But one of the boys who had won the Franklin medal to-day had done so amid the ridicule of his people at home and after very hard work. Boston Latin boys are too well bred to laugh at the humble gifts of any one, but those of this period could hardly have failed to notice the natural stupidity and the strong, silent purpose and will of this lad. His name we will call Elwell--Frank Elwell. He came from a humble home, where he was not uncommonly taunted as being the "fool of the family." He first attracted attention at this school of brilliant pupils by a bold question which he asked his teacher one day that commanded instant respect. After hard study he had made a very poor recitation. He was reproved by his teacher, who was a submaster, but a kindly, sensitive, and sympathetic man. He lifted his eyes and looked into the teacher's face, and said: "Why do you reprove me? I am doing the best I can, sir." The teacher knew the words to be true. The boys that heard the question turned with a kind of chivalrous feeling toward their dull companion, who was doing his best against poverty, limited gifts, and many disadvantages in life. The old school of Charles Sumner, Wendell Phillips, and Phillips Brooks is not wanting in true sympathy with any manly struggle in life. The teacher answered: "Master Elwell, I have done wrong in reproving you. He does well who does his best. You are doing well." Frank Elwell won the Franklin medal by doing his best. On the evening after his graduation he stood before his teacher and asked: "Master Lowell" (for so we will call the teacher, and use the old term in the vocative case), "Master Lowell, did you ever know any boy to struggle against defects like mine?" "Yes, my boy, I have." "Did he succeed in life?" "He did. He became the first citizen of Boston, and is so regarded still." "Who was it, sir?" "Look at your medal. It was Benjamin Franklin himself." Reader, Frank Elwell perhaps is _you_. "More than wealth, more than fame, more than any other thing, is the power of the human heart." Live for influences--live for the things that live, and let the best influences of the Peter Folgers and Benjamin Franklins of your family live on in you, and live after you. You will do well in life and will succeed in life if you do your best; and if your ideal seems to fail in you, it will not fail in the world, in whose harvest field no good intention perishes. Be true to those who have faith in you, and _to_ their faith in you, and help others by believing in the best that is in them. Those who have the most faith in you are your truest friends. An Uncle Benjamin and a Jenny are among the choicest characters that can enter the doors of life, and we will see it so at the end. Do good, and you can not fail. "Do thou thy work; it shall succeed In thine or in another's day, And if denied the visitor's meed, Thou shalt not miss the toiler's pay." APPENDIX.