rd of education and of culture in the country. Under
these conditions, in the last years of the independence of Poland,
passed the childhood and youth of her future liberator.

Kosciuszko came of a class for which we have no precise equivalent, that
ranked as noble in a country where at that time the middle classes were
unknown, and where the ordinary gentry, so long as they had nothing to
do with trade, showed patents of nobility, irrespective of means and
standing. His father, who held a post of notary in his Lithuanian
district and who owned more than one somewhat modest estate, was
universally respected for his upright character, which, together with
his aptitude for affairs, caused his advice and assistance to be widely
sought through the countryside. Kosciuszko spent his boyhood in the
tranquil, wholesome, out-of-door life of a remote spot in Lithuania. The
home was the wooden one-storied dwelling with thatched, sloping roof and
rustic veranda, in aspect resembling a sort of glorified cottage, that
long after Kosciuszko's day remained the type of a Polish country house.
Kosciuszko's upbringing was of the simplest and most salutary
description. There was neither show nor luxury in his home. The family
fortune had been left to his father in an embarrassed condition: his
father's care and diligence had for the time saved it. The atmosphere
that surrounded the young Kosciuszko was that of domestic virtue, strict
probity. He had before his eyes the example of the devoted married life
of his parents. He went freely and intimately among the peasants on his
father's property, and thus learnt the strong love for the people that
dictated the laws he urged upon his country when he became her ruler.

Unpretending as was his father's household, its practice was the
patriarchal hospitality that marked the manners of the Poland of a
century and a half ago, as it does to-day. Friends and relations came
and went, always welcome, whether expected or unbidden. We have a
delicious letter from Kosciuszko's mother, Tekla, to her husband on one
of the numerous occasions when he was away from home on business, in
which, fondly calling him "my heart, the most beloved little dear Ludwik
and benefactor of my life," she begs him to send her wine, for her house
is filled with "perpetual guests," and will he try and procure her some
fish, if there is any to be had, "because I am ashamed to have only
barley bread on my table."[1] When accommoda