He was born at Haverhill, Massachusetts, on December 17, 1807, springing from pious English stock, in a family that belonged to the Society of Friends. A minute and animated picture of his home and its inmates is given in “Snow Bound.” Whittier’s opportunities for regular schooling were slender. Though he did not inherit the rugged strength of his ancestors, his help was required on the farm; and his father, without absolutely discouraging the lad’s effort to win an education, was reluctant to see him busied with a useless or dangerous plaything such as their sect generally regarded poetry. The boy attended district school, read the few books that were in his home, and even managed to obtain copies of Burns and Shakespeare, and a novel, perused in secret, of Scott. His mother was inwardly gratified by the lines which he wrote under the inspiration of Burns. When his sister clandestinely forwarded one of his poems to _The Free Press_ of Newburyport, and thus paved the way for an acquaintance between Whittier and the editor, William Lloyd Garrison, the trend of the young man’s life was determined. Thanks to the influence of Garrison, and by the strictest husbanding of his own means, Whittier was able to pass, in all, a year at the new Haverhill Academy. “Thus ended his school-days,” says his biographer, Pickard; “but this was only the beginning of his student life. By wide and well-chosen reading, he was constantly adding to his stores of information. While revelling in the fields of English literature, he became familiar through translations with ancient and current literature of other nations, and kept abreast of all political and reformatory movements.” In the development of his thought, he owed most to the Bible, to the tracts of the Friends, and to the poetry of Burns. The mainspring of his activity, whether as student, poet, politician, or anti-slavery agitator, was an intense desire to be useful to his kind, coupled with a burning belief in the sacredness of individual liberty. During his early manhood, he continued to write verse, sending it to various New England periodicals; and he became editor, successively of a Boston trade journal, of _The Haverhill Gazette_, and of _The New England Magazine_. Journalism helped him to enter politics, and in 1832 the Whigs of his native place seemed ready to elect him to Congress. After careful deliberation, he renounced his political aspirations, not without an inward struggle, and decided to lend his energies to the abolition of negro slavery, to assist the discredited and obscure band led by Garrison. “My lad,” so in after years he counselled a youth of fifteen, “if thou wouldst win success, join thyself to some unpopular but noble cause.” With all his idealism--let us rather say, on account of his thoroughgoing idealism--Whittier was thoroughly practical. He had keen insight into the characters of men, and knew how to turn their motives, both good and bad, to account;