"Why, all the girls in New Haven fell in love with him," continued Dr. Munson, "and wept tears of real sorrow when they heard of his sad fate. In dress he was always neat; he was quick to lend a helping hand to a being in distress, brute or human; was overflowing with good humor, and was the idol of all his acquaintances."
Young masters of schools, public or private, unmarried and attractive, usually rank next in popularity to other professional men,—ministers, lawyers, or doctors, as the case may be,—and a boy of nineteen, the object of as much attention as Nathan Hale must have received, might well be pardoned if his head had been slightly turned, in thus becoming the admired teacher of a large class of young ladies. One special mark of stability of character appears to have characterized this young man in a greater degree than is always the case at the present day. Detached as he was, as he supposed irrevocably, from the woman he loved, he appears to have carried himself with almost middle-aged dignity, and, what is not a little to his credit, even his intimate friends among his classmates could not, by the most delicate cross-questioning, draw from him anything suggesting more than a pleasant interest in any of the young ladies with whom he was thrown in contact.
A letter that will be given in its proper place shows his courteous and cordial interest in the little city he left when he entered the army; yet it is rather a noteworthy fact that one of his classmates, writing to him during his camp life, had to suggest that, as the young ladies he had taught were always inquiring when he had heard from "Master," it would doubtless give them pleasure if he could find time to write some one of them a note with friendly messages to others, to show that he still remembered them.
Many young men would hardly have needed such a suggestion. But Nathan Hale, so far as we can learn, while given to warm friendships among his classmates, and to the cultivation, while in New Haven, Haddam, and New London, of the society of the best families, appears, from the beginning, to have taken life seriously. Disappointed in the love of the one woman for whom he cared, he had turned with sincere absorption to the work to which he felt himself called before entering on the theological course it is thought that his father had planned for him.
There is further evidence of Hale's notable gifts as a teacher. Colonel Samuel Green, who had been a pupil of Hale in New London, said of him, in oldtime phrase: "Hale was a man peculiarly engaging in his manners—these were mild and genteel. The scholars, old and young, were attached to him. They loved him for his tact and amiability.
"He was wholly without severity and had a wonderful control over boys. He was sprightly, ardent, and steady—bore a fine moral character and was respected highly by all his acquaintances. The school in which he taught was owned by the first gentlemen in New London, all of whom were exceedingly gratified by Hale's skill and assiduity."
A lady of New London who was for some time an inmate of the same family with Hale, adds her testimony:
"His capacity as a teacher was highly appreciated both by parents and pupils. His simple and unostentatious manner of imparting right views and feelings to less cultivated understandings was unsurpassed by any other person I have ever known."
He was, as we see, a successful teacher, and, as we learn elsewhere, had serious thoughts of remaining a teacher.
Unexpectedly, however, events verified the truth of the old adage, "Man proposes, God disposes." A great historical drama was to be enacted before the eyes of the wondering world, and events were ripening that were to form a great epoch in history.