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
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