Page:The High School Boy and His Problems (1920).pdf/39

 normal mind can be made to work successfully along almost any line, if the boy to whom it belongs will apply himself persistently to the difficult subject. There is nothing so sure in any sort of endeavor to bring defeat as the admission at the outset that defeat is very probable, and there is no intellectual joy so sweet as the successful accomplishment of a task that was thought difficult or impossible. The boy who says he is going to fail seldom does anything else.

Just the other day a boy was telling me, with the greatest exultation showing in his face, of his experience with what the teacher had called "the hardest problem in the book." The boy did not find mathematics easy, often he was satisfied with working the simpler problems at the beginning of the assignment trusting to luck that he would not be called upon to explain any of the "stickers" when it came to the recitation. This time, however, his ambition was stirred, his "spunk was up," he said, and he determined he would work that problem if it took all night. Well, it did take mighty nearly all night, but he stuck to it, and got it right, and the joy of mental conquest was a satisfaction and an inspiration to him for the rest of his high school course. So is it to every boy who struggles. The benefits of such accomplishments, too, will not end with a boy's graduation from high school. Forty years afterwards he will still be able to feel the self-reliance which he gained through his boyish conquest of difficulty; forty years afterwards he will be stronger to