FullReads

This was the first time that Daniel had ever heard his father speak of sending him to college. His heart was so full that he could not say a word. But the tears came in his eyes as he looked up into the judge’s stern, kind face.

He knew that if his father carried out this plan, it would cost a great deal of money; and if this money should be spent for him, then the rest of the family would have to deny themselves of many comforts which they might otherwise have.

“Oh, never mind that, Dan,” said his brother Ezekiel. “We are never so happy as when we are doing something for you. And we know that you will do something for us, some time.”

And so the boy spent the winter in Boscawen with Dr. Wood. He learned everything very easily, but he was not as close a student as he had been at Exeter.

He was very fond of sport. He liked to go fishing. And sometimes, when the weather was fine, his studies were sadly neglected.

There was a circulating library in Boscawen, and Daniel read every book that was in it. Sometimes he slighted his Latin for the sake of giving more time to such reading.

One of the books in the library was Don Quixote. Daniel thought it the most wonderful story in existence. He afterwards said:

“I began to read it, and it is literally true that I never closed my eyes until I had finished it, so great was the power of this extraordinary book on my imagination.”

But it was so easy for the boy to learn, that he made very rapid progress in all his studies. In less than a year, Dr. Wood declared that he was ready for college.

He was then fifteen years old. He had a pretty thorough knowledge of arithmetic; but he had never studied algebra or geometry. In Latin he had read four of Cicero’s orations, and six books of Virgil’s Aeneid. He knew something of the elements of Greek grammar, and had read a portion of the Greek Testament.

Nowadays, a young man could hardly enter even a third-rate college without a better preparation than that. But colleges are much more thorough than they were a hundred years ago.

VII. AT DARTMOUTH COLLEGE.

Dartmouth College is at Hanover, New Hampshire. It is one of the oldest colleges in America and among its students have been many of the foremost men of New England.

It was in the fall of 1797, that Daniel Webster entered this college.

He was then a tall, slender youth, with high cheek bones and a swarthy skin.

The professors soon saw that he was no common lad. They said to one another, “This young Webster will one day be a greater man than any of us.”

And young Webster was well-behaved and studious at college. He was as fond of sport as any of the students, but he never gave himself up to boyish pranks.

He was punctual and regular in all his classes. He was as great a reader as ever.

He could learn anything that he tried. No other young man had a broader knowledge of things than he.

And yet he did not make his mark as a student in the prescribed branches of study. He could not confine himself to the narrow routine of the college course.

He did not, as at Exeter, push his way quickly to the head of his class. He won no prizes.

“But he minded his own business,” said one of the professors. “As steady as the sun, he pursued, with intense application, the great object for which he came to college.”

Soon everybody began to appreciate his scholarship. Everybody admired him for his manliness and good common sense.

“He was looked upon as being so far in advance of any one else, that no other student of his class was ever spoken of as second to him.”

He very soon lost that bashfulness which had troubled him so much at Exeter. It was no task now for him to stand up and declaim before the professors and students.