It was no abolition lecturer that converted him. Ethan Allen
and Stark, with whom he may in some respects be compared, were rangers
in a lower and less important field. They could bravely face their
country's foes, but he had the courage to face his country herself
when she was in the wrong. A Western writer says, to account for his
escape from so many perils, that he was concealed under a "rural
exterior"; as if, in that prairie land, a hero should, by good rights,
wear a citizen's dress only.
He did not go to the college called Harvard, good old Alma Mater
as she is. He was not fed on the pap that is there furnished. As he
phrased it, "I know no more of grammar than one of your calves." But
he went to the great university of the West, where he sedulously
pursued the study of Liberty, for which he had early betrayed a
fondness, and having taken many degrees, he finally commenced the
public practice of Humanity in Kansas, as you all know. Such were
his humanities, and not any study of grammar. He would have left a
Greek accent slanting the wrong way, and righted up a falling man.
He was one of that class of whom we hear a great deal, but, for
the most part, see nothing at all- the Puritans.
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