The University of Hard Knocks | Page 6

us.
We discover, in other words, that The University of Hard Knocks has
two colleges--The College of Needless Knocks and The College of
Needful Knocks.
We attend both colleges.

Chapter II
The College of Needless Knocks
The Bumps That We Bump Into
NEARLY all the bumps we get are Needless Knocks.
There comes a vivid memory of one of my early Needless Knocks as I
say that. It was back at the time when I was trying to run our home to
suit myself. I sat in the highest chair in the family circle. I was three
years old and ready to graduate.
That day they had the little joy and sunshine of the family in his
high-chair throne right up beside the dinner table. The coffee-pot was
within grabbing distance.
I became enamored with that coffee-pot. I decided I needed that
coffee-pot in my business. I reached over to get the coffee-pot. Then I
discovered a woman beside me, my mother. She was the most
meddlesome woman I had ever known. I had not tried to do one thing
in three years that that woman had not meddled into.
And that day when I wanted the coffee-pot--I did want it. Nobody

knows how I desired that coffee-pot. "One thing thou lackest," a
coffee-pot-- I was reaching over to get it, that woman said, "Don't
touch that!"
The longer I thought about it the more angry I became. What right has
that woman to meddle into my affairs all the time? I have stood this
petticoat tyranny three years, and it is time to stop it!
I stopped it. I got the coffee-pot. I know I got the coffee-pot. I got it
unanimously. I know when I got it and I also know where I got it. I got
about a gallon of the reddest, hottest coffee a bad boy ever spilled over
himself.
O-o-o-o-o-o! I can feel it yet!
There were weeks after that when I was upholstered. They put
applebutter on me--and coal oil and white-of-an-egg and starch and
anything else the neighbors could think of. They would bring it over
and rub it on the little joy and sunshine of the family, who had gotten
temporarily eclipsed.

Teaching a Wilful Child
You see, my mother's way was to tell me and then let me do as I
pleased. She told me not to get the coffee-pot and then let me get it,
knowing that it would burn me. She would say, "Don't." Then she
would go on with her knitting and let me do as I pleased.
Why don't mothers knit today?
Mother would say, "Don't fall in the well." I could go and jump in the
well after that and she would not look at me. I do not argue that this is
the way to raise children, but I insist that this was the most kind and
effective way to rear one stubborn boy I know of. The neighbors and
the ladies' aid society often said my mother was cruel with that angel
child. But the neighbors did not know what kind of an insect mother
was trying to raise. Mother did know. She knew how stubborn and
self-willed I was. It came from father's "side of the house."
Mother knew that to argue with me was to flatter me. Tell me, serve

notice upon me, and then let me go ahead and get my coffee-pot. That
was the quickest and kindest way to teach me.
I learned very quickly that if I did not hear mother, and heed, a
coffee-pot would spill upon me. I cannot remember when I disobeyed
my mother that a coffee-pot of some kind did not spill upon me, and I
got my blisters. Mother did not inflict them. Mother was not much of
an inflicter. Father attended to that in the laboratory behind the
parsonage.

"Stop, Look, Listen"
And thru the bumps we learn that The College of Needless Knocks runs
on the same plan. The Voice of Wisdom says to each of us, "Child of
humanity, do right, walk in the right path. You will be wiser and
happier." The tongues in the trees, the books in the running brooks and
the sermons in the stones all repeat it.
But we are not compelled to walk in the right path. We are free
im-moral agents.
We get off the right path. We go down forbidden paths. They seem
easier and more attractive. It is so easy to go downward. We slide
downward, but we have to make effort to go upward.
Anything that goes downward will run itself. Anything that goes
upward has to be pushed.
And going down the wrong path, we get bumped harder and harder
until we listen.
We are lucky if we learn