school for the citizen, in which
he learned thoroughly the art of legislation, and acquired a readiness
in government which stood him in good stead when the scope of
governmental power was enlarged. The New England town was always the
centre of political life, and each member of the town learned early his
inalienable right to a participation in all the benefits which the
community could confer. In town-meeting he learned to vote and to be
voted for; a gradation of offices from fence-viewer or hog-reeve to
selectman gave training in administration to all who had any capacity
for organization or leadership; the discussion of town affairs sharpened
the wits, and, better still, educated the towns-man in a distinct
recognition of his political relations; he learned to think politically,
and as the Revolution drew near, the petty interests of the local
community widened into larger questions of state when the towns
themselves found that they were parts of a larger body corporate. Then
the principle of representation was constantly delocalizing the town,
and bringing into the arena subjects which reminded men of their
relationship to the state and the crown. Men who had grown up under the
discussion of questions which involved great historic processes were not
likely, when the occasion came, to hold back from writing or speaking on
great national themes, merely because they were not publicists by
profession.

The military system, which formed so important a part of the New
Englander's education, added to the picturesqueness of his life and to
the notion of solidarity. The experience with Indian and Frenchman, as
has often been shown, had made the unostentatious farmer-soldiers of New
England a formidable and resolute body when the day of the Revolution
came. Before that day the train-bands of the towns were the color and
music of the otherwise monotonous life. Four times a year came muster
with its drill, its competitive shooting, its feasting, its sports, and
its exercise of self-government in the election of officers. This
visible expression of the power of the community generated a
self-confidence and a spirit of generous comradery in the mind of the
young soldier; the courage which it gave, the habit of standing upright
in any presence, the belief that back of the voice lay the strong arm,
were parts of the education of such men as Webster.

Of the more specific literary education I have already spoken. Webster's
traini