Page:The High School Boy and His Problems (1920).pdf/50

 to his companions nor seemed to take any account of what they are doing or saying. This is a quality of mind which every boy would do well to cultivate, and it is a quality which can be developed through effort and practice.

A boy should get a certain breadth of view from his high school course. It should take him to other countries than his own and to other worlds. It should interest him in the great people and the great movements of thought of the world, and should stimulate in him a desire to read and to know more and to see more of what the world contains. It should be for him the beginning and not the end of an interest in history and science, and literature; in inventions and discoveries, and manufactures. If it is to do this, the boy must have shown interest in more than one subject in the high school; he must have done more than merely pass in the various subjects which he has elected; he must be taken out of his own narrow environment, his interest and his breadth of view must be broadened, and he must see life as a different and a better thing than it was before he took up a high school course.

A boy should get from his high school course better taste, better manners, more interest in poetry and music and art and whatever is idealistic and beautiful. He should be less selfish than when he began his course of study, more interested in other people, more ambitious.

Besides choosing subjects that will require hard work, that will develop concentration, broaden his view and