Page:The High School Boy and His Problems (1920).pdf/38

 greeable or unpleasant things, and a young boy least of all is likely to do so. Very naturally, then, if allowed to determine his own program, he picks out what he likes best, not stopping to inquire whether or not what gives him the most pleasure is likely to do him the most good. "Why did you drop chemistry?" I asked a neighbor boy in high school not long ago.

"I didn't care for it," was his reply, "and I don't see any reason in studying anything I don't care for, do you?"

I really did, and I tried to tell him that every one has all through life, every day usually, to do many things that are not pleasing, and that the sooner one begins, the easier the task becomes.

He shies, often at what he considers difficult. If he reasons badly, he avoids, as far as possible, mathematics and chemistry and physics. If he has a poor verbal memory he passes up Latin and modern languages arguing when questioned on the subject, that he can get just as much good out of something else that he finds more to his liking. If he finds spelling difficult or the composition of themes puzzling he dodges such work as well as he can and explains his course of action by saying that he "never could spell or write a good theme, anyway." He fails in doing so to recognize the fact that one of the main purposes of education is to help him to do more easily these and other things which he may find hard to do. A