CHAPTER IV.
AN IMPORTANT STEP
“What are you thinking about, Dan?” asked his mother one evening as the boy sat thoughtfully gazing at the logs blazing in the fireplace.
“I was wishing for something to read,” answered the boy.
Indeed that was his chief trouble in those early days. Libraries were scarce, and private collections equally scarce, especially in small country places. So the boy’s appetite for books was not likely to be satisfied.
Daniel’s words attracted the attention of his father.
“I have been speaking to some of our neighbors to-day,” he said, “about establishing a small circulating library which we could all use. I think we shall do something about it soon.”
“I hope you will, father,” said Dan eagerly.
“If we all contribute a little, we can make a beginning. Besides we can put in some books we have already.”
A week or two later Judge Webster announced that the library had been established, and it may be easily supposed that Daniel was one of the first to patronize it. It was a small and, many of my boy friends would think, an unattractive collection. But in the collection was the “Spectator,” in reading which Daniel unconsciously did something towards forming a desirable style of his own. He was fond of poetry, and at an early age could repeat many of the psalms and hymns of Dr. Watts.
There was another poem which so impressed him that he learned to repeat the whole of it. This was Pope’s “Essay on Man,” a poem which I fear is going out of fashion, which is certainly a pity, for apart from its literary merits it contains a great deal of sensible advice as to the conduct of life. As it is not of so much importance how much we read as how thoroughly, and how much we remember, there is reason to think that Daniel got more benefit from his four books than most of the boys of to-day from their multitude of books.
Once, however, Daniel’s literary enthusiasm came near having serious consequences. A new almanac had been received, and as usual each of the months was provided with a couplet of poetry. After going to bed Daniel and Ezekiel got into a dispute about the couplet at the head of the April page, and in order to ascertain which was correct Dan got out of bed, went down stairs, and groped his way to the kitchen, where he lighted a candle and went in search of the almanac. He found it, and on referring to it ascertained that Ezekiel was right. His eagerness made him careless, and an unlucky spark from the candle set some cotton clothes on fire. The house would have been consumed but for the exertions and presence of mind of his father. It may be a comfort to some of my careless young readers to learn that so great a man as Daniel Webster occasionally got into mischief when he was a boy.
Somewhere about this time a young lawyer, Mr. Thomas W. Thompson, came to Daniel’s native town and set up an office.
As he was obliged to be absent at times, and yet did not wish to close his office, he proposed to Daniel to sit in his office and receive callers in his absence. Though boys do not generally take kindly to confinement, the office contained one attraction for the boy in a collection of books, probably of a miscellaneous character such as a young man is likely to pick up.
Daniel’s time was not otherwise occupied, for he had no service to render, except to stay in the office and inform callers when Mr. Thompson would be back, and he was therefore at liberty to make use of the books. He made a selection unusual for a boy. There was an old Latin grammar, which the young lawyer had probably used himself in his preparatory course. This book Daniel selected, and began to study by himself. His employer offered to hear him recite in it, and soon had occasion to be surprised at the strong and retentive memory of his office boy. Probably none of the law books attracted the future lawyer. It would have been surprising if they had.
“Judge Webster,” said Thompson, on meeting the father of his young employee, “Dan will make a fine scholar if he has the chance.”
“I think the boy has ability.”
“He certainly has. He ought to go to college.”
Judge Webster shook his head.
“I should like it above all things,” he said, “but I can’t see my way clear. I am a poor man, as you know, and it would cost a great deal of money to carry Dan through college even after he were prepared.”
This was true, and the young lawyer was unprepared with any suggestion as to how the difficult matter was to be arranged. But Judge Webster did not forget the conversation. He was considering what could be done towards giving his promising son an education. He was willing to sacrifice his comfort, even, if thereby he could give him a good start in life.
Finally he made up his mind to start him on the way, even if he were obliged to stop short before reaching the desired goal.
Not far away was an institution which has since become famous, Exeter Academy, which has now for a century been doing an important work in preparing boys for our best colleges, and has always maintained a high standard of scholarship. Thither Judge Webster determined to take Daniel, and provide for his expenses by domestic self-denial. It was not till he had fully made up his mind that he announced his determination to the boy.
“Dan,” he said one evening, “you must be up early to-morrow.”
“Why, father?”
Daniel supposed he was to be set at some farm work.
“We are going to make a journey,” answered Judge Webster.
“A journey!” repeated the boy in surprise. “Where are we going?”
“I am going to take you to Exeter, to put you at school there.”
The boy listened with breathless interest and delight, mingled perhaps with a little apprehension, for he did not know he would succeed in the untried scenes which awaited him.
