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  the animals took all the subjects.

The duck was excellent in swimming.  In fact, better than his instructor. But he made only  passing grades in flying and was very poor in running.

Since he was slow in running, he had to stay after  school and also drop swimming in order to practice  running.

This was kept up until his webbed feet were  badly worn and he was only average in swimming. 

But average was acceptable in school so nobody worried about that, except the duck.

The rabbit started at the top of the class in running but had a nervous breakdown because of so much makeup work in swimming.

The squirrel was excellent in climbing until he developed frustration in the flying class where his teacher made him start from the ground up instead of the treetop down.

He also developed a “Charlie horse” from overexertion and got a C in climbing and D in running.

The eagle was a problem child and was disciplined severely.

In the climbing class, he beat all the others to the top of the tree, but insisted on using his own way to get there.

At the end of the year, an abnormal eel that could swim exceeding well and also run, climb and fly a little had the highest average and was valedictorian.

The prairie dogs stayed out of school and fought the tax levy because the administration would not add digging and burrowing to the curriculum.

They apprenticed their offspring to a badger and later joined the groundhogs and gophers to start a successful private school.

By the way, the turtle was put in the slower learners class because he'd spent most of his time in detention for failing to take part in flying lessons.