LEADER OF SPORTS AND THOUGHT. It is unusual that the same boy should be a leader in nearly all innocent sports, and, at the same time, the most thoughtful and studious boy of all. Generally, the fun-loving youth is an indifferent scholar,--having little taste for reading and study. But it was otherwise with Benjamin. He was as much of an expert in sport as he was in reading,--the best jumper, runner, swimmer, and rower of his age in Boston. And he enjoyed it, too. Perhaps he enjoyed being the best more than any part of the sport. Certainly, when he was in school, he enjoyed being the _best_ scholar more than any part of a pupil's experience; and he so managed to continue the best to the end, though the end came much too soon for him. Swimming was his favorite sport. It was claimed for him that, any time between twelve and sixteen years of age, he could have swam across the Hellespont. Here, as well as elsewhere, his inventive genius was devising ways to promote more rapid swimming. "I believe that I can double my speed in swimming by an invention I have in mind," he said to John Collins, one day. "What sort of an invention? You are always up to something of that sort. I think that arms and legs are all the invention that will ever promote swimming, slow or fast." "Well, you see, John, if I do not invent something to greatly increase speed in swimming," continued Benjamin. "I have been studying on it for some time, and I think I have it." "You do not need anything to increase your speed, Ben; you can beat everybody now, and you ought to be satisfied with that." "I am not satisfied. I want to do better yet. I never did so well in anything yet that I did not want to do better." Right here was really the secret of Benjamin's success,--trying to do better to-morrow than to-day, not satisfied with present attainments, pressing forward to something more desirable, going up higher. Such boys and girls succeed. Difficulties do not alarm or discourage them--they serve to draw them out and make them more invincible. But youth who are satisfied to be just what they are to-day, no larger, broader, or better, live and die mere ciphers. They are destitute of ambition and the spirit of enterprise. They have no just conception of their mission in this world. They do not understand themselves,--what they are for and what they can be if they choose. What is worse, they have no desire to know these things; the effort to know them is too much for their easy, indifferent natures. "I guess that is so," replied John, to Benjamin's last remark. "I never saw a boy just like you; and I think you are right. I want to know more than I do about many things, and I mean to. But what sort of a swimming apparatus have you in mind?" "Well, a sort of palette for the hands and sandals for the feet, fastened tightly so as to be used readily. I have an idea that I can throw myself forward with far greater speed."