“Won’t it be expensive, father?” he asked after a pause, for he knew well his father’s circumstances, and was unusually considerate for a boy.
“Yes, my son, but I look to you to improve your time, so that I may find my investment a wise one.”
“How are we to go, father?”
“On horseback.”
Dan was a little puzzled, not knowing whether he and his father were to ride on one horse or not, as was a frequent custom at that time. It would have been hard upon any horse, for the judge was a man of weight, and the boy though light would have considerably increased the burden.
The next morning Daniel’s curiosity was gratified. In front of the farmhouse stood two horses, one belonging to his father, the other filled out with a side-saddle.
“Is that horse for me?” asked Daniel in surprise.
“Yes, my son.”
“What do I want of a side-saddle? I am not a lady.”
“Neighbor – is sending the horse to Exeter for the use of a lady who is to return here. I agreed to take charge of it, and it happens just right, as you can use it.”
“I don’t know how I can get along with it. It will look strange for me to be riding on a lady’s saddle.”
“If a lady can ride on it probably you can.”
So Dan and his father set out on their journey from the quiet country town to Exeter, the boy mounted on a lady’s horse. When in his later life he had occasion to refer to this journey, Mr. Webster recalled with great merriment the figure he must have cut as he rode meekly behind his father.
No doubt as they rode along father and son conversed together about the important step which had been taken. Judge Webster already had formed the plan of sending Daniel to college, after he should have completed a course of preparation at Exeter, but upon this part of his plan he did not think it best yet to speak to his son, very probably because he had not yet made up his mind as to whether his circumstances would allow him to incur so heavy an expense.
“My son,” said the father gravely, “I hope you will improve to the utmost the advantages I am securing for you. You must remember how much depends upon yourself. A boy’s future is largely in his own hands.”
“Yes, father, I will do the best I can.”
“Mr. Thompson thinks you can make a good scholar.”
“I will try, father.”
“I shall have no money to leave you, Daniel, but I hope to give you an education, which is better than a fortune.”
How would the father have been gratified if he could have foreseen the brilliant future in store for the boy of fourteen who was about to take his first important step in life.
CHAPTER V.
DANIEL AT EXETER ACADEMY
The principal of Exeter Academy at that time was Benjamin Abbot, LL.D., a man of high repute in letters as well as in the educational field. He was a man of dignified presence, who exacted and received deference not only from his pupils but from all with whom he came in contact.
“Dr. Abbot,” said Judge Webster, when the two were admitted to his presence, “I have brought my son Daniel to study in your institution, if you find him qualified.”
The dignified principal turned towards the bashful boy, and said, “What is your age, sir?”
“Fourteen,” answered Daniel.
“I will examine you first in reading. Take this Bible, my lad, and read that chapter.”
It was the twenty-second chapter of St. Luke’s Gospel, and was very well adapted as a test of the boy’s ability in reading.
Now if there was anything Dan could do well it was this. He never could remember the time when he could not read. Probably he had learned from his mother, and his first text-book was the Bible. He was endowed with reverence, and his grave, sonorous voice was especially well fitted for sacred reading.
The boy took the book and commenced the task prescribed. Usually a few verses are considered sufficient, but in this case the dignified listener became absorbed in the boy’s reading, and he listened, half forgetful of the object he had in view. It is a good deal to say that he actually enjoyed it. He had seldom listened to a voice at once so rich, deep and sonorous as belonged to this young boy of fourteen. Daniel, too, forgot that he was on trial, and read with his whole soul intent upon the words before him.
When he had completed the chapter Dr. Abbot said, abruptly, “You are qualified to enter this institution.”
This was all the examination which in his case was required.
It was no common school that Daniel had entered, as is shown by the list of eminent men who have gone forth from it. George Bancroft, Edward Everett, Alexander H. Everett, Lewis Cass, Levi Woodbury, John E. Palfrey and others received here the first rudiments of their classical education, and all of them looked back with affection to their Alma Mater. But without derogating from the fame of any of these eminent men, it may surely be said that in Daniel Webster not only Exeter but Dartmouth College boasts its greatest alumnus.
Daniel soon vindicated the good judgment of Dr. Abbot in admitting him as a pupil. As to the manner in which he improved the advantages which his father’s self-denial had secured to him, I quote the testimony of Dr. Tefft in his interesting life of Webster:
“During the nine months of his stay at Exeter he accomplished as much for himself, according to every account, as most young gentlemen could have accomplished in two years. When he left he had as thoroughly mastered grammar, arithmetic, geography and rhetoric, as the majority of college graduates usually have done after a full collegiate course. He had also made rapid progress in the study of the Latin language. Dr. Abbot, fully appreciating the capacity of his most remarkable pupil, did not tie him down to the ordinary routine of study, nor compel him to lag behind with the other pupils, but gave him free scope and a loose rein, that he might do his utmost; and the venerable preceptor, after the lapse of more than half a century, during all which time he continued to be a teacher, declared on a public occasion that Daniel Webster’s equal in the power of amassing knowledge he had never seen, and never expected to see again.
