Daniel Webster was taught the letters of the alphabet by his mother and it is said that, when he had attained his tenth year she prophecied that he would become eminent. The first school house Webster ever entered was built of logs, and his first teacher was William Hoyt. The first time that the great statesman ever saw the Constitution of the United States, it was printed upon a cotton handkerchief, according to a fashion of the time, which he chanced to stumble upon in a country store. The evening of the day on which he thus obtained a copy, was wholly devoted to its close and attentive perusal, while seated before a blazing fire and by the side of his father and mother. When Webster was about seven years old his father kept a public inn, and it was customary for the teamsters as they drew up at the house to say. "Come, let's go in and hear a psalm from Dan Webster." Even at that time, his voice was deep, rich and musical.

Webster's advantages of early education were exceedingly slender, for he worked on his father's farm in summer and went to school only in winter. The principal district school that he attended was three miles from his home and his pathway there was often through deep snows. When fourteen years old he spent a few months at Phillips academy, Exeter, under the bunion of Dr. Benjamin Abbot. He mastered the principles and philosophy of the English grammar in less than four months, when he immediately commenced the study of the Latin language, and his first lessons in that study were recited to the late Joseph Back-minister, who was at that time a tutor in the academy. Here he was first called upon to "speak in public on the stage," and the effort was a complete failure; for the moment he began he became embarrassed and burst into tears. His antipathy to public declamation was unsurmountable; and in bearing testimony to this fact, he once uttered the following words: "I believe I made tolerable progress in most branches which I attended to while in this school, but there was one thing I could not do-I could not make a declamation; I could not speak before the school. Many a piece did I commit to memory, and recite and rehearse over and over again; yet, when the day came, when the school collected to hear the declamations, when my name was called, and I saw all eyes turned to my seat. I could not raise myself before it."

A few days after Webster had entered Exeter Academy he returned to his boarding place one evening in a very desponding mood and told his friends there that the city boys in the academy were constantly laughing at him because he was at the foot of his class, and had come from the back woods. Mr. Nicholas Emery who was than an assistant tutor in the academy-was made acquainted with young Webster's troubles, and as he had the management of the second or lower class, he treated his despondent pupil with marked kindness, and particularly urged him to think of nothing but his books and all would yet came out well. The advice was heeded, and at the end of the first quarter Mr. Emery mustered his class in line and formally taking young Webster's arm marched him from the foot to the extreme head of the class, exclaiming that this was his proper place. This success encouraged denial, and he renewed his efforts. At the end of the second quarter, the class was again mustered, and Mr. Emery stood before it, when, after a deep silence, he said: "Daniel Webster gather up your books, and take down your cap." As the boy tremblingly bayed, the teacher added, "Now, sir, you will report to the teacher of the first! And you, young gentlemen, will take an affectionate leave of your classmate, for you will never see him again."

Webster afterwards became the pupil of Dr. Samuel Woods, a prominent clergyman of the day, who lived in Boscawen, and prepared boys for college at one dollar a week, for tuition and board. During his stay with Dr. Woods, he was very neglectful of his academic duties, and on one occasion, when he was told for some misdemeanor to learn a hundred lines of Virgil, he gained a reward of a day to be given up to pigeon shooting by committing a whole book of the AEneid.

Webster was only a few months in preparing for college, and during that brief period he commenced and mastered the study of Greek, so that his tutor was won't to remark that other boys required a year to accomplish the same end. Of all his father's children, Daniel was, as a boy, the sickliest and most slender, and one of his half-brothers, who was somewhat of a wag. frequently took pleasure in remarking, that "Dan was sent to school because he was not fit for anything else." Even from his boyhood he was an industrious reader of standard authors. and previous to his entering college his favorite books were Addison's Spectator, Butler's Hudibras, and Pope's trans. of Homer, and Essay on Man. He was particularly fond of Shakespeare's plays and Don Quixote. In addition to the Latin classics he studies with interest Demosthenes and a few other Greek writers.

Webster went through college in a manner that was highly gratifying to his friends, but did not receive the Valedictory. After the commencement exercises he asked his classmates to accompany him to the green behind the college, where, in their presence, he deliberately tore up his diploma and threw it to the winds exclaiming: "My industry may make me a great man, but this miserable parchment cannot;" and immediately mounting his horse, departed for home.