" 23 Sidney, Ia.
" 24 Falls City, Nebr.
" 25 [2]Hiawatha, Kan.
" 26 Frankfort, Kan.
" 27 Greenleaf, Kan.
" 28 Osborne, Kan.
" 29 Stockton, Kan.
" 30 Phillipsburg, Kan.
" 31 Mankato, Kan.
_En route to next date on circuit._
Aug. 3 Westfield, Pa.
" 4 Galston, Pa.
" 5 Port Alleghany, Pa.
" 6 Wellsville, N. Y.
" 7 Bath, N. Y.
" 8 [2]Bath, N. Y.
" 9 Penn Yan, N. Y.
" 10 Athens, N. Y.
" 11 Owego, N. Y.
" 12 Patchogue, L. I., N. Y.
" 13 Port Jervis, N. Y.
" 14 Honesdale, Pa.
" 15 [2]Honesdale, Pa.
" 16 Carbondale, Pa.
" 17 Montrose, Pa.
" 18 Tunkhannock, Pa.
" 19 Nanticoke, Pa.
" 20 Stroudsburg, Pa.
" 21 Newton, N. J.
" 22 [2]Newton, N. J.
" 23 Hackettstown, N. J.
" 24 New Hope, Pa.
" 25 Doylestown, Pa.
" 26 Phoenixville, Pa.
" 27 Kennett, Pa.
" 28 Oxford, Pa.
" 29 [2]Oxford, Pa.
[Footnote 2: Preach on Sunday.]
And all these hardships, all this traveling and lecturing, which would
test the endurance of the youngest and strongest, this man of over
seventy assumes without receiving a particle of personal gain, for every
dollar that he makes by it is given away in helping those who need
helping.
That Dr. Conwell is intensely modest is one of the curious features of
his character. He sincerely believes that to write his life would be, in
the main, just to tell what people have done for him. He knows and
admits that he works unweariedly, but in profound sincerity he ascribes
the success of his plans to those who have seconded and assisted him. It
is in just this way that he looks upon every phase of his life. When he
is reminded of the devotion of his old soldiers, he remembers it only
with a sort of pleased wonder that they gave the devotion to him, and he
quite forgets that they loved him because he was always ready to
sacrifice ease or risk his own life for them.
He deprecates praise; if any one likes him, the liking need not be shown
in words, but in helping along a good work. That his church has
succeeded has been because of the devotion of the people; that the
university has succeeded is because of the splendid work of the teachers
and pupils; that the hospitals have done so much has been because of the
noble services of physicians and nurses. To him, as he himself expresses
it, realizing that success has come to his plans, it seem as if the
realities are but dreams. He is astonished by his own success. He thinks
mainly of his own short-comings. "God and man have ever been very
patient with me." His depression is at times profound when he compares
the actual results with what he would like them to be, for always his
hopes have gone soaring far in advance of achievement. It is the "Hitch
your chariot to a star" idea.
His modesty goes hand-in-hand with kindliness, and I have seen him let
himself be introduced in his own church to his congregation, when he is
going to deliver a lecture there, just because a former pupil of the
university was present who, Conwell knew, was ambitious to say something
inside of the Temple walls, and this seemed to be the only opportunity.
I have noticed, when he travels, that the face of the newsboy brightens
as he buys a paper from him, that the porter is all happiness, that
conductor and brake-man are devotedly anxious to be of aid. Everywhere
the man wins love. He loves humanity and humanity responds to the love.
He has always won the affection of those who knew him, and Bayard Taylor
was one of the many; he and Bayard Taylor loved each other for long
acquaintance and fellow experiences as world-wide travelers, back in the
years when comparatively few Americans visited the Nile and the Orient,
or even Europe.
