A CALL TO TEACH
College days behind them, Nathan, now eighteen years old, and Enoch
pressed on toward their future. Here, to some extent, we part with
Enoch, catching only occasional glimpses of him in a few straggling
letters to his brother. It is probable that, as he intended to enter the
ministry, he soon began his theological studies. In 1775 he was licensed
to preach. Nathan, however, turned toward teaching as the next step in
his career.
In the meantime Nathan's love for Alice Adams had not prospered. An
older brother, John, had married Alice Adams's elder sister Sarah, and
the mother and sister of Alice thought that she should not wait four or
five years for Nathan. Perhaps they decided that two intermarriages in
one family were quite enough; anyway, they induced Alice to accept the
offer of a prosperous merchant of Coventry, Mr. Elijah Ripley, and a
short time before Nathan's graduation her marriage had apparently
terminated their personal relations.
Nathan Hale was at this time an unusually handsome young man, almost
six feet in height, well proportioned, with broad chest, athletic, as we
have seen, and with a handsome, intelligent face, blue eyes, light brown
hair of a rich color, and a winning smile. These, added to a musical
voice and gracious manners, gave him a personal charm that attracted all
who saw him.
As a teacher he combined unusual tact and manly dignity, making his
discipline in school as effective as it was reasonable. He also proved
to be as skillful in imparting knowledge as he had been in acquiring it,
and his success as a teacher was assured from the outset.
His first school was in East Haddam, Connecticut. There was then much
wealth and business activity in the town, although, to a man fresh from
college and the city, it appeared to be a very quiet place, as one or
two of his early letters indicate. Yet there too he did with all his
might what his hands found to do, and soon proved that not only his
work, but his social qualities, were endearing him to new friends, some
of whom remembered him with pleasure during their own long lives; one of
them saying of Nathan Hale in her own old age, "Everybody loved him, he
was so sprightly, intelligent, and kind," and, she added withal, "and
_so_ handsome!" He had many correspondents among classmates and
friends. Sometimes he was stimulated to put his thoughts into rhyme by
some poetical epistle he received. One such was from Benjamin Tallmadge,
then in Wethersfield.
Tallmadge had apologized for his muse and Hale, in pure boyish fun, with
a fine disregard of whether he was invoking the muse or mounting
Pegasus, replied as follows:
"But here, I think you're wrong, to blame
Your gen'rous muse and call her lame,
For when arriv'd no mark was found
Of weakness, lameness, sprain or wound."
Then, invoking her himself, he describes her as if she were indeed the
winged steed,
"With me in charge (a grievous load!)
Along the way she lately trode,
In all, she gave no fear or pain,
Unless, at times, to hold the rein."
At last, on his supposed arrival at Wethersfield, he invites Tallmadge's
judgment on the appearance of the equine muse, thus:
"Now judge, unless entirely sound
If she could bear me such a round.
It's certain then your muse is heal'd,
Or else, came sound from Weathersfield."
Before the end of the first term (October, 1773, to mid-March, 1774) in
East Haddam, however, his work had aroused attention elsewhere, and in
May, 1774, he took charge of a school in New London, called the "Union
School,"--a larger school and a more lucrative position than that at
East Haddam. In it Latin, English, arithmetic, and writing were taught.
The salary was seventy pounds a year with a prospect of an increase, and
he was allowed to teach private classes as well.
It will not surprise those acquainted with human nature that, as we will
allow him to tell in a letter to a relative, he soon had a class of some
twenty young ladies between the unusual hours of five and seven in the
morning! It does not take a very vivid imagination to picture the
vivacity of these twenty young ladies, the becomingness of their simple
but pretty gowns, and the zest with which each studied; nor, on the
other hand, the ill-concealed, bantering interest of the big brothers of
the same,--asking perhaps, now and then, with mock gravity, if mother
thought Patty would be so prompt every morning at five o'clock if old
Parson Browning were the teacher!
But whatever might have been the dominant interest of the young ladies,
"Master Hale" was quite as practical in his teaching in the early hours
of the day as with the boys in the later classes. An uncle of his,
Samuel Hale, was for many years at the head of the best private school
in New Hampshire, numbering among his pupils some of the leaders in
Revolutionary times. To him, September 24, 1774, Nathan wrote a letter
from which we give the following extracts:
"My own employment is at present the same that you have spent your
days in. I have a school of thirty-two boys, about half Latin, the
rest English. The salary allowed me is 70 L per annum. In addition
to this I have kept, during the summer, a morning school, between
the hours of five and seven, of about 20 young ladies for which I
have received 6s [shillings] a scholar, by the quarter. Many of the
people are gentleman of sense and merit. They are desirous that I
would continue and settle in the school, and propose a considerable
increase in wages. I am much at a loss whether to accept their
proposals. Your advice in this matter, coming from an uncle and
from a man who has spent his life in the business, would, I think,
be the best I could possibly receive. A few lines on this subject
and also to acquaint me with the welfare of your family ... will be
much to the satisfaction of
Your most dutiful Nephew,
NATHAN HALE."
