Page:The High School Boy and His Problems (1920).pdf/47

 or physical, he has received the most valuable training he will almost invariably answer that it was from the experience which forced him to work the hardest. It is through vigorous and regular exercise that any muscle or any faculty is developed.

I knew "Mike" Mason before he entered high school; and "Mike" developed later into the best two-miler the Western Conference has ever had. He had no special talents athletically at the outset, unless one should admit that persistence and willingness to work hard and to sacrifice whenever it is necessary are special talents. Mike wanted to be a good runner, and he was willing to pay the price. He trained regularly all through his high school course; he worked hard when other boys, some of them as good prospects as he, perhaps, had long ago given up the contest and had gone over to join the rooters on the bleachers; he worked hard when hard work was far from pleasant; he gave up everything that seemed to interfere with his prospects, but when he was ready for college he was beginning to be counted as one of the coming athletes of the state, and before he graduated he was known as the best runner of the middle west. And it was largely through hard work, through doing his best, through his willingness constantly to tackle something hard that Mike trained his muscles and developed his mind, and outstripped his competitors in the race.

Mr. Frank A. Vanderlip, of New York, in a recent address to young people said, "If you are starting out