From Farm Boy to Senator

“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.