“It is not enough to say of him, according to Dr. Abbot’s description of him at this time, that he had a quick perception and a memory of great tenacity and strength. He did not seem barely to read and remember, as other people do. He appeared, rather, to grasp the thoughts and facts given by his author with a peculiar force, to incorporate them into his mental being, and thus make them a part of himself. It is said of Sir Isaac Newton, after reading for the first time the geometry of Euclid, and on being asked what he thought of it, that he knew it all before. He understood geometry, it seems, by intuition, or by a perception so rapid that it seems like intuition; but it was also true of the great astronomer that he had great difficulty in remembering even his own calculations after he had gone through with them. Daniel Webster, on the other hand, though endowed with a very extraordinary quickness of insight, worked harder for his knowledge than did Newton; but when once he had gained a point, or learned a fact, it remained with him, a part of his own essence, forever afterwards. His mind was also wonderfully fertile. A single truth, which, with most boys of his age, would have remained a single truth, in him became at once a starting-point for a remarkable series of ideas, original and striking, growing up out of the seed sown by that mighty power of reflection, in which no youth of his years, probably, was ever his superior.”
At that time an assistant in the school was Joseph S. Buckminster, who later became an eminent preacher in Boston, and died while yet a young man. He was very young at the time, a mere boy, yet such were his attainments, and such was the confidence reposed in him by his old teachers, that he was selected to fill the position of tutor. He it was who first directed the studies of the new scholar, and encouraged the bashful boy to do his best. In after life Webster never displayed timidity or awkwardness; but, fresh from the farm, thrown among a hundred boys, most of whom were better dressed and more used to society than he, he felt at times awkward and distrustful. One thing he found it hard to do was to declaim. This is certainly singular, considering how he excelled in reading, and considering moreover what an orator he afterwards became.
It was not because he did not try. He committed more than one piece to memory, and recited it to himself out loud in the solitude of his own room, but when the time came to get up and declaim it before the teacher and his schoolmates he was obliged to give it up. Here is his own account of it:
“Many a piece did I commit to memory, and rehearse in my own room over and over again; but when the day came, when the school collected, when my name was called, and I saw all eyes turned upon my seat, I could not raise myself from it. Sometimes the masters frowned, sometimes they smiled. Mr. Buckminster always pressed and entreated with the most winning kindness that I would venture only once; but I could not command sufficient resolution, and when the occasion was over I went home and wept tears of bitter mortification.”
This is certainly encouraging for bashful boys. Here was a man who became one of the greatest orators—perhaps the greatest—and yet as a boy he made an ignominious failure in the very department in which he afterwards excelled. It is a lesson for parents also. Don’t too hastily conclude that your boys are dunces, and destined to failure, because they develop late, or are hindered from making a creditable figure by timidity or nervous self-consciousness.
In this connection I am tempted to repeat an anecdote of Sir Walter Scott. It was not till comparatively late that he discovered his poetical ability. It is related of him that when already a young man he was rowing with a friend on a Scotch lake, when they mutually challenged each other to produce a few lines of poetry. Both made the trial, and both failed. Thereupon Scott said good-humoredly to his companion, “It’s clear neither of us was cut out for a poet.” Yet within ten years appeared the first of those Border poems which thrilled the hearts of his countrymen, and have lent a charm to the hills and lakes of Scotland which they will never lose.
Daniel remained nine months at Exeter. Though he did not win reputation as a declaimer, he made his mark as a scholar. When he was approaching the end of his first term the usher said one day, “Webster, you may stop a few minutes after school; I wish to speak to you.”
Daniel stopped, wondering whether in any way he had incurred censure.
When they were alone the usher said, “The term is nearly over. Are you coming back next term?”
Daniel hesitated. He enjoyed the advantages which the school afforded, but his feelings had been hurt at times by the looks of amusement directed at his rustic manners and ill-fitting garments.
The usher noticed his hesitation, and said, “You are doing yourself great credit. You are a better scholar than any in your class. If you come back next term I shall put you into a higher class.”
These encouraging words made the boy resolve to return, and regardless of ridicule pursue with diligence the path which had been marked out for him.
