Page:Discipline and the Derelict (1921).pdf/176

 He has a score of men working for the same place, often, many of them more experienced and better trained than himself. Success often means years of persistent practice with one failure after another. Other things being equal, it is the man who sticks who ultimately succeeds.

I recall a slender green country boy who came up to college from southern Illinois. He had the ambition to do the pole vault, but it seemed at first little more than an ambition. He came out for practice every day during his freshman year, but his accomplishments were rather commonplace. "Plucky little sinner," the coach commented, but that seemed about as far as it went. He might keep on the squad; that was about all. He stuck to it through the sophomore year, gaining form and making gradual progress, but he was still far below the best in his attainments. Most fellows would have dropped gut and taken a place among the rooters on the side lines.

"I really believe Gordon is improving," the coach ventured to remark during the boy's junior year when he was still sticking to his regular practice. "We may hear from him yet." And we did; for he took second place in the spring meet in his junior year, and when he waa a senior he won first place in the Western Conference. He had learned what it means to laugh in the face of defeat and to push on ta the accomplishment of an ambition, and he had set an example of persistence and grit to his college mates which is still a campus tradition. The lesson which he had learned of sticking to a difficult job until it is accomplished, no matter how long it takes, has shown