The University of Hard Knocks
I. THE BOOKS ARE BUMPS—Every bump a lesson—Why the two kinds of bumps—Description of University—“Sweet are the uses of Adversity”—Why children are not interested
II. THE COLLEGE OF NEEDLESS KNOCKS, the bumps that we bump into—Getting the coffee-pot—Teaching a wilful child—Bumps make us “stop, look, listen”—Blind man learns with one bump—Going up requires effort—Prodigals must be bumped—The fly and the sticky fly-paper—“Removed” and “knocked out”
III. THE COLLEGE OF NEEDFUL KNOCKS, the bumps that bump into us—Our sorrows and disappointments—How the piano was made—How the “red mud” becomes razor-blades—The world our mirror—The cripple taught by the bumps—Every bump brings a blessing—You are never down and out
IV. “SHAKE THE BARREL”—How we decide our destinies—Why the big ones shake up and the little ones shake down—The barrel of life sorting people—How we hold our places, go down, go up—Good luck and bad luck—The girl who went up—The man who went down—The fatal rattle—We must get ready to get—Testimonials and press notices—You cannot uplift people with derrick—No laws can equalize—Help people to help themselves—We cannot get things till we get ready for them
V. GOING UP—How we become great—We must get inside greatness—There is no top—We make ourselves great by service—the first step at hand—All can be greatest—Where to find great people—A glimpse of Gunsaulus
VI. THE PROBLEM OF “PREPAREDNESS”—Preparing children for life—Most “advantages” are disadvantages—Buying education for children—The story of “Gussie” and “Bill Whackem”—Schools and books only give better tools for service—“Hard knocks” graduates—Menace of America not swollen fortunes but shrunken souls—Children must have struggle to get strength—Not packhorse work—Helping the turkeys killed them—the happiness of work we love—Amusement drunkards—Lure of the city—Strong men from the country—Must save the home towns—A school of struggle—New School experiment
VII. THE SALVATION OF A “SUCKER”—You can’t get something for nothing—The fiddle and the tuning—How we know things—Trimmed at the shell game—My “fool drawer”—Getting “selected to receive 1,000 per cent”—You must earn what you own—Commencement orations—My maiden sermon—The books that live have been lived—Singer must live songs—Successful songs written from experience—Theory and practice—Tuning the strings of life
VIII. LOOKING BACKWARD—Memories of the price we pay—My first school teaching—Loaning the deacon my money—Calling the roll of my schoolmates—At the grave of the boy I had envied—Why Ben Hur won the chariot race—Pulling on the oar
IX. GO ON SOUTH!—The book in the running brook—The Mississippi keeps on going south and growing greater—We generally start well, but stop—Few go on south—The plague of incompetents—Today our best day, tomorrow to be better—Birthdays are promotions—I am just beginning—Bernhardt, Davis, Edison—Moses begins at eighty—Too busy to bury—Sympathy for the “sob squad”—Child sees worst days, not best—Waiting for the second table—Better days on south—Overcoming obstacles develops power—Go on south from principle, not praise—Doing duty for the joy of it—Becoming the “Father of Waters”—Go on south forever!
X. GOING UP LIFE’S MOUNTAIN—The defeats that are victories—Climbing Mount Lowe—Getting above the clouds into the sunshine—Each day we rise to larger vision—Getting above the night into the eternal day—Going south is going upward