_Friends_.--This lecture has been delivered under these
circumstances: I visit a town or city, and try to arrive there
early
enough to see the postmaster, the barber, the keeper of the
hotel,
the principal of the schools, and the ministers of some of the
churches, and then go into some of the factories and stores, and
talk with the people, and get into sympathy with the local
conditions of that town or city and see what has been their
history,
what opportunities they had, and what they had failed to do--
and every town fails to do something--and then go to the lecture
and talk to those people about the subjects which applied to
their locality. ``Acres of Diamonds''--the idea--has
continuously
been precisely the same. The idea is that in this country
of ours every man has the opportunity to make more of himself
than he does in his own environment, with his own skill, with
his own energy, and with his own friends.
RUSSELL H. CONWELL.



ACRES OF DIAMONDS

[1]

This is the most recent and complete form of the lecture.
It happened to be delivered in Philadelphia, Dr. Conwell's
home city. When he says ``right here in Philadelphia,'' he means