Making the grade
Every individual has an inherent desire to win. Ask the boy, the girl, the youth, the maiden, or the middle-aged what of the future. Everyone will tell you that he expects to reach his goal, that he expects to sail into the harbour of old age with competency and with his hopes realized. Alas! however, the possibilities of this achievement grow dim with the passing years, and fully eighty-five per cent of the world's populace reach the sear and yellow time of life with the howl of the wolf dangerously near! This human waste is a serious economic problem. It indicates that our system is wrong somewhere. Is it in our boasted educational institutions?
Are we training wrong? Sometimes I think we are? It would seem more logical to train a boy or girl to know themselves, to know the great laws governing life, to know the principles upon which success is founded than to take years of time familiarizing one with a language that is never used and with mathematical problems that have no bearings on life.
I would rather my boy knew his biology and became acquainted with his animal and vegetable ancestry than to be able to read "Caesar's War With the Gauls," in the original tongue. I would rather he knew that courage, fidelity, optimism, imagination, patience, and endurance were necessary for the achievement of success than be able to solve some difficult problems in calculus. You may say that childhood is no time for the consideration of life's serious problems. Let me tell you that the suggestions planted in childhood become the serious problems of life, so why not plant in childhood the right kind. Making the grade is the real problem for all.
It makes no difference what your religion or your philosophy may be, the crux of every life is centred upon whether you have been able to climb the hill. Suggestions rule our lives. Consciously or unconsciously we are influenced thereby. If the suggestions set forth in this little volume help some fellow traveller to climb the hill and to make the grade, then, like other suggestions, its life cycle will have been complete.
Contents:
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER II
HEALTH . . 24
HEALTH . . 24
CHAPTER III
ENDURANCE 32
ENDURANCE 32
CHAPTER IV
IMAGINATION 40
IMAGINATION 40
CHAPTER V
PATIENCE 47
PATIENCE 47
CHAPTER VI
COURAGE 54
COURAGE 54
CHAPTER VII
SELF-CONFIDENCE 62
SELF-CONFIDENCE 62
CHAPTER VIII
OPTIMISM 69
OPTIMISM 69
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