And, in point of fact, the cleverness which enables the child--I ignore for the moment the adolescent and the adult student--to win prizes of various kinds is found, when carefully analysed, to resolve itself, in nine cases out of ten, into the ability to receive, retain, and retail information.
As this particular, ability is but a small part of that mental capacity which education is supposed to train, it is clear that the clever child who gets to the top of his class, and wins prizes in so doing, may easily be led to over-estimate his powers, and to take himself far more seriously than it is either right or wise of him to do.

His over-confidence may for a time prove an effective stimulus to exertion; but the exertion will probably be misdirected; and later on, when he finds himself confronted by the complex realities of life, and when problems have to be solved which demand the exercise of other faculties than that of memory, his belief in himself, which is the outcome of a false criterion of merit, may induce him to undertake what he cannot accomplish, and may lead at last--owing to his having lost touch with the actualities of things--to his complete undoing.
And as under the prize system the child who is high in his class is apt to over-estimate his ability, so the child who is low in his class is apt to accept the verdict of the class-list as final, and to regard himself as a failure because he lacks the superficial ability which enables a child to shine on the examination day.

Again and again it happens that the dunce of his class goes to the front in the battle of life.

But numerous and significant as these cases are, they are unfortunately exceptions to a general rule.

For one dunce who emerges from the depths of "apparent failure," there are ten who go under after a more or less protracted struggle, and sink contentedly to the bottom.