2. Learning is primarily a matter of personal discipline; students cannot be motivated by school or college alone.

Self-discipline comes where there is no any notable extrinsic force, but the individual is aimed to do a task. While in the early steps of learning, the personal discipline is not a serious matter, as the child grows, the personal discipline is needed and university and college alone cannot do anything alone for the learning of an individual.

To begin with, learning is not always a matter of personal discipline. Humans born with the curiosity and thirst of knowing, this makes the human being apt to learn things. Consider the children who voraciously look at their parents to learn to speak with them, to use the remote control, answering the telephone and so on. The child at that level does not need any “personal discipline” to learn as inherently the curiosity directs him/her to learn.

Now, when the individual goes to the primary school, here the students may not be interested in the some courses, but the educational system disciplines the individual as the student approaches an exam. In the personal experience, many of my own primary learning are due to the being scared of the exams. Such an external motivation, has instilled in us how to discipline ourselves; Let me recall that after the exams how repeatedly we promised ourselves that in the following term “I will not postpone my study to the night before the exam”. This is when we are adapting a personal discipline with the obligations of the school. Therefore, self-discipline needs to be learned per se, and schools, especially primary schools, confers it on the students by challenging them with exams.

However, as we get older, other motivations and forces loom in our life that without a personal discipline we cannot make any progress in the learning. The author’s statement here makes sense. When the individual passes the puberty the sexual desire can act as a distractor. The financial pressure and finding jobs can discourage the one not to want to continue the education. The hardship of learning itself needs to be taken into account as it becomes increasingly complex when we go further on the education. The aforementioned curiosity and then the scare of the exam does not come in handy here, and the self-discipline is the key. Even if the materials are hard and the education seems dull, the one who learns how to discipline can concentrate and persevere throughout the way of learning.

In short, the beginning of learning of an individual can be fulfilled without the need of a personal discipline as learning is an instinct and in the primary school the children are malleable enough to be motivated by their school. But as the time goes by, students need to acquire the skill of self-discipline in order to thrive at the crucible of temptation and other discouraging factors to persevere on the learning and the education.