Page:The High School Boy and His Problems (1920).pdf/169

 one direction or thought himself especially fitted for a particular type of work, it was rather conclusive evidence that he might better take up some other. However that may be, I have seldom in teaching English composition, found that the man who laid claim to any particular skill in writing actually possessed much. Accurate self-judgment is difficult, but too much self-assurance is often an evidence of weakness.

Granted that a boy has unusual mental gifts; a peculiar danger often confronts him—the danger of depending upon his unusual ability to carry him through without work. It is an old saying that the only genius worth much is the genius for hard work. I have known a few geniuses, but I do not now recall more than one or two who got far in the professions which they adopted, because very few of them were willing to work regularly or seriously. Knowing their ability, they grew to depend upon it to carry them through at the last moment without any regular hard labor on their part; not willing to work hard and regularly, they did not increase their power; they were no more able to accomplish results at the end of ten years of practice than at the beginning of their careers.

"Can't I come back next September," a freshman who had failed asked me, "and start all over again as if nothing had happened?"

It was hard for him to see that a year of loafing had had an effect on him which could not be eliminated by