Famous American Statesmen

by Sarah Knowles Bolton

Daniel was at this time extremely diffident—a manner that speaks well for a boy or girl generally—and was helped out of it by a noble young teacher, Joseph Stevens Buckminster, who died at twenty-eight. Mr. Webster says, "I believe I made tolerable progress in most branches which I attended to while in this school; but there was one thing I could not do—I could not make a declamation. I could not speak before the school. The kind and excellent Buckminster sought, especially, to persuade me to perform the exercise of declamation like other boys, but I could not do it. Many a piece did I commit to memory, and recite and rehearse in my own room, over and over again, yet, when the day came, when the school collected to hear declamations, when my name was called, and I saw all eyes turned to my seat, I could not raise myself from it. Sometimes the instructors frowned, sometimes they smiled. Mr. Buckminster always pressed and entreated, most winningly, that I would venture, but I could never command sufficient resolution. When the occasion was over, I went home and wept bitter tears of mortification."

After nine months at Exeter, Daniel began to study with Rev. Samuel Wood, a minister in the adjoining town of Boscawen, six miles from Salisbury. As Captain Webster was driving over with his son, he communicated to him his plan of sending him to college. "I remember," says Daniel Webster, "the very hill which we were ascending, through deep snows, in a New England sleigh, when my father made known this purpose to me. I could not speak. How could he, I thought, with so large a family, and in such narrow circumstances, think of incurring so great an expense for me? A warm glow ran all over me, and I laid my head on my father's shoulder and wept."

All through life, Mr. Webster, greatest of American orators, was never afraid nor ashamed to weep. Children are not, and the nearer we keep to the naturalness of children, with reasonable self-control, the more power we have over others, and the sweeter and purer grow our natures.

While Daniel was at Dr. Wood's, a characteristic incident occurred. He says: "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 whortle-berries. 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 until 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?'"

In August, 1797, when Daniel was fifteen, he entered Dartmouth College; there he proved a genial, affectionate friend, and a devoted student. But for this natural warmth of heart, he probably never would have been an orator, for those only move others whose own hearts are moved. "He had few intimates," says Henry Cabot Lodge, in his admirably written and discriminating "Life of Webster," "but many friends. He was generally liked as well as universally admired, was a leader in the college societies, active and successful in sports, simple, hearty, unaffected, without a touch of priggishness, and with a wealth of wholesome animal spirits."

After two years, the unselfish student could bear no longer the thought that his beloved brother Ezekiel was not to enjoy a college education. When he went home in vacation, he confided to his brother his unhappiness for his sake, and for a whole night they discussed the subject. It was decided that Daniel should consult the father. "This, we knew," said Mr. Webster, "would be a trying thing to my father and mother and two unmarried sisters. My father was growing old, his health not good, and his circumstances far from easy.... The farm was to be carried on, and the family taken care of; and there was nobody to do all this but him, who was regarded as the mainstay—that is to say, Ezekiel. However, I ventured on the negotiation, and it was carried, as other things often are, by the earnest and sanguine manner of youth. I told him that I was unhappy at my brother's prospects. For myself, I saw my way to knowledge, respectability, and self-protection; but, as to him, all looked the other way; that I would keep school, and get along as well as I could, be more than four years in getting through college, if necessary,—provided he also could be sent to study.... He said that to carry us both through college would take all he was worth; that, for himself, he was willing to run the risk; but that this was a serious matter to our mother and two unmarried sisters; that we must settle the matter with them, and, if their consent was obtained, he would trust to Providence, and get along as well as he could."

Captain Webster consulted with his wife; told her that already the farm was mortgaged for Daniel's education, and that if Ezekiel went to college it would take all they possessed. "Well," said she, with her brave mother-heart, "I will trust the boys;" and they lived to make her glad that she had trusted them.

The boy of seventeen went back to Dartmouth to struggle with poverty alone, but he was happy; the boy of nineteen began a new life, studying under Dr. Wood, and, later, entered Dartmouth College.

Daniel, as he had promised, began to earn money to pay his own and his brother's way. By superintending a small weekly paper, called the Dartmouth Gazette, he earned enough to pay his board. In the winter he taught school, and gave the money to Ezekiel. While in college, his wonderful powers in debate began to manifest themselves. He wrote his own declamations. Said one of his classmates: "In his movements he was rather slow and deliberate, except when his feelings were aroused; then his whole soul would kindle into a flame. We used to listen to him with the deepest respect and interest, and no one ever thought of equalling the vigor and flow of his eloquence."

Beside his regular studies, he devoted himself to history and politics. From the old world he learned lessons in finance, in commerce, in the stability of governments, that he was able to use in after life. He remembered what he read. He says, "So much as I read I made my own. When a half-hour or an hour, at most, had elapsed, I closed my book, and thought over what I had read. If there was anything peculiarly interesting or striking in the passage, I endeavored to recall it, and lay it up in my memory, and commonly I could recall it. Then, if, in debate or conversation afterward, any subject came up on which I had read something, I could talk very easily so far as I had read, and then I was very careful to stop." In this manner Mr. Webster became skilled in the art of conversation, and could be the life of any social gathering.