The University of Hard Knocks | Page 3

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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