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.
CHAPTER VII.
DANIEL’S COLLEGE LIFE
It is all important point in a boy’s life when he enters college. He leaves home, in most cases, and, to a greater extent than ever before, he is trusted to order his own life and rely upon his own judgment. It is a trying ordeal, and many fail to pass through it creditably. A student who has plenty of money is in greater danger of wasting his time from the enlarged opportunities of enjoyment which money can buy. From this danger, at least, Daniel was free. His father found it hard enough to pay his ordinary expenses, and it is hardly likely that the boy ever had much spare money to spend on pleasure.
Besides, though only fifteen, Daniel already possessed a gravity and earnestness not often to be found in much older students. These, however, were blended with a humor and love of fun which contributed to make him an agreeable companion for his fellow-students.
Daniel’s development was not rapid. The oak tree grows steadily, but in rapidity of growth it is eclipsed by many trees of less importance. The great powers which our hero exhibited in after life did not at once make themselves manifest. He did not at once take his place proudly at the head of his class. This is shown by the fact that at the Sophomore exhibition neither of the two principal appointments was assigned to him. Notwithstanding this, it may safely be asserted that his time was well spent. In this connection I am sure my young readers will be interested in reading the testimony of Professor Shortliff.
“Mr. Webster, while in college,” writes the professor, “was remarkable for his steady habits, his intense application to study, and his punctual attendance upon all the prescribed exercises. I know not that he was absent from a recitation, or from morning and evening prayers in the chapel, or from public worship on the Sabbath; and I doubt if ever a smile was seen upon his face during any religious exercise. He was always in his place, and with a decorum suited to it. He had no collision with any one, nor appeared to enter into the concerns of others, but emphatically minded his own business. But, as steady as the sun, he pursued with intense application the great object for which he came to college.”
This is certainly high praise, and I am afraid such words could hardly be said with truth of the majority of the college students of to-day. Conscientious devotion to duty is often set down by college students as indicating a lack of proper spirit, and the punctilious scholar is often stigmatized as a toady, who is trying to curry favor with the Faculty. Daniel, however, understood very well how important to his future success was his improvement of the advantages which his father’s self-sacrifice had purchased for him. Judge Webster was obliged to mortgage his house and farm to meet the expenses incurred by Daniel’s education, and he would indeed have been most reprehensible if he had not constantly borne this in mind.
To go into details, Daniel’s favorite studies were the Latin and Greek classics. He was but slenderly versed in these languages when he entered college, and the college course was not as advanced as it is at Dartmouth to-day. The first year, and part of the second, was devoted to authors and studies which now receive attention before entrance. For instance, the Freshman class went on with the Seventh Book of the Æneid and with the remainder of the Greek Testament, arithmetic was continued, and algebra was begun. While he was not below the average in mathematics, Daniel certainly did not excel in that department. It is related of Charles Sumner that he made strenuous efforts to become a good mathematical scholar in spite of, perhaps because of, his conscious distaste for that important branch, but without marked success. General reading and composition always attracted him, and he was probably one of the best
