The Key to Success
By RUSSELL H. CONWELL
Observation:—The Key to Success
Who the Real Leaders Are
Mastering Natural Forces
Whom Mankind Shall Love
Need of Orators
Woman's Influence
VOLUME 3
NATIONAL
EXTENSION UNIVERSITY
597 Fifth Avenue, New York
Observation—Every Man His Own University
Copyright, 1917, by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the United States of America
FOREWORD
People are thinking, but they can think much more. The housewife isthinking about the chemical changes caused by heat in meats, vegetables,and liquids. The sailor thinks about the gold in sea-water, the soldierthinks of smokeless powder and muffled guns; the puddler meditates oniron squeezers and electric furnaces; the farmer admires LutherBurbank's magical combinations in plant life; the school-girl examinesthe composition of her pencil and analyses the writing-paper; theteacher studies psychology at first hand; the preacher understands moreof the life that now is; the merchant and manufacturer give moreattention to the demand. Yes, we are all thinking. But we are stillthinking too far away; even the prism through which we see the stars isnear the eyes. The dentist is thinking too much about other people'steeth.
This book is sent out to induce people to look at their own eyes, topick up the gold in their laps, to study anatomy under the tutorship oftheir own hearts. One could accumulate great wisdom and secure fortunesby studying his own finger-nails. This lesson seems the very easiest tolearn, and for that reason is the most difficult.
The lecture, "The Silver Crown," which the author has been giving invarious forms for fifty years, is herein printed from a stenographicreport of one address on this general subject. It will not be found alltogether, as a lecture, for this book is an attempt to give furthersuggestion on the many different ways in which the subject has beentreated, just as the lecture has varied in its illustrations from timeto time. The lecture was addressed to the ear. This truth, whichamplifies the lecture, is addressed to the eye.
I have been greatly assisted, and sometimes superseded, in thepreparation of these pages by Prof. James F. Willis, of Philadelphia.Bless him!
My hope is by this means to reach a larger audience even than that whichhas heard some of the things herein so many times in the last forty-fiveyears. We do not hope to give or sell anything to the reader. He hasenough already. But many starve with bread in their mouths. They spit itout and weep for food. Humans are a strange collection. But they can beinduced to think much more accurately and far more efficiently. Thisbook is sent out as an aid to closer observation and more efficientliving.
Russell H. Conwell.
September 1917.
RUSSELL H. CONWELL[1]
An autobiography! What an absurd request! If all the conditions werefavorable, the story of my public life could not be made interesting. Itdoes not seem possible that any will care to read so plain anduneventful a tale.
I was a young man, not yet of age, when I deliver