When Taylor died there was a memorial service in Boston at which
Conwell was asked to preside, and, as he wished for something more than
addresses, he went to Longfellow and asked him to write and read a poem
for the occasion. Longfellow had not thought of writing anything, and he
was too ill to be present at the services, but, there always being
something contagiously inspiring about Russell Conwell when he wishes
something to be done, the poet promised to do what he could. And he
wrote and sent the beautiful lines beginning:
_Dead he lay among his books,
The peace of God was in his looks._
Many men of letters, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, were present at the
services, and Dr. Conwell induced Oliver Wendell Holmes to read the
lines, and they were listened to amid profound silence to their fine
ending.
Conwell, in spite of his widespread hold on millions of people, has
never won fame, recognition, general renown, compared with many men of
minor achievements. This seems like an impossibility. Yet it is not an
impossibility, but a fact. Great numbers of men of education and culture
are entirely ignorant of him and his work in the world--men, these, who
deem themselves in touch with world-affairs and with the ones who make
and move the world. It is inexplicable, this, except that never was
there a man more devoid of the faculty of self-exploitation,
self-advertising, than Russell Conwell. Nor, in the mere reading of
them, do his words appeal with anything like the force of the same words
uttered by himself, for always, with his spoken words, is his
personality. Those who have heard Russell Conwell, or have known him
personally, recognize the charm of the man and his immense forcefulness;
but there are many, and among them those who control publicity through
books and newspapers, who, though they ought to be the warmest in their
enthusiasm, have never felt drawn to hear him, and, if they know of him
at all, think of him as one who pleases in a simple way the commoner
folk, forgetting in their pride that every really great man pleases the
common ones, and that simplicity and directness are attributes of real
greatness.
But Russell Conwell has always won the admiration of the really great,
as well as of the humbler millions. It is only a supposedly cultured
class in between that is not thoroughly acquainted with what he has
done.
Perhaps, too, this is owing to his having cast in his lot with the city,
of all cities, which, consciously or unconsciously, looks most closely
to family and place of residence as criterions of merit--a city with
which it is almost impossible for a stranger to become affiliated--or
aphiladelphiated, as it might be expressed--and Philadelphia, in spite
of all that Dr. Conwell has done, has been under the thrall of the fact
that he went north of Market Street--that fatal fact understood by all
who know Philadelphia--and that he made no effort to make friends in
Rittenhouse Square. Such considerations seem absurd in this twentieth
century, but in Philadelphia they are still potent. Tens of thousands of
Philadelphians love him, and he is honored by its greatest men, but
there is a class of the pseudo-cultured who do not know him or
appreciate him. And it needs also to be understood that, outside of his
own beloved Temple, he would prefer to go to a little church or a little
hall and to speak to the forgotten people, in the hope of encouraging
and inspiring them and filling them with hopeful glow, rather than to
speak to the rich and comfortable.
His dearest hope, so one of the few who are close to him told me, is
that no one shall come into his life without being benefited. He does
not say this publicly, nor does he for a moment believe that such a hope
could be fully realized, but it is very dear to his heart; and no man
spurred by such a hope, and thus bending all his thoughts toward the
poor, the hard-working, the unsuccessful, is in a way to win honor from
the Scribes; for we have Scribes now quite as much as when they were
classed with Pharisees. It is not the first time in the world's history
that Scribes have failed to give their recognition to one whose work was
not among the great and wealthy.
That Conwell himself has seldom taken any part whatever in politics
except as a good citizen standing for good government; that, as he
expresses it, he never held any political office except that he was once
on a school committee, and also that he does not identify himself with
the so-called "movements" that from time to time catch public attention,
but aims only and constantly at the quiet betterment of mankind, may be
mentioned as additional reasons why his name and fame have not been
steadily blazoned.
He knows and will admit that he works hard and has all his life worked
hard. "Things keep turning my way because I'm on the job," as he
whimsically expressed it one day; but that is about all, so it seems to
him.
And he sincerely believes that his life has in itself been without
interest; that it has been an essentially commonplace life with nothing
of the interesting or the eventful to tell. He is frankly surprised that
there has ever been the desire to write about him. He really has no idea
of how fascinating are the things he has done. His entire life has been
of positive interest from the variety of things accomplished and the
unexpectedness with which he has accomplished them.
