In America it is reported that the best specimens of university students often come from remote schools in which no external advantages have been available; but the tough unyielding habit of study has been developed in grappling with difficulties without much support from a teacher.
With those who are more gently brought up the problem is how to obtain this habit of independent work, that is practically--how to get the will to act.

There is drudgery to be gone through, however it may be disguised, and as a permanent acquisition the power of going through it is one of the most lasting educational results that can be looked for.
Drudgery is labour with toil and fatigue.

It is the long penitential exercise of the whole human race, not limited to one class or occupation, but accompanying every work of man from the lowest mechanical factory hand or domestic "drudge" up to the Sovereign Pontiff, who has to spend so many hours in merely receiving, encouraging, blessing, and dismissing the unending processions of his people as they pass before him, imparting to them graces of which he can never see the fruit, and then returning to longer hours of listening to complaints and hearing of troubles which often admit of no remedy: truly a life of labour with toil and fatigue, in comparison with which most lives are easy, though each has to bear in its measure the same stamp.
Pius X has borne the yoke of labour from his youth.

His predecessor took it up with an enthusiasm that burned within him, and accepted training in a service where the drudgery is as severe though generally kept out of sight.

The acceptance of it is the great matter, whatever may be the form it takes.
Spurs and bait, punishment and reward, have been used from time immemorial to set the will in motion, and the results have been variable--no one has appeared to be thoroughly satisfied with either, or even with a combination of the two.