A good reader
153. A College Boy and a Young Lawyer. Daniel Webster was born of good Puritan stock, in 1782, in New Hampshire. He was a very weakly child. No one dreamed that one day he would have an iron-like body. Daniel spent much of his time playing in the woods and fields. He loved the birds and beasts that he found there. He went to school, but the schoolmasters were not very learned, and Daniel could read better than most of them. The teamsters, stopping to water their horses, were glad to hear him read. He went to work in an old-fashioned sawmill, but he read books even there in odd moments of time.
Webster at Exeter Academy
One day in spring his father took him to Exeter Academy to prepare for college. The boys laughed at his rustic dress and manners. The timid little fellow was greatly hurt by their scorn.
He finally entered Dartmouth College at the age of fifteen. He was simple, natural, and full of affection.
The best student at Dartmouth
He loved public speaking
Webster was the best student at Dartmouth. He still kept the reading habit. The students liked him. They had a feeling that he would amount to something some day. At this time he was tall and thin, with high cheek bones. His eyes were deep set, and his voice was low and musical in its tones. He loved to speak, even then.
At the age of eighteen Webster gave the Fourth of July oration in his college town. The speech was full of the love of country and of the Union, then in its first days of trial.