Never, for example, was there such an organizer. In fact, organization
and leadership have always been as the breath of life to him. As a youth
he organized debating societies and, before the war, a local military
company. While on garrison duty in the Civil War he organized what is
believed to have been the first free school for colored children in the
South. One day Minneapolis happened to be spoken of, and Conwell
happened to remember that he organized, when he was a lawyer in that
city, what became the first Y. M. C. A. branch there. Once he even
started a newspaper. And it was natural that the organizing instinct, as
years advanced, should lead him to greater and greater things, such as
his church, with the numerous associations formed within itself through
his influence, and the university--the organizing of the university
being in itself an achievement of positive romance.
"A life without interest!" Why, when I happened to ask, one day, how
many Presidents he had known since Lincoln, he replied, quite casually,
that he had "written the lives of most of them in their own homes"; and
by this he meant either personally or in collaboration with the American
biographer Abbott.
The many-sidedness of Conwell is one of the things that is always
fascinating. After you have quite got the feeling that he is peculiarly
a man of today, lecturing on today's possibilities to the people of
today, you happen upon some such fact as that he attracted the attention
of the London _Times_ through a lecture on Italian history at Cambridge
in England; or that on the evening of the day on which he was admitted
to practice in the Supreme Court of the United States he gave a lecture
in Washington on "The Curriculum of the Prophets in Ancient Israel." The
man's life is a succession of delightful surprises.
An odd trait of his character is his love for fire. He could easily have
been a veritable fire-worshiper instead of an orthodox Christian! He has
always loved a blaze, and he says reminiscently that for no single thing
was he punished so much when he was a child as for building bonfires.
And after securing possession, as he did in middle age, of the house
where he was born and of a great acreage around about, he had one of the
most enjoyable times of his life in tearing down old buildings that
needed to be destroyed and in heaping up fallen trees and rubbish and in
piling great heaps of wood and setting the great piles ablaze. You see,
there is one of the secrets of his strength--he has never lost the
capacity for fiery enthusiasm!
Always, too, in these later years he is showing his strength and
enthusiasm in a positively noble way. He has for years been a keen
sufferer from rheumatism and neuritis, but he has never permitted this
to interfere with his work or plans. He makes little of his sufferings,
and when he slowly makes his way, bent and twisted, downstairs, he does
not want to be noticed. "I'm all right," he will say if any one offers
to help, and at such a time comes his nearest approach to impatience. He
wants his suffering ignored. Strength has always been to him so precious
a belonging that he will not relinquish it while he lives. "I'm all
right!" And he makes himself believe that he is all right even though
the pain becomes so severe as to demand massage. And he will still,
even when suffering, talk calmly, or write his letters, or attend to
whatever matters come before him. It is the Spartan boy hiding the pain
of the gnawing fox. And he never has let pain interfere with his
presence on the pulpit or the platform. He has once in a while gone to a
meeting on crutches and then, by the force of will, and inspired by what
he is to do, has stood before his audience or congregation, a man full
of strength and fire and life.
II
HOW A UNIVERSITY WAS FOUNDED
The story of the foundation and rise of Temple University is an
extraordinary story; it is not only extraordinary, but inspiring; it is
not only inspiring, but full of romance.
For the university came out of nothing!--nothing but the need of a young
man and the fact that he told the need to one who, throughout his life,
has felt the impulse to help any one in need and has always obeyed the
impulse.
I asked Dr. Conwell, up at his home in the Berkshires, to tell me
himself just how the university began, and he said that it began because
it was needed and succeeded because of the loyal work of the teachers.
And when I asked for details he was silent for a while, looking off into
the brooding twilight as it lay over the waters and the trees and the
hills, and then he said:
"It was all so simple; it all came about so naturally. One evening,
after a service, a young man of the congregation came to me and I saw
that he was disturbed about something. I had him sit down by me, and I
knew that in a few moments he would tell me what was troubling him.
"'Dr. Conwell,' he said, abruptly, 'I earn but little money, and I see
no immediate chance of earning more. I have to support not only myself,
but my mother. It leaves nothing at all. Yet my longing is to be a
minister. It is the one ambition of my life. Is there anything that I
can do?'
