My schoolmate Edward Barton, or 'Ned' as he was usually called by the boys, was such an odd character in his way, that I trust my readers will pardon me for introducing him to their notice. His father was a physician in a distant village, and was justly esteemed among the residents of the place. He had an extensive practice both in the village and surrounding country, and his time was very much occupied; and as Ned grew up he proved a source of constant anxiety to his father, who, being unable to keep him under his own eye, at length decided to send him to reside with some relatives in a farming district some twenty miles distant from his home. Ned's disposition was a singular compound of good and evil, and his conduct depended in a great measure, upon the companions he associated with. He was easily persuaded, and often during his father's frequent and lengthened absences from home he played truant from school, and associated with the worst boys in the village. I well remember the first morning he entered our school. He was then about twelve years of age; but, owing to his carelessness and inattention, he had made but slight progress in study. I learned afterwards that he had so long borne the names of "dunce" and "blockhead" in the school he attended in his own village, that he supposed himself to be really such, and made up his mind that it was useless for him to try to be anything else: and I think when our teacher first called him up for examination he was inclined to be of the same opinion. The teacher first addressed him by saying, "How far have you advanced in reading, my boy?" "Don't know sir, never thought anything about how far I've been." "Well, at least," replied the master, "you can tell me the names of the books you have studied, in reading and spelling." "Oh, yes," replied the boy, "I've been clean through 'Webster's Elementary and the Progressive Reader.'" "Can you tell me the subject of any of your lessons?" "I can just remember one story about a dog that was crossing a river on a plank with a piece of meat in his mouth, and when he saw his shadder in the water, made a spring at it and dropped the meat which he held in his mouth, and it was at once carried away by the current." "Well," said the teacher, "as you remember the story so well, you can perhaps tell me what lesson we can learn from this fable." "I thought," replied the boy, "when I read the story, that the best way is to hold on to what we are sure of, and not grab after a shadder and lose the whole." "Your idea is certainly a correct one," said the master, "and now we will turn to some other branch of study; can you cipher?" "Don't know, I never tried," replied the boy, with the greatest coolness imaginable. "Well," replied the teacher, "we will after a time see how you succeed, when you _do_ try. Can you tell me what the study of Geography teaches us!" "O," said the boy, "geography tells all about the world, the folks who live in it,