The Penn's Grove record., 1910-09-02
The Boy who ..raiied 10 PASS"

ItIC OOy w AO -
School will be sin next Monday, Sep
TENDER 9Th. The following article pub
lished in the Youths Companion, July
9TH. should be read and be an incentive
for those who are backward to put on
courage and renewed determination to
seek more knowledge.
For the boy who has completed his
years course of study successfully, the
end of the school year is a particularly
happy time. He has that best OF all
rewards, the knowledge Of a duty faith
fully performed. His parents are proud
of him, his friends congratulate him.
But here and there is a boy to whom
the future looks very ~different-the boy
who '.failed to pass" and who, there
fore, is not to go on with his classmates,
but must spend another year. in digging
over the same old field.
His failure means more to him than
perhaps even his parents and his most
intimate friends realize. First, there is
the Encouragement and depression nat
ural to failure of any kind. The boy
knows his father and mother are d'sap-
pointed in him, and that his classmates
regard him as either stupid or careless
or indolent; and such knowledge is not
pleasant.
There is also the breaking of old asso-
Citations. The members of the school
team. on which he has played with
credit, are going up n step, but ne
must stay behind. His place is to be
filed by some one else. The break In
the other occupations of out-of-schooi
hours will mean a break, too, in old
friendships and associations. Thus the
failure to secure promotion is a real
tragedy, a crisis in the boys life.
Let us say, rather, that it contains
the possibility of a tragedy. Whether
the possibility becomes a fact or not will
depend upon the ''stuff" of which the
boy is made.
The first thing for him 10 do is to ask
himself honestly why he failed, and to
try to answer the question frankly. He
must rid himself of the idea that he has
not been treated fairly and that his
teachers have manifested prejudice or
displayed injustice.
Was it because he really found his
school duties too hard? Did he not
sometimes yield to the temptation to
give to the team or the school paper OF
to other diversions the time which right
fully belonged to his studies?
If he can truthfully say no, he ought,
in justice to himself, to ask his father
| for a careful physical examination by a
| doctor. A defect of vision, or an OBJ
| struction of the throat OF nasal passages,
Oh improper nutrition, may retard a boy
who does his best. The physician is the
man to remedy such a condition.
But the most important thing of all
is not to let the failure in a single year
Of school become the failure of a lifetime.
The ''quitter'' says, whats the use?
l may as well leave school and go to
work" The boy of real grit says, "tll
stick, and fight it out!"
To stop school and "go to work" is
to acknowledge defeat. 1t is to start
on a long journey without sufficient
equipment; to accept an unnecessary
handicap for the rest of life.
A single vacation-time of hard stu 1y-
ing will often redeem a whole school
year of half. hearted work; but even if
it takes a year, or two years, it is we'll
worth while. In social relations, in
earnings, in the kind of house he will
live in, the clothes he will wear, the
food he will eat, the time he will have
for recreation, The very means by which
he will earn his living in the years to
come, the amount of education-of plain
book-learning which the boy gets in
school-will exercise an enduring infiu-
ence. To throw away the advantages
that added years of schooling give is the
height of folly.