Page:The High School Boy and His Problems (1920).pdf/87

 "I'm not working for grades," I hear boys say repeatedly. "I don't believe grades show much about a fellow's work."

Fathers, too, echo the same sentiments, but never so far as I can now recall, when their sons were getting anything creditable in the way of grades. It was the defense of their son's commonplace work which they were throwing up. It was another case of the fox who, when he saw that he could not reach the grapes, consoled himself by declaring them sour. It would be quite as sensible and convincing an argument, it seems to me, for a runner to say, "I don't care what time I make in the race; it doesn't seem to me that time means anything when a fellow's in a race. Just so one gets around the track a certain number of times is all that is necessary;" or for a base ball player to declare, "I don't count much on the base hits or the runs a man makes; I went to bat just as many times as any one did."

High grades are an indication of accomplishment; they show, usually, correct thinking, logical arrangement, and a grasp of fundamentals. Sometimes, it is true, they are the result of dishonest methods, or of a well-trained memory, but such cases are the exception and not the rule. The low grade, in general, suggests the commonplace student who is either slow in his thinking processes or unwilling to work. No one should be satisfied to do poorly. Every business man, every professional man, every boy in high school ought to be ambitious to excel in his special line of