"'Any man,' I said to him, 'with the proper determination and ambition
can study sufficiently at night to win his desire.'
"'I have tried to think so,' said he, 'but I have not been able to see
anything clearly. I want to study, and am ready to give every spare
minute to it, but I don't know how to get at it.'
"I thought a few minutes, as I looked at him. He was strong in his
desire and in his ambition to fulfil it--strong enough, physically and
mentally, for work of the body and of the mind--and he needed something
more than generalizations of sympathy.
"'Come to me one evening a week and I will begin teaching you myself,' I
said, 'and at least you will in that way make a beginning'; and I named
the evening.
"His face brightened and he eagerly said that he would come, and left
me; but in a little while he came hurrying back again. 'May I bring a
friend with me?' he said.
"I told him to bring as many as he wanted to, for more than one would
be an advantage, and when the evening came there were six friends with
him. And that first evening I began to teach them the foundations of
Latin."
He stopped as if the story was over. He was looking out thoughtfully
into the waning light, and I knew that his mind was busy with those days
of the beginning of the institution he so loves, and whose continued
success means so much to him. In a little while he went on:
"That was the beginning of it, and there is little more to tell. By the
third evening the number of pupils had increased to forty; others joined
in helping me, and a room was hired; then a little house, then a second
house. From a few students and teachers we became a college. After a
while our buildings went up on Broad Street alongside the Temple Church,
and after another while we became a university. From the first our
aim"--(I noticed how quickly it had become "our" instead of "my")--"our
aim was to give education to those who were unable to get it through the
usual channels. And so that was really all there was to it."
That was typical of Russell Conwell--to tell with brevity of what he has
done, to point out the beginnings of something, and quite omit to
elaborate as to the results. And that, when you come to know him, is
precisely what he means you to understand--that it is the beginning of
anything that is important, and that if a thing is but earnestly begun
and set going in the right way it may just as easily develop big results
as little results.
But his story was very far indeed from being "all there was to it," for
he had quite omitted to state the extraordinary fact that, beginning
with those seven pupils, coming to his library on an evening in 1884,
the Temple University has numbered, up to Commencement-time in 1915,
88,821 students! Nearly one hundred thousand students, and in the
lifetime of the founder! Really, the magnitude of such a work cannot be
exaggerated, nor the vast importance of it when it is considered that
most of these eighty-eight thousand students would not have received
their education had it not been for Temple University. And it all came
from the instant response of Russell Conwell to the immediate need
presented by a young man without money!
"And there is something else I want to say," said Dr. Conwell,
unexpectedly. "I want to say, more fully than a mere casual word, how
nobly the work was taken up by volunteer helpers; professors from the
University of Pennsylvania and teachers from the public schools and
other local institutions gave freely of what time they could until the
new venture was firmly on its way. I honor those who came so devotedly
to help. And it should be remembered that in those early days the need
was even greater than it would now appear, for there were then no night
schools or manual-training schools. Since then the city of Philadelphia
has gone into such work, and as fast as it has taken up certain branches
the Temple University has put its energy into the branches just higher.
And there seems no lessening of the need of it," he added, ponderingly.
No; there is certainly no lessening of the need of it! The figures of
the annual catalogue would alone show that.
As early as 1887, just three years after the beginning, the Temple
College, as it was by that time called, issued its first catalogue,
which set forth with stirring words that the intent of its founding was
to:
"Provide such instruction as shall be best adapted to the higher
education of those who are compelled to labor at their trade while
engaged in study.
"Cultivate a taste for the higher and most useful branches of learning.
"Awaken in the character of young laboring men and women a determined
ambition to be useful to their fellow-men."
The college--the university as it in time came to be--early broadened
its scope, but it has from the first continued to aim at the needs of
those unable to secure education without such help as, through its
methods, it affords.
It was chartered in 1888, at which time its numbers had reached almost
six hundred, and it has ever since had a constant flood of applicants.
