Page:The High School Boy and His Problems (1920).pdf/25

 The most important problem which the high school boy has is the discipline of his mind. It isn't easy to hold one's attention to a dull stupid book on mathematics or Latin when one would far rather be climbing a tree or playing at baseball, but it is often very necessary. A boy does not go to high school so much for the facts he learns in mathematics or Latin or chemistry as for the discipline he gets through learning these things. Of course every one needs information, and a boy may be excused if he thinks that the information he acquires at school is the main thing for which he spends his days and nights; but if he does think so, he is mistaken. The most important thing for any boy is to learn to think quickly and correctly, so to train his mind that it will do what he wants it to do within a definite time and at a definite time.

"I was in a hurry," you explain to your teacher or the boss when he calls your attention to the fact that the work you have accomplished is inaccurately or carelessly done, "and did not have time to do the job as well as I could have done had I had more time;" or "My mind was wandering, and I could not get down to business," you offer as an alibi for not having a piece of work accomplished when it was called for. But the well-trained boy or man will be the master and not the slave of his mind, and will have so done his work in high school or in college that his brain will submit to his direction and will plan the composition or solve the