And ye shall succor men ; Help them who cannot help again: 50 Pay ransom to the owner And fill the bag to the brim. Who is the owner? The slave is owner, O North! give him beauty for rags, With Freedom's image and name. 60 DANIEL WEBSTER. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. "In the last year of the Revolutionary War, on the 18th of January, 1782, Daniel Webster was born, in the home which his father had established on the outskirts of civilization. If the character and situation of the place, and the circumstances under which he passed the first years of his life, might seem adverse to the early cultivation of his extraordinary talent, it still cannot be doubted that they possessed influences favorable to elevation and strength of character. The hardships of an infant settlement and border life, the traditions of a long series of Indian wars, and of two mighty national contests, in which an honored parent had borne his part, the anecdotes of Fort William Henry, of Quebec, of Bennington, of West Point, of Wolfe and Stark and Washington, the great Iliad and Odyssey of American Independence, this was the fireside entertainment of the long winter evenings of the secluded village home... 66 Something that was called a school was kept for two or three months in the winter, frequently by an itinerant, too often a pretender, claiming only to teach a little reading, writing, and ciphering, and wholly incompetent to give any valuable assistance to a clever youth in learning either. "Such as the village school was, Mr. Webster enjoyed its advantages, if they could be called by that name. It was, 1 Salisbury (now Franklin), N. H. however, of a migratory character. When it was near his father's residence it was easy to attend; but it was sometimes in a distant part of the town, and sometimes in another town. Poor as these opportunities of education were, they were bestowed on Mr. Webster more liberally than on his brothers. He showed a greater eagerness for learning; and he was thought of too frail a constitution for any robust pursuit. It is probable that the best part of his education was derived from the judicious and experienced father, and the strong-minded, affectionate, and ambitious mother." 1 His attitude toward books is well shown by the following extract from his Autobiography: "I remember that my father brought home from some of the lower towns Pope's Essay on Man, published in a sort of pamphlet. I took it, and very soon could repeat it from beginning to end. We had so few books, that to read them once or twice was nothing. We thought they were all to be got by heart.” In 1796 Webster went to Exeter Academy, but poverty at home caused his withdrawal in February, 1797. He then studied in the neighboring town of Boscawen, under the Rev. Samuel Wood, whose entire charge for board and instruction was $1.00 a week. In 1797 he entered Dartmouth College, where he was graduated in 1801, after four years of hard and telling work; his winter vacations were spent in teaching school. Webster next studied law, but the need of money by himself and his brother Ezekiel compelled him to accept an offer to take charge of an academy at Fryeburg, Maine, at a salary of about a dollar a day; he supported himself by copying deeds, and thus was able to save all his salary as a fund for the further education of himself and his brother. 1 See Biographical Memoir, by Edward Everett. From this Memoir, and from Lodge's Life of Webster, in the American Statesmen Series, most of the material of this sketch has been taken. |