"It has demonstrated," as Dr. Conwell puts it, "that those who work for
a living have time for study." And he, though he does not himself add
this, has given the opportunity.
He feels especial pride in the features by which lectures and
recitations are held at practically any hour which best suits the
convenience of the students. If any ten students join in a request for
any hour from nine in the morning to ten at night a class is arranged
for them, to meet that request! This involves the necessity for a much
larger number of professors and teachers than would otherwise be
necessary, but that is deemed a slight consideration in comparison with
the immense good done by meeting the needs of workers.
Also President Conwell--for of course he is the president of the
university--is proud of the fact that the privilege of graduation
depends entirely upon knowledge gained; that graduation does not depend
upon having listened to any set number of lectures or upon having
attended for so many terms or years. If a student can do four years'
work in two years or in three he is encouraged to do it, and if he
cannot even do it in four he can have no diploma.
Obviously, there is no place at Temple University for students who care
only for a few years of leisured ease. It is a place for workers, and
not at all for those who merely wish to be able to boast that they
attended a university. The students have come largely from among
railroad clerks, bank clerks, bookkeepers, teachers, preachers,
mechanics, salesmen, drug clerks, city and United States government
employees, widows, nurses, housekeepers, brakemen, firemen, engineers,
motormen, conductors, and shop hands.
It was when the college became strong enough, and sufficiently advanced
in scholarship and standing, and broad enough in scope, to win the name
of university that this title was officially granted to it by the State
of Pennsylvania, in 1907, and now its educational plan includes three
distinct school systems.
First: it offers a high-school education to the student who has to quit
school after leaving the grammar-school.
Second: it offers a full college education, with the branches taught in
long-established high-grade colleges, to the student who has to quit on
leaving the high-school.
Third: it offers further scientific or professional education to the
college graduate who must go to work immediately on quitting college,
but who wishes to take up some such course as law or medicine or
engineering.
Out of last year's enrolment of 3,654 it is interesting to notice that
the law claimed 141; theology, 182; medicine and pharmacy and dentistry
combined, 357; civil engineering, 37; also that the teachers' college,
with normal courses on such subjects as household arts and science,
kindergarten work, and physical education, took 174; and still more
interesting, in a way, to see that 269 students were enrolled for the
technical and vocational courses, such as cooking and dress-making,
millinery, manual crafts, school-gardening, and story-telling. There
were 511 in high-school work, and 243 in elementary education. There
were 79 studying music, and 68 studying to be trained nurses. There were
606 in the college of liberal arts and sciences, and in the department
of commercial education there were 987--for it is a university that
offers both scholarship and practicality.
Temple University is not in the least a charitable institution. Its fees
are low, and its hours are for the convenience of the students
themselves, but it is a place of absolute independence. It is, indeed, a
place of far greater independence, so one of the professors pointed out,
than are the great universities which receive millions and millions of
money in private gifts and endowments.
Temple University in its early years was sorely in need of money, and
often there were thrills of expectancy when some man of mighty wealth
seemed on the point of giving. But not a single one ever did, and now
the Temple likes to feel that it is glad of it. The Temple, to quote its
own words, is "An institution for strong men and women who can labor
with both mind and body."
And the management is proud to be able to say that, although great
numbers have come from distant places, "not one of the many thousands
ever failed to find an opportunity to support himself."
Even in the early days, when money was needed for the necessary
buildings (the buildings of which Conwell dreamed when he left
second-story doors in his church!), the university--college it was then
called--had won devotion from those who knew that it was a place where
neither time nor money was wasted, and where idleness was a crime, and
in the donations for the work were many such items as four hundred
dollars from factory-workers who gave fifty cents each, and two thousand
dollars from policemen who gave a dollar each. Within two or three years
past the State of Pennsylvania has begun giving it a large sum annually,
and this state aid is public recognition of Temple University as an
institution of high public value. The state money is invested in the
brains and hearts of the ambitious.
