After two years, the unselfish student could bear no longer the thought that his beloved brother Ezekiel was not to enjoy a college education. When he went home in vacation, he confided to his brother his unhappiness for his sake, and for a whole night they discussed the subject. It was decided that Daniel should consult the father. "This, we knew," said Mr. Webster, "would be a trying thing to my father and mother and two unmarried sisters. My father was growing old, his health not good, and his circumstances far from easy.... The farm was to be carried on, and the family taken care of; and there was nobody to do all this but him, who was regarded as the mainstay--that is to say, Ezekiel. However, I ventured on the negotiation, and it was carried, as other things often are, by the earnest and sanguine manner of youth. I told him that I was unhappy at my brother's prospects. For myself, I saw my way to knowledge, respectability, and self-protection; but, as to him, all looked the other way; that I would keep school, and get along as well as I could, be more than four years in getting through college, if necessary,--provided he also could be sent to study.... He said that to carry us both through college would take all he was worth; that, for himself, he was willing to run the risk; but that this was a serious matter to our mother and two unmarried sisters; that we must settle the matter with them, and, if their consent was obtained, he would trust to Providence, and get along as well as he could." Captain Webster consulted with his wife; told her that already the farm was mortgaged for Daniel's education, and that if Ezekiel went to college it would take all they possessed. "Well," said she, with her brave mother-heart, "I will trust the boys;" and they lived to make her glad that she had trusted them. The boy of seventeen went back to Dartmouth to struggle with poverty alone, but he was happy; the boy of nineteen began a new life, studying under Dr. Wood, and, later, entered Dartmouth College. Daniel, as he had promised, began to earn money to pay his own and his brother's way. By superintending a small weekly paper, called the _Dartmouth Gazette_, he earned enough to pay his board. In the winter he taught school, and gave the money to Ezekiel. While in college, his wonderful powers in debate began to manifest themselves. He wrote his own declamations. Said one of his classmates: "In his movements he was rather slow and deliberate, except when his feelings were aroused; then his whole soul would kindle into a flame. We used to listen to him with the deepest respect and interest, and no one ever thought of equalling the vigor and flow of his eloquence."