A letter to Enoch Hale, containing allusions to the excited feeling in
the colony at this time, runs as follows:
NEW LONDON, Sept. 8th. 1774.
DEAR BROTHER.
I have a word to write and a moment to write it in. I received
yours of yesterday this morning. Agreeable to your desire I will
endeavour to get the cloth and carry it on Saturday. I have no
news. No liberty-pole is erected or erecting here; but the people
seem much more spirited than they did before the alarm. Parson
Peters of Hebron, I hear, has had a second visit paid him by the
sons of liberty in Windham. His treatment, and the concessions he
made I have not as yet heard. I have not heard from home since
I came from there.
MR. E. HALE. LYME.
Your loving Brother
NATHAN HALE.
A letter from Hale to his friend the senior Dr. AEneas Munson, of New
Haven, has been mentioned. It runs as follows:
NEW LONDON, November 30, 1774
SIR: I am very happily situated here. I love my employment; find
many friends among strangers; have time for scientific study; and
seem to fill the place assigned me with satisfaction. I have a
school of more than thirty boys to instruct, about half of them in
Latin; and my salary is satisfactory. During the summer I had a
morning class of young ladies--about a score--from five to seven
o'clock; so you see my time is pretty fully occupied, profitably, I
hope to my pupils and to their teacher.
Please accept for yourself and Mrs. Munson the grateful thanks of
one who will always remember the kindness he ever experienced
whenever he visited your abode.
Your friend NATHAN HALE.
On one occasion, as Hale left his house after paying a visit, Dr. Munson
observed, "That man is a diamond of the first water, calculated to excel
in any station he assumes. He is a gentleman and a scholar, and last,
though not least of his qualifications, a Christian."
The son of Dr. Munson (who bore his father's name), when an aged man,
said: "I was greatly impressed with Hale's scientific knowledge, evinced
during his conversation with my father. I am sure he was equal to Andre
in solid acquirements, and his taste for art and talents as an artist
were quite remarkable. His personal appearance was as notable. He was
almost six feet in height, perfectly proportioned, and in figure and
deportment he was the most manly man I have ever met. His chest was
broad; his muscles were firm; his face wore a most benign expression;
his complexion was roseate; his eyes were light blue and beamed with
intelligence; his hair was soft and light brown in color, and his speech
was rather low, sweet, and musical. His personal beauty and grace of
manner were most charming.
"Why, all the girls in New Haven fell in love with him," continued Dr.
Munson, "and wept tears of real sorrow when they heard of his sad fate.
In dress he was always neat; he was quick to lend a helping hand to a
being in distress, brute or human; was overflowing with good humor, and
was the idol of all his acquaintances."
Young masters of schools, public or private, unmarried and attractive,
usually rank next in popularity to other professional men,--ministers,
lawyers, or doctors, as the case may be,--and a boy of nineteen, the
object of as much attention as Nathan Hale must have received, might
well be pardoned if his head had been slightly turned, in thus becoming
the admired teacher of a large class of young ladies. One special mark
of stability of character appears to have characterized this young man
in a greater degree than is always the case at the present day. Detached
as he was, as he supposed irrevocably, from the woman he loved, he
appears to have carried himself with almost middle-aged dignity, and,
what is not a little to his credit, even his intimate friends among his
classmates could not, by the most delicate cross-questioning, draw from
him anything suggesting more than a pleasant interest in any of the
young ladies with whom he was thrown in contact.
A letter that will be given in its proper place shows his courteous and
cordial interest in the little city he left when he entered the army;
yet it is rather a noteworthy fact that one of his classmates, writing
to him during his camp life, had to suggest that, as the young ladies he
had taught were always inquiring when he had heard from "Master," it
would doubtless give them pleasure if he could find time to write some
one of them a note with friendly messages to others, to show that he
still remembered them.
Many young men would hardly have needed such a suggestion. But Nathan
Hale, so far as we can learn, while given to warm friendships among his
classmates, and to the cultivation, while in New Haven, Haddam, and New
London, of the society of the best families, appears, from the
beginning, to have taken life seriously. Disappointed in the love of the
one woman for whom he cared, he had turned with sincere absorption to
the work to which he felt himself called before entering on the
theological course it is thought that his father had planned for him.
