Once two young men were wandering in a great forest. Their names were Jack Silly and John Wise. How they were placed in the forest I have not time to tell but there they were, and the forest stretched for miles and miles. Indeed, it was such a great forest that it would take a good walker a whole year to go through it from the place where they were to the nearest point out.
Jack Silly and John Wise went along a little way together, but very soon they parted company. This was because Jack persisted in walking in a circle, as any one is sure to do if he walks in a great forest without carefully directing his course. He sauntered carelessly along, every now and then finding himself in a great marsh, from which it took him a long while to make his way out. He ate whatever he could lay his hands on, and often got very sick with poisonous berries. He stumbled over roots and stumps, plunging along in the dark. He trod on serpents, and narrowly escaped fatal stings. He wandered into caves where wild beasts were, and was torn by their sharp claws. Over and over he passed through the same circle, stumbling into the same swamps, falling over the same roots, even entering the same dangerous caves, and at last he perished miserably in the forest.
John Wise, on the contrary, sighted sharply from tree to tree, and so kept his course perfectly straight; or, if he ever had to turn aside to escape from a dangerous swamp, or to go around some great rock, he directed his course so skilfully that it was always true to the same line. He chose for food only the berries that he saw eaten safely by the animals. He carefully avoided all dangers, and trudged on industriously from day to day, until at last he came out of the forest and found himself in the most beautiful city in all the world.
From this little story, boys and girls, I want you to learn just one thing. There are many people who go through the year, and go through their lives, just as if they were walking in circular paths. They make the same mistakes day after day. They never learn from their blunders how to avoid them, or from their follies how to become more wise. That is not the way you children will act, I am sure. You will follow the example of John Wise. You will learn from the past how to live better in the future. You will look back over the year through which you have been walking, and will get from it all the lessons you can that will help you to live better in the year to come. Will you not?