f a merchant, it will not sell a
dollar's worth of your goods.

Nobody cares what college you went to. Nobody cares whether you went
to college at all.

But everybody cares whether you are a real force among men; and
everybody cares more and more as it becomes clearer and clearer that
you are not only a force, but a trained, disciplined force. That is
why you ought to go to college--to be a trained, disciplined force.
But how and where you got your power--the world of men and women is
far too interested in itself to be interested in that.

When you do finally go to college, take care of yourself like a man. I
am told that there are men in college who have valets to attend them,
their rooms, and their clothes. Think of that! Don't do anything like
that, even if you are a hundred times a millionaire. Of course _you_
won't--you who read this--because not one out of ten thousand young
Americans can afford to have a valet in college--thank heaven!

Don't do any of the many things which belong to that life of
self-indulgence of which the keeping of a valet in college is a
flaring illustration. Don't let kind friends litter up your room with
a lot of cushions, and such stuff. The world for which you are
preparing is no "cushiony" place, let me tell you; and if you let
luxury relax your nerves and soften your brain tissues and make your
muscles mushy, a similar mental and moral condition will develop. And
then, when you go out into real life, you will find some sturdy young
barbarian, with a Spartan training and a merciless heart, elbowing you
clear off the earth.

For, mark you, these strong, fearless, masterful young giants, who are
every day maturing among the common people of America, ask no quarter
and give none; and it is such fellows you must go up against. And when
you do go up against them there will be no appealing to father and
mother to help you. Father and mother cannot help you. Nobody can help
you but yourself. You will find that the cushion business, and the
mandolin business, and all that sort of thing, do not go in real
life.

Consider West Point and Annapolis. My understanding is that the men
whom the Nation is training there for the skilled defense of the
Republic, and who therefore must be developed into the very highest
types of effective manhood, are taught to clean and polish their own
shoes, make their own beds, care for their own guns, and do everything
else for themselves. Do you think that is