Page:The High School Boy and His Problems (1920).pdf/61

 discovers before long that he can work whenever he wants to do so. No man who has regular routine work to do can allow it to be a matter of inspiration or feeling. One of the main things for which brains are trained is that they may be made to work easily whenever the necessity arises.

Perhaps the reason why boys court delay in the accomplishment of assigned work is because there is so much time in which it may be done, and the task set for tomorrow seems so much easier of accomplishment than that which confronts us today; but work always grows more difficult as we allow it to pile up, and one is not, in general, likely to have more time tomorrow than he has today.

Learn to depend upon your own efforts for the accomplishment of your work. I know that there is a certain comradeship developed between two boys who get their work together, and it is sometimes a tremendous timesaver, but it is very seldom best. If the result of study were accomplished when we got the answer to the problem, all that would sometimes be necessary would be to turn to the back of the book. The boy who works out his own problems, as he will usually have to do later in life, develops self-reliance, learns to trust his own judgment, gets the habit of standing on his own feet, and is the more likely to be honest and self-reliant at examination time. If you and Tom are working out the problems in algebra together there is always the tempta-