Page:The High School Boy and His Problems (1920).pdf/59

 cause the amount of work they are asked to do is unreasonable or beyond their grasp, but because they do not do their work seriously or thoroughly at first; they have no well-organized plan of study; they are procrastinating, and wake up to the fact too late, that their studies are a real business to which they should have been giving regular attention from the beginning. Jones told me only yesterday that if he had learned his conjugations and his declensions carefully and thoroughly when he began his high school study of Latin, he would have been saved years of uncertain floundering through the classics. If you would give more careful attention to elementary algebra, you would not have heart failure later when you take the required courses in college mathematics. If boys took their work as seriously in September as they do in January or immediately before the final examinations there would be a great many more honor students than failures.

As a rule the task set for the average high school student is a very moderate one, and the amount and the character of the work required quite within the range of his ability. I have known a great many high school boys, but I have known few whose mental equipment was not adequate to the accomplishment of the work they had elected to do if they had gone at it in the right way when it was assigned. The number of "boneheads" is pretty limited.

Have a regular time for study. Of course I appreciate the fact that most high schools have "study periods" between recitations and that a good many boys depend