Charles Pinckney Sumner, the father, a scholarly and well bred man of courtly manners, while he taught his children to love books, had the severity of nature which forbade a tender companionship between him and his oldest son. This was supplied, however, by the mother, a woman of unusual amiability and good-sense, who lived to be his consolation in the struggles of manhood, and to be proud and thankful when the whole land echoed his praises. The boy was tall, slight, obedient, and devoted to books. He was especially fond of reading and repeating speeches. When sent to dancing-school he showed little enjoyment in it, preferring to go to the court-room with his father, to listen to the arguments of the lawyers. When he visited his mother's early home in Hanover, he had the extreme pleasure of reciting in the country woods the orations which he had read in the city. In these early days he was an aspiring lad, with a manner which made his companions say he was "to the manor born." The father had decided to educate him in the English branches only, thus fitting him to earn his living earlier, as his income from the law, at this time, was not large. Charles, however, had purchased some Latin books with his pocket money, and surprised his father with the progress he had made by himself when ten years old. He was therefore, at this age, sent to the Boston Latin School. So skilful was he in the classics that at thirteen he received a prize for a translation from Sallust, and at fifteen a prize for English prose and another for a Latin poem. At the latter age he was ready to enter Harvard College. He had desired to go to West Point, but, fortunately, there was no opening. The country needed him for other work than war. To lead a whole nation by voice and pen up to heroic deeds is better than to lead an army. All this time he read eagerly in his spare moments, especially in history, enjoying Gibbon's "Rome," and making full extracts from it in his notebooks. At fourteen he had written a compendium of English history, from Cæsar's conquest to 1801, which filled a manuscript book of eighty-six pages.