Happy woman!
lect, her piety, and the truest affections.
loved and respected by all who knew her, and, more
than that, was venerated by her children. Mr. Web-
ster has often been heard to say, his mother taught
him to read the Bible; he could read that before he
went to school.

She was remarkable for her intel-
She was

It is often asserted by those who know the family, that the extraordinary genius with which Mr. Webster is endowed by nature, descended to him on his mother's side; at all events, she was unwearied in her efforts to make him what she wished him to bethe first in the ranks of those around him.

New Hampshire was backward in organizing and providing for common schools. At the time Daniel was old enough to attend, there was no regular school in his vicinity. But the immediate neighbors of Col. Webster, as well as himself, were anxious to have their children taught; and, to accommodate them, a Mr. Chase, a schoolmaster, hired a room in the house of, Mr. Sandborn, near this farm, and Daniel, with other small children, went daily to him, to be taught to spell and read. The house is still standing.

The common school law of the State divided each town into two or more school districts. Salisbury was so divided that the district in which he lived extended from the river backward several miles among the hills. In it there were three school-houses-one on the river at this place, one on the north road, and the third in the western part of the district.

The trustees at length employed a Mr. William Hoyt, a schoolmaster by profession, for the district.

This man taught a school for four months in the first school-house, then four months in the middle house, and then the remainder of the year in the most

remote.

This routine he repeated annually for several years. Mr. Webster was sent to Mr. Hoyt. The first school-house that he ever entered was built of logs, and stood on the easterly side of the old road, about one hundred yards northerly from this farm, between two ancient butternut trees, but not a vestige of the old house remains.

When Mr. Hoyt occupied the middle schoolhouse, Daniel attended only, carrying his dinner with him in a basket; but when the third house was occupied, Col. Webster paid for his board in the western part of the town. He went on Monday morning, and came home on Saturday, making those journeys on his rather young and tender feet. I drove over this same road yesterday, and fancied I saw Mr. Webster, a little fellow, climbing the hills, crossing the streams, carrying a heavy heart as he went, and bring ing a light one on his return.

But Mr. William Hoyt was not eminent as a teacher. He was a good scribe, and in the art of penmanship he excelled, but in no other. He taught the boys to read and spell, to write, and to understand, to some extent, the fundamental rules of arithmetic. He was severe in his discipline, and played the tyrant to the extent of his brief authority over the unlucky little fellows who, perchance, went counter to his de crees. A year or two enabled Mr. Webster to learn from him all the pedagogue could teach that was

worth knowing. But William Hoyt had the honor of being one of the teachers of the first man in this country, and his memory is entitled to our respect. "He taught that boy," was his chaplet-his claim to

renown.

Under the teaching of this master, Mr. Webster learned to write a beautiful hand.

Among those who taught Mr. Webster, and the next in order to Mr. Chase, was a Master Tappan, now known as Colonel Tappan, who still lives, at the age of eighty-two, and is kindly remembered by his pupil. There he learned to spell; it is said of him there was no word in the spelling book that was not also in his memory. There, too, he learned the rudiments of arithmetic. With his rude slate and pencil he could work out the simple problems, taught by such a master, in such a school. He learned the art of reading well from his excellent father, who was noted for this accomplishment.

His love of elocution, his taste for oratory, his knowledge of true eloquence, which have shone conspicuously on all subsequent occasions, were the result of twigs first bent in the right direction, by hearing his father read as he could read, the Bible, Shakspeare and Pope.

Professor Sandborn, who relates many incidents concerning him, says that aged men, who are familiar with his early life, mention, among their earliest recollections of his childhood, a fondness for books above his years. His father kept open doors for all travellers. The teamsters, who came from the North, were accustomed to say, when they arrived at Judge Web

ster's house, "Come, let us give our horses some oats, and go in and hear little Dan read a Psalm." They always called for him; and, leaning upon their long whip-stocks, listened with delighted attention to the elocution of the young orator.

Yours. truly.

DANIEL WEBSTER A BOY-OUT-DOOR SPORTS-FIRST TIME HE READ

Mr. Webster did not, of course, go to school every day. He had a due regard for that old saying: “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." There were Saturday afternoons, holidays, and occasional pretty long vacations, which he hailed with delight— and he frequently took a holiday, as all boys will, on his own account. On these occasions he entered zealously into all kinds of out-door amusements. Besides he did boy's work on his father's farm.

He rode the horse in plowing furrows between rows of corn; he raked the hay, followed the reapers® and bound up the wheat as they cut it; he drove the cows to their pastures in the morning and home again at night. No little hands or little feet could accomplish more than his in anything not beyond his strength. I have to-day conversed with an old farmer who, in his boyhood, labored with him in the field many a day.

During the season for "haying and harvesting," Daniel always staid from school, as a matter of course,

and went into the fields with the men to do what he could to gather in the crops, for the hay was to be made while the sun shone, and the grain was to be cut when it was ripe. With his straw hat, his " tow frock and trowsers," his rake or sickle in hand, he worked from morning till night, and never was heard to complain. He shrunk not from industry when it was apparent it could be turned to a good account.

He obtained, by working on the farm, a thorough knowledge of agricultural business, and the taste acquired for it then has continued, and is now his strongest passion. In these fertile fields, beneath these elms, he imbibed his first ideas of farming, which have ripened into a knowledge not surpassed by any agriculturist of the age in which he lives.

In his great speech on "The Agriculture of England," at a meeting of the members of the Legislature of Massachusetts, and others interested, at the State House, in Boston, January 13th, 1840, he began by stating that "he regarded agriculture as the leading interest of society; and as having in all its relations, a direct and intimate bearing upon human comfort and national prosperity. He had been familiar with its operations in his youth, and he had always looked upon the subject with a lively and deep interest." His speeches in England and at Rochester, N. Y., all confirm what I have said.

He had a strong propensity for out-door recreations at that early period of his life, and he has cultivated it from that day to this. No man in the country is more fond of fishing, hunting, sailing, riding, or driving, than Mr. Webster. He has not the least