Clinton by Walter Aimwell — Read

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.