FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47  
48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   >>  
be said of every great and worth-while experience, of love, of joy, of sorrow, of work. But a girl who allows herself to take this attitude is a "quitter," and doesn't know the first principles of playing the game. Part of the joy of work consists in the mere delight of intellectual exercise, delight in thinking a thing out. That is the way we develop ourselves mentally, just as we develop ourselves physically through sports. The mind that thinks is capable of deeper and broader thinking. Thinking begets thought. A muscle that is left without exercise softens and finally atrophies. The same is true of mental muscle. If this strength is left unused it is gradually lost and cannot be recovered. Mental concentration, the thought that is so strenuous that everything else is shut out, strengthens the mind. In this wonderful old world no new land has been discovered without physical effort. There is no country of the mind which can be entered without a similar effort. And there is another and very important joy in work--the sense that one is being equipped for the work of the world, for usefulness. The mere feeling that one's powers are being developed brings joy with it. There is still another joy which every one of us must covet--the sense of entering into the intellectual riches of the world, its wonders of science and art and letters, with the feeling that we have a part in a great treasure, a treasure which, unlike gold and precious stones, men have never been able to gauge or to exhaust. Such gold and silver as we take from that adventure cannot be lost or stolen from us. It remains with us to the very last, and with it no life can ever become really poor, or dull, or old. VII FAIR-PLAY Few students realize how closely a classroom resembles a commonwealth. To most of us it seems a place into which we go to have a certain amount got out of us, or put into us. This conception of the classroom is unworthy the modern girl who has, otherwise, a fine understanding of the meaning of team-play, of playing all together for a common end, a game or a republic united by a tacit compact. Does the average student feel responsibility for the game of basket-ball or lawn hockey which she is playing? The first thought of the girl in answering this is that it was a foolish question even to ask. Of course she does. But for her classroom? No, that is a different sort of game, in which the responsibility lies all on the
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47  
48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   >>  



Top keywords:

playing

 

thought

 

classroom

 

muscle

 

treasure

 

responsibility

 
feeling
 

effort

 

thinking

 
exercise

intellectual

 

develop

 

delight

 

resembles

 
commonwealth
 

closely

 
amount
 

adventure

 

stolen

 

remains


silver
 

experience

 

exhaust

 

students

 

realize

 
understanding
 

foolish

 

question

 

answering

 

hockey


basket

 

meaning

 

unworthy

 

modern

 

common

 
average
 

student

 
compact
 

republic

 

united


conception

 
sorrow
 

Mental

 

concentration

 

strenuous

 

recovered

 
gradually
 

discovered

 
physical
 
wonderful