This one word of definite helpfulness on this subject:  Do not choose any particular college because you want to be known as a Yale man, a Harvard man, a Princeton man, or any other kind of man.  Remember that the world cares less than the snap of its fingers what particular college man you are.

What the world cares about it that you should be a man—­a real man.

It won’t help you a bit in the business of your life to have it known that you graduated from any particular college or university.  If you are in politics, it won’t give you a vote; if a manufacturer, it will not add a brick to your plant; if a merchant, it will not sell a dollar’s worth of your goods.

Nobody cares what college you went to.  Nobody cares whether you went to college at all.

But everybody cares whether you are a real force among men; and everybody cares more and more as it becomes clearer and clearer that you are not only a force, but a trained, disciplined force.  That is why you ought to go to college—­to be a trained, disciplined force.  But how and where you got your power—­the world of men and women is far too interested in itself to be interested in that.

When you do finally go to college, take care of yourself like a man.  I am told that there are men in college who have valets to attend them, their rooms, and their clothes.  Think of that!  Don’t do anything like that, even if you are a hundred times a millionaire.  Of course you won’t—­you who read this—­because not one out of ten thousand young Americans can afford to have a valet in college—­thank heaven!

Don’t do any of the many things which belong to that life of self-indulgence of which the keeping of a valet in college is a flaring illustration.  Don’t let kind friends litter up your room with a lot of cushions, and such stuff.  The world for which you are preparing is no “cushiony” place, let me tell you; and if you let luxury relax your nerves and soften your brain tissues and make your muscles mushy, a similar mental and moral condition will develop.  And then, when you go out into real life, you will find some sturdy young barbarian, with a Spartan training and a merciless heart, elbowing you clear off the earth.

For, mark you, these strong, fearless, masterful young giants, who are every day maturing among the common people of America, ask no quarter and give none; and it is such fellows you must go up against.  And when you do go up against them there will be no appealing to father and mother to help you.  Father and mother cannot help you.  Nobody can help you but yourself.  You will find that the cushion business, and the mandolin business, and all that sort of thing, do not go in real life.

Consider West Point and Annapolis.  My understanding is that the men whom the Nation is training there for the skilled defense of the Republic, and who therefore must be developed into the very highest types of effective manhood, are taught to clean and polish their own shoes, make their own beds, care for their own guns, and do everything else for themselves.  Do you think that is a good training for our generals and admirals?  Of course you do.