Acres of Diamonds
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Russell H. Conwell >> Acres of Diamonds
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VII
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 institu-
tions 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 Jerusa-
lem. ``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!
VIII
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 talk-
ing. 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.
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