Page:The High School Boy and His Problems (1920).pdf/46

 his course such subjects as do not appeal to him either as interesting or as practical. There is in their arguments the inference that college entrance requirements are unreasonable or freakish, or that they do not furnish a young fellow with the training that will be of any material value, or at least of the greatest value to him, should he not go to college. I believe that quite the contrary is true, and that the course prescribed for entrance to college is on the whole as good a course as a boy can select no matter what he intends doing. Such a course will teach him logical thinking, and the ability to think is quite as necessary out of college as in it; whatever one undertakes and carries through that causes him to think is of the greatest advantage to him in any later enterprise. Since no boy is likely while he is in high school absolutely to know that he will or will not go to college, the safest plan would seem to be so to choose his course in high school that he may meet the college entrance requirements should he ever want to do so.

Every boy should undertake something in high school that he finds hard to do, something that will make him bring his books home at night and do a little studying after school hours. There is always a question about the training the boy is getting who never has to do any studying at home, who never finds anything that causes him to dig, who does not know what it means to work his brain at times as hard as it is capable of working. If you will ask any man, young or old, out of what experience, mental