It is remarkable how many of our great men have spent a portion of their early lives at the teacher’s desk. Gen. Garfield had an unusually extensive and varied experience as teacher, and would have passed through life very happily if he had never withdrawn from the school-room. Daniel Webster had not his special aptitude for it, but was nevertheless very fairly successful. One qualification, as we learn from the testimony of a pupil, was his “remarkable equanimity of temper.” The vexations of the school-room are neither few nor far between, but none of them were able to bring a frown to young Webster’s brow. Calmly he met and conquered all difficulties that came in his way, and secured the confidence and respect of his scholars. The young man also impressed his pupils and friends as a man of competent scholarship. Hon. Samuel Fessenden, of Portland, writes: “The first I ever knew of Daniel Webster was immediately after he left college, and was employed by my father, the secretary of the Trustees of Fryeburg Academy, to become the principal instructor in that institution. He was not, when he commenced, twenty years old. I heard no one complain that his scholarship was not adequate to the duty he had assumed. On the contrary, I heard the Rev. Dr. Nathaniel Porter, of Conway, and my father, the Rev. William Fessenden, of Fryeburg, both of whom were good scholars, and the former, Rev. Dr. Porter, a very great man, say that Daniel Webster was a very good scholar for his years. He did, while at Fryeburg, exhibit traits of talent and genius which drew from these two divines, and from other professional gentlemen, unqualified praise of his powers of mind. I remember very distinctly hearing my father remark that if Mr. Webster should live, and have health, and pursue a straightforward course of industry and virtue, he would become one of the greatest men this country had produced.” When it is remembered that the young man of whom this prediction was made was at the time an obscure teacher, in an obscure town, in what was then a frontier settlement, we must infer that he exhibited remarkable ability, and gave hints of a reserved power not yet called into action. In spite of his engrossing employments, the young man found time to enlarge his general culture by various reading. Nor did he neglect his professional studies, but continued the reading of Blackstone’s Commentaries. It is remarkable that with all this hard work he found time for society. Dr. Osgood, the registrar’s son, says: “He was usually serious, but often facetious and pleasant. He was an agreeable companion, and eminently social with all who shared his friendship. He was greatly beloved by all who knew him. His habits were strictly abstemious, and he neither took wine nor strong drink. He was punctual in his attendance upon public worship, and ever opened his school with prayer. I never heard him use a profane word, and never saw him lose his temper.”