Clinton by Walter Aimwell

My young friend, did you ever master a hard lesson, after a great / effort? And do you remember how you felt, after the achievement? / Perhaps it was a difficult sum; and when you began, you did not see / how you could possibly work your way through it. But you persevered, / and covered your slate with long columns of figures, until at length / you arrived at the correct answer, and you felt something like the / philosopher of old, who exclaimed, after solving a difficulty, / _Eureka_,-I have found it! And now, having conquered this sum, you felt / just like attacking a still harder one, the next day. You _knew_ you / could do it, because you did the other; and you took hold of it, with a / determination to work it out-and you _did_ work it out, did you not?

Perhaps there was another boy in your class, who attempted to do the / same thing. But before he had put forth half the effort required, he / got tired of the sum, and gave up the attempt. The next day the teacher / tried to encourage him to make another attempt, but the boy _knew_ he / could not do the sum,-he had tried once, and it was of no use to try / again. So the teacher was obliged to turn him back into simple addition / and multiplication, and he will probably never get much beyond those / departments of arithmetic.