d for their intellectual gifts.

The most of these gave early promise of their future distinction, but
the subject of this memoir was regarded as the dunce of the family. He
grew up as the children of most New England clergymen of that day
climbed the road to manhood. His father's family was large, and the
salary paid by the congregation never exceeded eight hundred dollars,
and was not always promptly paid at that. The good people of the land of
steady habits well knew how to drive hard bargains with the Lord's
messengers, and were adepts in the art of securing the "best talent" at
the lowest price. The stern, hard struggle for a livelihood in which
the father was engaged prevented him from giving much personal attention
to his children, and the mother of young Henry dying when he was but
three years old, the boy was left very much to himself. Like most
ministers' children, he was obliged to "set an example to the village,"
and this boy was dosed with Catechism and his father's stern and gloomy
theological tenets until he was sick of them.

"In those days," says Mrs. Stowe, "none of the attentions were paid to
children that are now usual. The community did not recognize them..
There was no child's literature; there were no children's books. The
Sunday-school was yet an experiment in a fluctuating, uncertain state of
trial. There were no children's days of presents and _fetes_, no
Christmas or New Year's festivals. The annual thanksgiving was only
associated with one day's unlimited range of pies of every sort--too
much for one day--and too soon things of the past. The childhood of
Henry Ward was unmarked by the possession of a single child's toy as a
gift from any older person, or a single _fete_. Very early, too, strict
duties devolved upon him. A daily portion of the work of the
establishment, the care of the domestic animals, the cutting and piling
of wood, or tasks in the garden, strengthened his muscles and gave vigor
and tone to his nerves. From his father and mother he inherited a
perfectly solid, healthy organization of brain, muscle, and nerves, and
the uncaressing, let-alone system under which he was brought up gave him
early habits of vigor and self-reliance."

When but three or four years old he was sent to the Widow Kilbourn's
school, where he said his letters twice a day, and passed the rest of
his time in hemming a brown towel or a checked apron. It was not
expected that he would learn very much from M