The four years spent in college generally bear an important relation to the future success or non-success of the student. It is the formative period with most young men, that is, it is the time when the habits are formed which are to continue through life. Let us inquire, then, what did Daniel Webster’s college course do for him?

We cannot claim that his attainments at graduation were equal to those of the most proficient graduates of our colleges to-day. The curriculum at Dartmouth, and indeed at all colleges, was more limited and elementary than at present. Daniel was a good Greek and Latin scholar for his advantages, but those were not great. He did, however, pay special attention to philosophical studies, and to the law of nations. He took an interest in current politics, as may be gathered from letters written in his college days, and was unconsciously preparing himself for the office of a statesman.

He paid special attention also to oratory. No longer shrinking from speaking before his classmates, he voluntarily composed the pieces he declaimed, and took an active part besides in the debating society. I am sure my young reader will like to know how Daniel wrote at this time, and will like to compare the oratory of the college student with that of the future statesman. I shall, therefore, quote from a Fourth of July oration, which he delivered by invitation to the citizens and students at the age of eighteen. As in a boy’s features we trace a general likeness to his mature manhood, so I think we may trace a likeness in passages of this early effort to the speeches he made in the fullness of his fame.

This is the opening of the address:

“Countrymen, Brethren and Fathers: We are now assembled to celebrate an anniversary, ever to be held in dear remembrance by the sons of freedom. Nothing less than the birth of a nation, nothing less than the emancipation of three millions of people from the degrading chains of foreign bondage is the event we commemorate.

“Twenty-four years have this day elapsed since these United States first raised the standard of liberty, and echoed the shouts of independence. Those of you who were then reaping the iron harvest of the martial field, whose bosoms then palpitated for the honor of America, will at this time experience a renewal of all that fervent patriotism, of all those indescribable emotions which then agitated your breasts. As for us, who were either then unborn, or not far enough advanced beyond the threshold of existence to engage in the grand conflict for liberty, we now most cordially unite with you to greet the return of this joyous anniversary, to welcome the return of the day that gave us freedom, and to hail the rising glories of our country.”

Further on he paints the hardships and distresses through which the colonists had passed:

“We behold a feeble band of colonists engaged in the arduous undertaking of a new settlement in the wilds of North America. Their civil liberty being mutilated, and the enjoyment of their religious sentiments denied them in the land that gave them birth, they braved the dangers of the then almost unnavigated ocean, and sought on the other side of the globe an asylum from the iron grasp of tyranny and the more intolerable scourge of ecclesiastical persecution.

“But gloomy indeed was the prospect when arrived on this side of the Atlantic.

“Scattered in detachments along a coast immensely extensive, at a distance of more than three thousand miles from their friends on the eastern continent, they were exposed to all those evils, and encountered or experienced all those difficulties, to which human nature seemed liable. Destitute of convenient habitations, the inclemencies of the seasons harassed them, the midnight beasts of prey howled terribly around them, and the more portentous yell of savage fury incessantly assailed them. But the same undiminished confidence in Almighty God, which prompted the first settlers of the country to forsake the unfriendly climes of Europe, still supported them under all their calamities, and inspired them with fortitude almost divine. Having a glorious issue to their labors now in prospect, they cheerfully endured the rigors of the climate, pursued the savage beast to his remotest haunt, and stood undismayed in the dismal hour of Indian battle.”

Passing on to the Revolutionary struggle the young orator refers to “our brethren attacked and slaughtered at Lexington, our property plundered and destroyed at Concord,” to “the spiral flames of burning Charlestown,” and proceeds as follows:

“Indelibly impressed on our memories still lives the dismal scene of Bunker’s awful mount, the grand theater of New England bravery, where slaughter stalked grimly tri............