It would be rather interesting to read the thoughts of Daniel’s schoolmates when years afterwards they saw the boy whom they had ridiculed moving forward with rapid strides to the foremost place in the councils of state, as well as in the legal profession.
I am tempted to insert here, on the authority of an Exeter correspondent of the Chicago Advance, an anecdote of Daniel at this period which will interest my young readers:
“When Daniel Webster’s father found that his son was not robust enough to make a successful farmer, he sent him to Exeter to prepare for college, and found a home for him among a number of other students in the family of ‘old Squire Clifford,’ as we of a younger generation had always heard him called. Daniel had up to this time led only the secular life of a country farmer’s boy, and, though the New Hampshire farmers have sent out many heroes as firm and true as the granite rocks in the pasture, there cannot be among the hard and homely work which such a life implies the little finenesses of manner which good society demands. Daniel was one of these diamonds of the first water, but was still in the rough, and needed some cutting and polishing to fit him to shine in the great world in which he was to figure so conspicuously.
“None saw this more clearly than the sensible old Squire. The boy had one habit at table of which the Squire saw it would be a kindness to cure him. When not using his knife and fork he was accustomed to hold them upright in his fists, on either side of his plate. Daniel was a bashful boy of very delicate feelings, and the Squire feared to wound him by speaking to him directly on the subject. So he called aside one of the other students with whom he had been longer acquainted, and told him his dilemma. ‘Now,’ said he, ‘I want you this noon at the table to hold up your knife and fork as Daniel does. I will speak to you about it, and we will see if the boy does not take a hint for himself.’
“The young man consented to be the scapegoat for his fellow-student, and several times during the meal planted his fists on the table, with his knife and fork as straight as if he had received orders to present arms. The Squire drew his attention to his position, courteously begged his pardon for speaking of the matter, and added a few kind words on the importance of young men correcting such little habits before going out into the world. The student thanked him for his interest and advice, and promised reform, and Daniel’s knife and fork were never from that day seen elevated at table.”
CHAPTER VI.
PREPARING FOR COLLEGE
After nine months spent at Exeter Daniel was withdrawn by his father, not from any dissatisfaction with the school or with the pupil’s progress, but probably for economical reasons. Judge Webster was a poor man, and though the charges at Exeter at that time were very moderate they were a heavy draft upon the good father’s purse. But Dan was not taken back to farm-work. He was allowed to continue his classical studies, but under different auspices.
In the town of Boscawan, only six miles off, the minister, Rev. Samuel Wood, was noted for his success in preparing boys for college. His charges, too, were wonderfully low. For board and instruction he only charged one dollar per week, which leads us to infer either that provisions were very cheap, or that boys had less appetite than is the case now. At any rate, the low price was a great inducement to Dan’s father.
“Dan,” he said, soon after the boy came, “do you wish to continue your studies?”
“Yes, father, if you are willing.”
“I am not only willing but desirous that you should do so. I intend to place you with Rev. Mr. Wood, of Boscawen.”
Daniel knew of Mr. Wood’s reputation as a teacher, and the prospect did not displease him.
Still his father had not announced the plan he had in view for him.
One cold winter day, when the snow lay deep on the ground, Judge Webster and Dan started for the house of his future teacher. As they were ascending a hill slowly through deep snows the Judge, who had for some time been silent, said, “Dan, I may as well tell you what plan I have in view for you. I shall ask Mr. Wood to prepare you for college, and I will let you enter at Dartmouth as soon as you are ready.”
Daniel could not speak for emotion. He knew what a sacrifice it would involve for his father with his straitened means to carry through such a plan as that, and his heart was full. As he himself says, “A warm glow ran all over me, and I laid my head on my father’s shoulder and wept.”
I am afraid that some boys—possibly some of my young readers—have received a similar announcement from their fathers with quite different feelings.
We are to imagine Dan, then, an inmate of the minister’s family, pursuing his studies with success, but with less of formal restraint than when he was a pupil at Exeter. Indeed I shall not attempt to conceal the fact that occasionally Dan’s love of sport, and particularly of fishing, drew him away from his studies, and led him to incur the good doctor’s remonstrances.
One day after a reprimand, which was tempered, however, by a compliment to his natural abilities, Daniel determined to surprise his teacher.
The task assigned him to prepare was one hundred lines of Virgil, a long lesson, as many boys would think. Daniel did not go to bed, but spent all night in poring over his book.
The next day, when the hour for recitation came, Dan recited his lesson with fluency and correctness.
“Very well,” said Dr. Wood, preparing to close the book.
“But, doctor, I have a few more lines that I can recite.”
“Very well,” said Mr. Wood, supposing that Dan might have read twenty-five or thirty lines more. But the boy kept on till he had completed a second hundred.
