Page:An introduction to ethics.djvu/125

 And it is not without pain that it learns the lesson of perseverance. Organised games are one of the most useful educational means of teaching the child to persist in what he is doing. The boy knows that he must "stick in" and not "slack it," if he wants to get into the school team. On the playing-field he realises that perseverance is a virtue, and he ought then to be more ready to be persuaded to cultivate this virtue in relation to his school work. Here, indeed, perseverance is more difficult, because it is necessary to concentrate the attention on the uninteresting task. And the attention of the child, like the attention of most adults, is a very uncertain thing, which comes only by fits and starts. But the child can learn to form habits of concentrated attention. Such habits are formed only by perseverance in recalling the wandering mind to the subject in hand. Perseverance is entirely an affair of the will.

The exercise of will is not an easy thing. Most people whose time is largely at their own disposal know how readily they relapse into a state of aboulia, or simple incapacity to will. A man lies in bed on a summer morning, simply because he cannot get himself to will to rise. He knows he ought to be up. He knows that the morning is bright and warm. He knows he will be just as comfortable after his bath and breakfast as he is in bed. He may revolve all these thoughts in his mind. Yet he cannot will to rise. It is precisely because it is often so hard to will simple actions that it is so important to form good habits in accordance with which we shall act habitually without needing to will