Russell H. Conwell

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Russell H. Conwell


BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
RUSSELL H. CONWELL was born in the town of Worthington, Hampshire County, Massachusetts, February 15, 1843, and spent his early days upon a small farm, known as The Eagle's Nest, situated in the most sterile and mountainous portion of that region.  Very early in his boyhood he was compelled to earn his own living, and, unassisted, secured the position he now holds as a self-made man.  He kept along with his classes in the district school by studying evenings, while working at manual labor during school hours, and earned by daily labor his meager supply of food and clothing while at the Academy in Wilbraham, Mass.  In 1860 he entered upon the law and academic courses together at Yale College, the latter under a tutor, so as to economize his time and reduce his expenses.  But the war of the Rebellion interrupted his studies in 1862 and took him to the filed as a captain of infantry.  He afterward served in the artillery branch of the service and as a staff officer.

At the close of the war he graduated in the law department of the Albany University and went to Minnesota, where he began the practice of law.  In 1867 he represented the State of Minnesota as its Emigration Agent to Germany, and became the foreign correspondent of his own newspaper.  In 1868 he was engaged as the correspondent of the New York Tribune, and in the year following as the traveling correspondent of the Boston Traveller.  In 1870 he was sent to the different countries in Asia by the New York Tribune and Boston Traveller and made the entire circuit of the globe, filling at that time many important lecture engagements in India and England.  He afterwards visited England exclusively on a lecture tour through the important cities of that country.  In 1870 he published his first book, Why and How the Chinese Emigrate.  It has been followed by many others of a historical and biographical character.  He was a friend and traveling companion of Bayard Taylor, and his biography of that poet and traveler had a very extended sale.  His biography of Spurgeon reached a sale of 125,000 copies in four months.

For eight years he practiced law in Boston and gained a great popularity as a lecturer and writer.  In 1879 he was ordained to the ministry.  In 1882 he accepted a call from Grace Baptist Church in Philadelphia, and removed to that city.  The church of which he assumed charge at once entered upon a career of extraordinary prosperity and has become the largest Protestant Church in America.  They built a Temple in 1891 on Broad Street, Philadelphia, which will seat comfortably over 3,000 people and has a capacity of 4,200.  Mr. Conwell's preaching draws such crowds of listeners that for ten years admission has been obtained by tickets and thousands are often turned away.

Mr. Conwell has been in the lecture field fifty-one years, during which period he has delivered here and abroad nearly nine thousand lectures.  He was the intimate associate with Gough, Beecher, Holmes, Longfellow, Motley, Emerson, Everett, Whittier, Wendell Phillips, Douglass, Grant, Garfield, Burlingame, Sherman, and other of America's great men.  He is to-day one of America's most popular speakers and among the last of the stars who made the platform brilliant in the days of Gough, Beecher and Chapin.




THE TEMPLE UNIVERSITY
THE TEMPLE UNIVERSITY, of which Dr. Conwell is the Founder and President, is a co-educational, non-sectarian institution which began with two students in 1884 and since that time over 70,000 young men and women have come within the realm of its influence and have been led to a higher plane and more useful sphere of life.

Two young men who were members of the Grace Baptist Church, of which Dr. Conwell is the Pastor, wanted to know if there was any way possible for them to receive or acquire the education necessary to prepare them for the ministry while they worked.  They were past twenty years of age and were obliged to earn their own living, so they must study at night, if at all, and work during the day.

Dr. Conwell agreed to teach these young men himself and appointed a time when they could come to his study to begin their work.  They arrived punctually and brought with them five other young men who were as eager for knowledge as they were, and here began what in after years was destined to be the Temple University, one of the greatest institutions in America for the education, the mental, moral and physical development of young men and women who must earn their own way and pay as they go.  In a few weeks the number of students had increased to forty and other teachers had to be secured, the entire lower floor of the Old Church at Berks and Mervine Streets being turned into class rooms.  Steadily the number grew, filling two adjoining houses and then two large halls, until in 1888, with 590 students, the institution was granted a charter as Temple College.  Still increasing in numbers and efficiency, the College progressed with rapid strides, in May, 1894, completing and dedicating its own building.  The story of the self-sacrificing spirit of the people of the church and community, in this enterprise, is told at length in The Man and the Work, a new Life of Dr. Conwell—the story of a people who had caught the inspiration of their leader and believed with him that he best serves God who serves his fellow-man the best.  It is a great demonstration of Dr. Conwell's power to see the great need of the coming generation and his ability to create, out of nothing, the means whereby that need may be fulfilled.

Until 1891, classes were in session only in the evenings, but in that year, a day department was added to the rapidly growing night department, and from that time the school has been open day and night, giving the same courses at night as during the day, so that anyone who completes the required studies in either school is granted a degree.

In 1893 the Theological School was opened as a non-sectarian Seminary, the professors being selected from all denominations.  In addition to the resident work, there is now an extensive correspondence course in Theology, leading to the degrees of B. D. and S. T. D.

In 1895 the Law School was added and has numbered among its professors some of the most prominent lawyers in Pennsylvania.  Its success has been almost unparalleled, as never yet has a graduate of this department failed to pass the State Examination, which fact is a worthy recommendation of the instructors and the high standard of the curriculum.


In 1896 the Normal Physical Education Department, for the training of teachers, was opened and this department has grown so steadily in the quality of its work that its graduates are sought for many of the best positions in high schools, preparatory schools and colleges, in Y. M. C. A. and Y. W. C. A. gymnasiums.

The Medical School of the Temple University was opened in 1901 in response to the call of thirty students for such instruction.  The standards of this School have kept abreast of the times; the modern method of Correlated Teaching of Medicine originated within its walls, and to-day the Medical School of Temple University stands among the first in the country, being perhaps the only one having two Official Hospitals, the Garretson and the Samaritan.

The State of Pennsylvania in 1907 granted to the Temple College the title of Temple University and this same year the Philadelphia Dental College was incorporated into it, as was the Garretson Hospital, which became one of the Official Hospitals of the Temple University.

The Samaritan Hospital, which is also one of the Official Hospitals of the Temple University, began in a small way.  Two rented rooms, one nurse, one patient, was the humble origin of an institution which was founded by Dr. Conwell in 1891 and has since grown to such usefulness that every year over 1800 operations are performed there by its surgeons, as many as 17 having been scheduled for one day.  There is but one other Hospital in Philadelphia where more surgical work is done.  The Samaritan is entirely non-sectarian, and among the 27,000 yearly patients, in its private rooms, wards, and dispensaries, there are all kinds and classes, all denominations and creeds.

— Sketch by Melvin B. Wright.



Conwell is the most popular lecturer in the world, which statement can be sustained by the statistics of the lecture bureaus; and while his prices are high, lecture committees have found him to be one of the cheapest men on the platform.



POPULAR SUBJECTS

Acres of Diamonds: Where men succeed
The Silver Crown: How men succeed
The Jolly Earthquake: Power of a cheerful spirit
Heroism of a Private Life: Life of Daniel Manin
The Angel's Lily: The happiest life
Personal Glimpses of Celebrated Men and Women: Lessons from great lives
Artemus Ward: The Morning Star of American Humor
Fifty Years on the Lecture Platform (Special Address)



EXCLUSIVE MANAGEMENT
MUTUAL LYCEUM BUREAU
FRANK A. MORGAN, PRES.
640 ORCHESTRA BLDG., CHICAGO

Smith & Porter Press, Boston.