“Really, Dan, I compliment you on your industry,” said his teacher, again about to close the book.
“But,” said Dan, “I have studied further.” “Very remarkable,” said the minister in surprise; “well, let us have them.”
Dan rolled off another hundred lines, which he appeared to know quite as well as the previous two hundred.
“You are a smart boy!” said the doctor approvingly, and not without a feeling of relief, for it is rather tedious to listen critically to the translation of three hundred lines.
“But,” said Dan, “I am not through yet.”
“Pray how much have you read?” asked Dr. Wood in amazement.
“I can recite five hundred more if you like,” said Dan, his eyes twinkling with enjoyment at the doctor’s surprise.
“I think that will do for to-day,” said Dr. Wood. “I don’t think I shall have time to hear them now. You may have the rest of the day for pigeon shooting.”
Indeed Dan was always fond of sport, and not particularly fond of farm-work. My boy reader may like to read an anecdote of this time, which I will give in the very words in which Daniel told it to some friends at a later day.
While at Dr. Wood’s, “my father sent for me in haying time to help him, and put me into a field to turn hay, and left me. It was pretty lonely there, and, after working some time, I found it very dull; and, as I knew my father was gone away, I walked home, and asked my sister Sally if she did not want to go and pick some whortleberries. She said yes. So I went and got some horses, and put a side-saddle on one, and we set off. We did not get home till it was pretty late, and I soon went to bed. When my father came home he asked my mother where I was, and what I had been about. She told him. The next morning when I awoke I saw all the clothes I had brought from Dr. Wood’s tied up in a small bundle again. When I saw my father he asked me how I liked haying. I told him I found it ‘pretty dull and lonesome yesterday.’ ’Well,’ said he, ‘I believe you may as well go back to Dr. Wood’s.’ So I took my bundle under my arm, and on my way I met Thomas W. Thompson, a lawyer in Salisbury; he laughed very heartily when he saw me. ‘So,’ said he, ’your farming is over, is it?’”
It will occur to my readers that, as Judge Webster was struggling so earnestly to give Dan an education, it would have been more considerate for the boy to have remained at his task, and so saved his father the trouble of finishing it. However, it is not my intention to present the boy as in all respects a model, though it is certain that he appreciated and was thoroughly grateful for his father’s self-sacrificing devotion.
On one occasion Dan was set to mowing. He did not succeed very well.
“What is the matter, Dan?” asked his father.
“My scythe does not hang well,” answered Dan, an answer which will be understood by country boys.
His father took the scythe and tried to remedy the difficulty, but when it was handed back to Dan, it worked no better.
“I think you had better hang it to suit yourself, Dan,” said his father.
With a laughing face Dan hung it on the branch of a tree, and turning to his father said, “There, that is just right.”
On another occasion Judge Webster, on returning home, questioned the boys as to what they had been doing in his absence.
“What have you been doing, Ezekiel?” asked his father.
“Nothing, sir,” was the frank reply.
“And you, Daniel, what have you been doing?”
“Helping Zeke, sir.”
There is no doubt that Judge Webster was more indulgent than was usual in that day to his children, and more particularly to Daniel, of whose talents he was proud, and of whose future distinction he may have had in his mind some faint foreshadowing. This indulgence was increased by Dan’s early delicacy of constitution. At any rate, Daniel had in his father his best friend, not only kind but judicious, and perhaps the eminence he afterwards attained was due in part to the judicious management of the father, who earnestly sought to give him a good start in life.
While at Boscawan Dan found another circulating library, and was able to enlarge his reading and culture. Among the books which it contained was an English translation of Don Quixote, and this seems to have had a powerful fascination for the boy. “I began to read it,” he says in his autobiography, “and it is literally true that I never closed my eyes until I had finished it, nor did I lay it down, so great was the power of this extraordinary book on my imagination.”
Meanwhile Daniel was making rapid progress in his classical studies. He studied fitfully perhaps, but nevertheless rapidly. In the summer of 1797, at the age of fifteen, he was pronounced ready to enter college. His acquisitions were by no means extensive, for in those days colleges were content with a scantier supply of preparatory knowledge than now. In the ancient languages he had read the first six books of Virgil’s Æneid, Cicero’s four Orations against Catiline, a little Greek grammar, and the four Evangelists of the Greek Testament. In mathematics he had some knowledge of arithmetic, but knew nothing of algebra or geometry. He had read a considerable number of books, however, enough to give him a literary taste, but he was by no means a prodigy of learning. Yet, slender as were his acquirements, his school life was at an end, and the doors of Dartmouth College opened to receive its most distinguished son.