So eager is Dr. Conwell to place the opportunity of education before
every one, that even his servants must go to school! He is not one of
those who can see needs that are far away but not those that are right
at home. His belief in education, and in the highest attainable
education, is profound, and it is not only on account of the abstract
pleasure and value of education, but its power of increasing actual
earning power and thus making a worker of more value to both himself and
the community.
Many a man and many a woman, while continuing to work for some firm or
factory, has taken Temple technical courses and thus fitted himself or
herself for an advanced position with the same employer. The Temple
knows of many such, who have thus won prominent advancement. And it
knows of teachers who, while continuing to teach, have fitted themselves
through the Temple courses for professorships. And it knows of many a
case of the rise of a Temple student that reads like an Arabian Nights'
fancy!--of advance from bookkeeper to editor, from office-boy to bank
president, from kitchen maid to school principal, from street-cleaner to
mayor! The Temple University helps them that help themselves.
President Conwell told me personally of one case that especially
interested him because it seemed to exhibit, in especial degree, the
Temple possibilities; and it particularly interested me because it also
showed, in high degree, the methods and personality of Dr. Conwell
himself.
One day a young woman came to him and said she earned only three dollars
a week and that she desired very much to make more. "Can you tell me how
to do it?" she said.
He liked her ambition and her directness, but there was something that
he felt doubtful about, and that was that her hat looked too expensive
for three dollars a week!
Now Dr. Conwell is a man whom you would never suspect of giving a
thought to the hat of man or woman! But as a matter of fact there is
very little that he does not see.
But though the hat seemed too expensive for three dollars a week, Dr.
Conwell is not a man who makes snap-judgments harshly, and in particular
he would be the last man to turn away hastily one who had sought him out
for help. He never felt, nor could possibly urge upon any one,
contentment with a humble lot; he stands for advancement; he has no
sympathy with that dictum of the smug, that has come to us from a nation
tight bound for centuries by its gentry and aristocracy, about being
contented with the position in which God has placed you, for he points
out that the Bible itself holds up advancement and success as things
desirable.
And, as to the young woman before him, it developed, through discreet
inquiry veiled by frank discussion of her case, that she had made the
expensive-looking hat herself! Whereupon not only did all doubtfulness
and hesitation vanish, but he saw at once how she could better herself.
He knew that a woman who could make a hat like that for herself could
make hats for other people, and so, "Go into millinery as a business,"
he advised.
"Oh--if I only could!" she exclaimed. "But I know that I don't know
enough."
"Take the millinery course in Temple University," he responded.
She had not even heard of such a course, and when he went on to explain
how she could take it and at the same time continue at her present work
until the course was concluded, she was positively ecstatic--it was all
so unexpected, this opening of the view of a new and broader life.
"She was an unusual woman," concluded Dr. Conwell, "and she worked with
enthusiasm and tirelessness. She graduated, went to an up-state city
that seemed to offer a good field, opened a millinery establishment
there, with her own name above the door, and became prosperous. That was
only a few years ago. And recently I had a letter from her, telling me
that last year she netted a clear profit of three thousand six hundred
dollars!"
I remember a man, himself of distinguished position, saying of Dr.
Conwell, "It is difficult to speak in tempered language of what he has
achieved." And that just expresses it; the temptation is constantly to
use superlatives--for superlatives fit! Of course he has succeeded for
himself, and succeeded marvelously, in his rise from the rocky hill
farm, but he has done so vastly more than that in inspiring such hosts
of others to succeed!
A dreamer of dreams and a seer of visions--and what realizations have
come! And it interested me profoundly not long ago, when Dr. Conwell,
talking of the university, unexpectedly remarked that he would like to
see such institutions scattered throughout every state in the Union.
"All carried on at slight expense to the students and at hours to suit
all sorts of working men and women," he added, after a pause; and then,
abruptly, "I should like to see the possibility of higher education
offered to every one in the United States who works for a living."
There was something superb in the very imagining of such a nation-wide
system. But I did not ask whether or not he had planned any details for
such an effort. I knew that thus far it might only be one of his
dreams--but I also knew that his dreams had a way of becoming realities.
