Pastor Russell Conwell had a vision of creating a college for the poor but deserving youngsters. He started thinking about this when some young men approached him asking he’d teach them some college courses since they can’t afford to go to college. In the next few months, Russell Conwell gave 6,000 speeches all over America, wrote the book “Acres of Diamonds”, and raised $7M to build the Temple University in 1881–The College for poor but deserving students…
The main idea of Acres of Diamonds is that one does not look elsewhere for opportunity, achievement, or fortune. The resources to achieve good things are in one’s own backyard –in one’s own brain. This idea is developed in an introductory story, told to Conwell by an Arab guide, about a man who wanted to find diamonds so badly that he sold his property and went to faraway lands in search for diamonds; the new owner of his home discovered that a rich diamond mine was located right there on the property. Conwell repeatedly said “dig in your own back-yard!”.
Historian Howard Zinn commented that the message was that anyone could be rich if he tried hard enough to dig his own greatness…
