Study is Hard Work by William H. Armstrong.

Mastery of language may have been that ultimate factor without which Abraham Lincoln would have failed. For the self-taught man who once would have given all he owned and gone into debt for the gift of lyric utterance had touched the summits of eloquence. Yet this, like his other achievements, had not come by mere chance. Patient self-training, informed reflection, profound study of a few great works of English literature, esteem for the rhythmic beauty that may be coaxed from language, all these had endowed him with the faculty to write well and to speak well, so that at last, when profound emotions deep within him had felt the impulse of new-born nobility of purpose, they had welled forth--and would well forth once more---in imperishable words.

Benjamin P. Thomas, Abraham Lincoln, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. 1950, p. 500.

You have been provided with advantages which Lincoln lacked, but these advantages are outward, physical advantages. It is only the inward advantage that will drive you to take the opportunities before you, and use them fully because the desire to learn will not let you rest. If you cannot find within the wide environs of your heart and soul the desire to learn, then you need not expect help from without. You are the only person who can awaken the desire. Without it you will gather bits of information here and there, but you will miss the greatest of all that life offers---knowledge and wisdom which lead us to the real purpose that God in His goodness has prepared for each of us "since the foundations of the world were laid." 

You must surely tremble at the very thought of the advantages for your life which are with you. In all that goes into the making of your life--play, work, Latin, history, economics, law, medicine, thoughts, plans, dreams--you are given the purpose of your success and failure in this turbulent, confused experience which we call life. "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect." Matt. 5:48 

Your desire to learn must carry you beyond a pleasant life and a bountiful retirement, beyond some unknown second of time after your "three score and ten" when your desire to learn will prompt the question, "What next?" From yesterday forward your desire to learn will determine to what degree you fulfill the purposes of God for you. 

The desire to learn means that from within you must come the drive to bring to full working capacity all your abilities and talents. Your education began when you were born, and the Christian idea of education takes it to eternity "from strength to strength in the life of perfect service." "But what," you ask, "has all this to do with assignments in textbooks, listening in classrooms, preparing for examinations?" If you do not learn to master the disciplines now before you, you will learn with much greater difficulty later, or you will struggle with indifference, incompleteness, indecision, and instability for the rest of your life, and perhaps be overwhelmed. "So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." Psalms 90:12

The 3 basic reasons for education are 1) perception, 2) thought, and 3) communication. Perception is the means whereby we become acquainted with the world around us. Thought is the means whereby we weigh, separate, distill, evaluate, accept, or reject the impressions we have received by perception. Communication is the means whereby we receive the thoughts and gleanings of others, and by communication we all aspire, consciously, or subconsciously, to leave behind us something which "neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal." Matt. 6:20

The great enterprise is yours; the teacher is a minor partner in the enterprise. The teacher can open windows of vision and point to horizons beyond, but the horizons belong to you. The teacher is the guidepost for the journey, but the journey is yours. The teacher can light the lantern and put it in your hand, but you must walk into the dark.

The secret of how to study is locked up in the desire to learn. Good students are not "born students"; good students are made by constant and deliberate practice of good study habits, and for this there is absolutely no substitute. This responsibility is yours. Your parents cannot wish it upon you, and your teachers cannot force it upon you. You must first want to be a good student.

William H. Armstrong

My son, eat honey, for it is good, yes, the honey from the comb is sweet to your taste; Know that wisdom is thus for your soul; If you find it, then there will be a future, and your hope will not be cut off. 

Prov. 24:13-14