Project Gutenberg's The University of Hard Knocks, by Ralph Parlette

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Title: The University of Hard Knocks

Author: Ralph Parlette

Posting Date: September 13, 2008 [EBook #455]
Release Date: March, 1996

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UNIVERSITY OF HARD KNOCKS ***

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'