9696 – 中文站 | 科普文章，文史知识，英文演讲和英文书籍
First off, I want to thank the teachers and faculty of Broad Run High School for first considering and then inviting me to speak here. It was flattering, I am touched and humbled, and you have made a grave mistake. I’m being paid for this, right? Oh, wait, there’s some advice, right off the bat – always get paid.
After Samuel Clemens became famous as the writer Mark Twain, he started giving humorous lectures at age 31. “Our Fellow Savages of the Sandwich Islands” was his favorite lecture. He gave a version of this speech in his debut as a professional platform entertainer in San Francisco in 1866 and gave it almost 100 times until 1873.
If we persevere in the career in which we have advanced so far and in the path already traced, we can not fail, under the favor of a gracious Providence, to attain the high destiny which seems to await us.