I had a fleeting glimpse of his soaring vision. It was amazing to find a
man of more than three-score and ten thus dreaming of more worlds to
conquer. And I thought, what could the world have accomplished if
Methuselah had been a Conwell!--or, far better, what wonders could be
accomplished if Conwell could but be a Methuselah!
He has all his life been a great traveler. He is a man who sees vividly
and who can describe vividly. Yet often his letters, even from places of
the most profound interest, are mostly concerned with affairs back home.
It is not that he does not feel, and feel intensely, the interest of
what he is visiting, but that his tremendous earnestness keeps him
always concerned about his work at home. There could be no stronger
example than what I noticed in a letter he wrote from Jerusalem. "I am
in Jerusalem! And here at Gethsemane and at the Tomb of Christ"--reading
thus far, one expects that any man, and especially a minister, is sure
to say something regarding the associations of the place and the effect
of these associations on his mind; but Conwell is always the man who is
different--"And here at Gethsemane and at the Tomb of Christ, I pray
especially for the Temple University." That is Conwellism!
That he founded a hospital--a work in itself great enough for even a
great life--is but one among the striking incidents of his career. And
it came about through perfect naturalness. For he came to know, through
his pastoral work and through his growing acquaintance with the needs of
the city, that there was a vast amount of suffering and wretchedness and
anguish, because of the inability of the existing hospitals to care for
all who needed care. There was so much sickness and suffering to be
alleviated, there were so many deaths that could be prevented--and so he
decided to start another hospital.
And, like everything with him, the beginning was small. That cannot too
strongly be set down as the way of this phenomenally successful
organizer. Most men would have to wait until a big beginning could be
made, and so would most likely never make a beginning at all. But
Conwell's way is to dream of future bigness, but be ready to begin at
once, no matter how small or insignificant the beginning may appear to
others.
Two rented rooms, one nurse, one patient--this was the humble beginning,
in 1891, of what has developed into the great Samaritan Hospital. In a
year there was an entire house, fitted up with wards and operating-room.
Now it occupies several buildings, including and adjoining that first
one, and a great new structure is planned. But even as it is, it has a
hundred and seventy beds, is fitted with all modern hospital appliances,
and has a large staff of physicians; and the number of surgical
operations performed there is very large.
It is open to sufferers of any race or creed, and the poor are never
refused admission, the rule being that treatment is free for those who
cannot pay, but that such as can afford it shall pay according to their
means.
And the hospital has a kindly feature that endears it to patients and
their relatives alike, and that is that, by Dr. Conwell's personal
order, there are not only the usual week-day hours for visiting, but
also one evening a week and every Sunday afternoon. "For otherwise," as
he says, "many would be unable to come because they could not get away
from their work."
A little over eight years ago another hospital was taken in charge, the
Garretson--not founded by Conwell, this one, but acquired, and promptly
expanded in its usefulness.
Both the Samaritan and the Garretson are part of Temple University. The
Samaritan Hospital has treated, since its foundation, up to the middle
of 1915, 29,301 patients; the Garretson, in its shorter life, 5,923.
Including dispensary cases as well as house patients, the two hospitals
together, under the headship of President Conwell, have handled over
400,000 cases.
How Conwell can possibly meet the multifarious demands upon his time is
in itself a miracle. He is the head of the great church; he is the head
of the university; he is the head of the hospitals; he is the head of
everything with which he is associated! And he is not only nominally,
but very actively, the head!
III
HIS SPLENDID EFFICIENCY
Conwell has a few strong and efficient executive helpers who have long
been associated with him; men and women who know his ideas and ideals,
who are devoted to him, and who do their utmost to relieve him; and of
course there is very much that is thus done for him; but even as it is,
he is so overshadowing a man (there is really no other word) that all
who work with him look to him for advice and guidance--the professors
and the students, the doctors and the nurses, the church officers, the
Sunday-school teachers, the members of his congregation. And he is never
too busy to see any one who really wishes to see him.
