To play truant means to stay away from school without leave. There are some very intelligent boys who slip away from school and pass their time in a park or a public garden or at a railway station or in a cinema hall.

They wander in the lap of nature and enjoy the beauties of nature or they enjoy seeing a picture or move about from place to place studying men and things. Are such boy failures in life? No, not failures in many cases. Some of the greatest men of the world like Tagore and Shakespeare never attended any school. They have left a very dull and dismal picture of their school life.

A truant follows in their footsteps. A truant roams about from place to place and gathers knowledge, first hand. His intellect is sharpened, his power of observation is developed, his latent faculties are called into play.

He does what he feels impelled to do. He does not do things under compulsion or for fear of the rod. His growth is spontaneous. His ideas are original. He can think and he can express himself. Class room atmosphere and books make a man dull.

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Books give us only second hand knowledge but Nature gives us firsthand knowledge. Nature is the best teacher of all that is good. The following lines are full of great significance:-

‘One impulse from the vernal wood

May teach you more of man;

Of more evil and of good

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Than all the sages can.’

A truant enjoys radiant health. He is very resourceful and has an inventive brain. Edison was expelled from school. The teacher said that his brain was addled. The world knows whether his brain or that of the teacher was addled. Edison turned out to be the greatest inventor that the world has ever produced.

Boys who are always pouring over books become dull. They lose their eye-sight and their backs become bent. They are slogging day and night and lose their health in the game. Is it not a bad bargain to lose one’s health for the sake of a few bits of knowledge? A book-worm is always sad and melancholy while a truant has a sunny temperament.

He is full of humour. He is always optimistic and jovial. A truant finds books in brooks, sermons in stones and good in everything. A book worm becomes totally unfit for the higher things of life.