The first of these was W. P. Fitzgerald, the teacher of mathematics at
Mount Pleasant School:
"He taught me to conquer in studying. There is a very hour in which a
young nature, tugging, discouraged, and weary with books, rises with
the consciousness of victorious power into masterhood. For ever after
he knows that he can learn anything if he pleases. It is a distinct
intellectual conversion.
"I first went to the blackboard, uncertain, soft, full of whimpering.
'That lesson must be learned,' he said, in a very quiet tone, but with
a terrible intensity and with the certainty of Fate. All explanations
and excuses he trod under foot with utter scornfulness. 'I want that
problem. I don't want any reasons why I don't get it.'
"'I did study it two hours.'
"'That's nothing to me; I want the lesson. You need not study it at
all, or you may study it ten hours--just to suit yourself. I want the
lesson. Underwood, go to the blackboard!'
"'Oh! yes, but Underwood got somebody to _show_ him his lesson.'
"'What do I care _how_ you get it? That's your business. But you must
have it.'
"It was tough for a green boy, but it seasoned him.
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