He can attend to a vast intricacy of detail, and answer myriad personal
questions and doubts, and keep the great institutions splendidly going,
by thorough systematization of time, and by watching every minute. He
has several secretaries, for special work, besides his private
secretary. His correspondence is very great. Often he dictates to a
secretary as he travels on the train. Even in the few days for which he
can run back to the Berkshires, work is awaiting him. Work follows him.
And after knowing of this, one is positively amazed that he is able to
give to his country-wide lectures the time and the traveling that they
inexorably demand. Only a man of immense strength, of the greatest
stamina, a veritable superman, could possibly do it. And at times one
quite forgets, noticing the multiplicity of his occupations, that he
prepares two sermons and two talks on Sunday!
Here is his usual Sunday schedule, when at home. He rises at seven and
studies until breakfast, which is at eight-thirty. Then he studies until
nine-forty-five, when he leads a men's meeting at which he is likely
also to play the organ and lead the singing. At ten-thirty is the
principal church service, at which he preaches, and at the close of
which he shakes hands with hundreds. He dines at one, after which he
takes fifteen minutes' rest and then reads; and at three o'clock he
addresses, in a talk that is like another sermon, a large class of
men--not the same men as in the morning. He is also sure to look in at
the regular session of the Sunday-school. Home again, where he studies
and reads until supper-time. At seven-thirty is the evening service, at
which he again preaches and after which he shakes hands with several
hundred more and talks personally, in his study, with any who have need
of talk with him. He is usually home by ten-thirty. I spoke of it, one
evening, as having been a strenuous day, and he responded, with a
cheerfully whimsical smile: "Three sermons and shook hands with nine
hundred."
That evening, as the service closed, he had said to the congregation: "I
shall be here for an hour. We always have a pleasant time together after
service. If you are acquainted with me, come up and shake hands. If you
are strangers"--just the slightest of pauses--"come up and let us make
an acquaintance that will last for eternity." I remember how simply and
easily this was said, in his clear, deep voice, and how impressive and
important it seemed, and with what unexpectedness it came. "Come and
make an acquaintance that will last for eternity!" And there was a
serenity about his way of saying this which would make strangers
think--just as he meant them to think--that he had nothing whatever to
do but to talk with them. Even his own congregation have, most of them,
little conception of how busy a man he is and how precious is his time.
One evening last June--to take an evening of which I happened to
know--he got home from a journey of two hundred miles at six o'clock,
and after dinner and a slight rest went to the church prayer-meeting,
which he led in his usual vigorous way at such meetings, playing the
organ and leading the singing, as well as praying and talking. After
the prayer-meeting he went to two dinners in succession, both of them
important dinners in connection with the close of the university year,
and at both dinners he spoke. At the second dinner he was notified of
the sudden illness of a member of his congregation, and instantly
hurried to the man's home and thence to the hospital to which he had
been removed, and there he remained at the man's bedside, or in
consultation with the physicians, until one in the morning. Next morning
he was up at seven and again at work.
"This one thing I do," is his private maxim of efficiency, and a
literalist might point out that he does not one thing only, but a
thousand things, not getting Conwell's meaning, which is that whatever
the thing may be which he is doing he lets himself think of nothing else
until it is done.
Dr. Conwell has a profound love for the country and particularly for the
country of his own youth. He loves the wind that comes sweeping over the
hills, he loves the wide-stretching views from the heights and the
forest intimacies of the nestled nooks. He loves the rippling streams,
he loves the wild flowers that nestle in seclusion or that unexpectedly
paint some mountain meadow with delight. He loves the very touch of the
earth, and he loves the great bare rocks.
He writes verses at times; at least he has written lines for a few old
tunes; and it interested me greatly to chance upon some lines of his
that picture heaven in terms of the Berkshires:
_The wide-stretching valleys in colors so fadeless,
Where trees are all deathless and flowers e'er bloom._
That is heaven in the eyes of a New England hill-man! Not golden
pavement and ivory palaces, but valleys and trees and flowers and the
wide sweep of the open.