Do you note that the tropics, the countries with the balmiest climates, produce the weakest peoples? Do you note that the conquering races are those that struggle with both heat and cold? The tropics are the geographical Gussielands. Do you note that people grow more in lean years than in fat years? Crop failures and business stringencies are not calamities, but blessings in disguise. People go to the devil with full pockets; they turn to God when hunger hits them. "Is not this Babylon that I have builded?" says the Belshazzar of material prosperity as he drinks to his gods. Then must come the Needful and Needless Knocks handwriting upon the wall to save him. You have to shoot many men's eyes out before they can see. You have to crack their heads before they can think, knock them down before they can stand, break their hearts before they can sing, and bankrupt them before they can be rich. Do you remember that they had to lock John Bunyan in Bedford jail before he would write his immortal "Pilgrim's Progress"? It may be that some of us will have to go to jail to do our best work. Do you remember that one musician became deaf before he wrote music the world will always hear? Do you remember that one author became blind before writing "Paradise Lost" the world will always read? Do you remember that Saul of Tarsus would have never been remembered had he lived the life of luxury planned for him? He had to be blinded before he could see the way to real success. He had to be scourged and fettered to become the Apostle to the Gentiles. He, too, had to be sent to prison to write his immortal messages to humanity. What throne-rooms are some prisons! And what prisons are some throne-rooms! Do you not see all around you that success is ever the phoenix rising from the ashes of defeat? Then, children, when you stand in the row of graduates on commencement day with your diplomas in your hands, and when your relatives and friends say, "Success to you!" I shall take your hand and say, "Defeat to you! And struggles to you! And bumps to you!" For that is the only way to say, "Success to you!" Go Up the Mountain O UNIVERSITY OF HARD KNOCKS, we learn to love you more with each passing year. We learn that you are cruel only to be kind. We learn that you are saving us from ourselves. But O, how most of us must be bumped to see this! I know no better way to close this lecture than to tell you of a great bump that struck me one morning in Los Angeles. It seemed as tho twelve years of my life had dropped out of it, and had been lost. Were you ever bumped so hard you were numb? I was numb. I wondered why I was living. I thought I had nothing more to live for. When a dog is wounded he crawls away alone to lick his wounds. I felt like the wounded dog. I wanted to crawl away to lick my wounds. That is why I climbed Mount Lowe that day. I wanted to get alone.