l love of books, said he "would come to something
or nothing, she could not tell which"; but his father, noticing his
power over the sympathies of others, and comparing him with his
bashful brother, used to remark, that he had fears for Ezekiel, but
that Daniel would assuredly make his way in the world. It is certain
that the lad himself was totally unconscious of possessing
extraordinary talents, and indulged no early dream of greatness. He
tells us himself, that he loved but two things in his youth,--play and
reading. The rude schools which he trudged two or three miles in the
winter every day to attend, taught him scarcely anything. His father's
saw-mill, he used to say, was the real school of his youth. When he
had set the saw and turned on the water, there would be fifteen
minutes of tranquillity before the log again required his attention,
during which he sat and absorbed knowledge.

"We had so few books," he records in the exquisite fragment
of autobiography he has left us, "that to read them once or
twice was nothing. We thought they were all to be got by
heart."

How touching the story, so well known, of the mighty struggle and long
self-sacrifice it cost this family to get the youth through college!
The whole expense did not average one hundred and fifty dollars a
year; but it seemed to the boy so vast and unattainable a good, that,
when his father announced his purpose to attempt it, he was completely
overcome; his head was dizzy; his tongue was paralyzed; he could only
press his father's hands and shed tears. Slender indeed was his
preparation for Dartmouth. From the day when he took his first Latin
lesson to that on which he entered college was thirteen months. He
could translate Cicero's orations with some ease, and make out with
difficulty and labor the easiest sentences of the Greek Reader, and
that was the whole of what was called his "preparation" for college.
In June, 1797, he did not know the Greek alphabet; in August of the
same year he was admitted to the Freshman Class of Dartmouth on
engaging to supply his deficiencies by extra study.

Neither at college nor at any time could Daniel Webster be properly
called a student, and well he knew it. Many a time he has laughed, in
his jovial, rollicking manner, at the preposterous reputation for
learning a man can get by bringing out a fragment of curious knowledge
at the right moment at college. He was an absorbent of knowledge,
ne