Through storm and stress this motto doth not fail;
All men are brothers! set thy virgin might
To prove man’s brotherhood; thou shalt prevail.
Thou shalt prevail, my country, in the strength
Of Him who guides the spheres and lights the sun;
And joy shall reign through all thy breadth and length,
And thou shalt hear the gracious voice, “Well done!”
[185]. Jonathan Whipple was born in 1794. He never attended school, but it was not from lack of inclination, for he most ardently desired an education. The reader from which his mother taught him his letters he learned so thoroughly that he could repeat it verbatim. In arithmetic he had no instruction further than the fundamental rules, but while he was yet a boy he learned enough of numbers to answer for ordinary occasions. His father set him his first copies in writing, but he improved so rapidly that he soon needed better instruction and got neighboring school-teachers to write copies for him. Ere many years had elapsed, he had no need of copies, since he ranked in penmanship among the first.
Although Mr. Whipple was a hard-working mason, he so much felt the need of more education than he possessed, that, after he had married and settled down in life, he set about informing himself more thoroughly than his previous opportunities had allowed. He so far qualified himself, that he was employed several terms to teach a school of over seventy pupils. In point of discipline and promptness of education his school ranked first in town.
He contributed many articles to various papers, touching on the great topics before the public. The temperance cause received his hearty support, for he was a total abstinence man, at a time when even the most respectable men regularly took their “grog.”