Once upon a time, the animals decided they must do something heroic to meet the problems of "a new world", so they organized a school. They adopted an activity curriculum consisting of running, climbing, swimming, and flying. To make it easier to administer the curriculum, all of the animals were to take all of the subjects.
The duck was excellent in swimming; in fact, he was even better than his instructor. But, he made only passing grades in flying, and he was very poor in running. Since he was so slow in running, he had to stay after school to practice running, and soon he had no time to swim. This kept up until his webbed feet were so badly worn from trying to run that he became only average in swimming. Fortunately, average was acceptable in this school, so no one really worried about the duck.
The rabbit started at the top of the class in running, but before the end of the school year, he had a nervous breakdown because of so much make-up work he had to do in swimming class.
The squirrel was excellent in climbing; that is, until he became too frustrated in the flying class, where the teacher made him start from the ground up rather than the treetops down. When he developed a charley horse from overexertion, he ended up with a C in climbing and a D in running.
The eagle became known as a problem student when, in climbing class, he beat all the other students to the treetop-but only by using his own methods to get there.
At the end of the year, an abnormal, retarded gopher that could swim exceedingly well, and also run, climb and even fly a little, managed to beat the system-and became the valedictorian.