There is further evidence of Hale's notable gifts as a teacher. Colonel
Samuel Green, who had been a pupil of Hale in New London, said of him,
in oldtime phrase: "Hale was a man peculiarly engaging in his
manners--these were mild and genteel. The scholars, old and young, were
attached to him. They loved him for his tact and amiability.
"He was wholly without severity and had a wonderful control over boys.
He was sprightly, ardent, and steady--bore a fine moral character and
was respected highly by all his acquaintances. The school in which he
taught was owned by the first gentlemen in New London, all of whom were
exceedingly gratified by Hale's skill and assiduity."
A lady of New London who was for some time an inmate of the same family
with Hale, adds her testimony:
"His capacity as a teacher was highly appreciated both by parents and
pupils. His simple and unostentatious manner of imparting right views
and feelings to less cultivated understandings was unsurpassed by any
other person I have ever known."
He was, as we see, a successful teacher, and, as we learn elsewhere, had
serious thoughts of remaining a teacher.
Unexpectedly, however, events verified the truth of the old adage, "Man
proposes, God disposes." A great historical drama was to be enacted
before the eyes of the wondering world, and events were ripening that
were to form a great epoch in history.
America was being led first to protest against the unjust exactions laid
upon its people, and then to resist the oppressions that were being
forced upon it. Gradually the idea prevailed that a taxation which might
have been acceptable, if coupled with representation in Parliament, was
absolutely intolerable without representation, and the Stamp Act in 1765
struck the first note of intense opposition. Thenceforward the political
clouds grew darker and the warning incidents multiplied.
And yet, as a people, Americans were walking as if their personal plans
lay easily in their own control. Scores of young men were fitting
themselves for ordinary callings, Nathan Hale among them. His father's
plans combining with his own appeared to be that he was to teach for a
while, and then follow his brother Enoch into the ministry. As it
proved, his days as a teacher were numbered. He was never to enter a
pulpit, though he was to utter one sentence that, graven upon bronze or
granite, will last while America lasts. He was to teach, by his last,
unpremeditated words, and by an example more potent than any other in
American history, what all generations of Americans must venerate--the
sublimity of a complete sacrifice.
Smoldering discontent on the part of the Americans, waxing stronger and
stronger for a decade, and the aggressive course of action on the part
of the British authorities, finally culminated in a sudden outbreak, as
matches applied to gunpowder; and on the 19th of April, 1775, the first
blood of the American Revolution was shed. Settlement after settlement,
big and little, learned the facts as rapidly as couriers on horseback
could carry them, and the thirteen colonies arrayed themselves against
one of the most powerful monarchies of the world.
The story is too well known to need recalling here, save as it draws
Nathan Hale toward his doom. Within a few days after the fatal 19th of
April, four thousand Connecticut volunteers were on their way to Boston
to help Massachusetts in its earliest struggle with the English.
Ununiformed, undisciplined, straight from whatever had been their
ordinary vocation, with whatever they owned in the way of arms and
ammunition, they went hurrying toward Boston. Israel Putnam, renowned
veteran of the "Old French War," was plowing in his fields at Pomfret,
Connecticut, when he heard the stirring news. Leaving his plow in the
furrow, he hastened to his house, left a few orders for the management
of his farm and the comfort of his family, and marched at the head of a
body of volunteers toward the camp near Boston. We are told that, in
some households, families sat up all night, the fathers melting their
pewter plates into bullets for ammunition to be used by their sons, and
the mothers and sisters fashioning for them, with all possible speed,
the clothing they could not go without.
On the arrival of the news from Boston, the people in New London at once
held a meeting. Hon. Richard Law, District Judge of Connecticut and
Chief Justice of the Superior Court, was chairman. Hale was one of the
speakers.
At that meeting a company was selected from the already existing militia
and ordered to start for Boston the next morning. This company Nathan
Hale, with his keen sense of duty, could not then join. But, for a few
succeeding weeks, in addition to his regular work in school, he did all
in his power to keep alive the interest of the young men in the town
concerning their duties as Americans. With his enthusiastic nature, and
broad comprehension of what might soon confront the country, it is
probable that his seriousness and his activity were never greater than
during the few weeks intervening between his speech at the political
meeting and his departure from New London to enter the military service
of his country.
Of course his becoming a soldier would greatly interfere with the plans
that his father had made for him, and he at once wrote home on the
subject, stating that "a sense of duty urged him to sacrifice everything
for his country"; but he added that as soon as the war was ended he
would comply with his father's wishes in regard to a profession. The
father was quite as patriotic as the son. He immediately assented to his
son's desires. In those days, however, correspondence could not be
conducted so swiftly as at present, and some time must have elapsed
before this matter was positively settled between the two. As the war
went on, and doubtless none the less whole-heartedly after the news of
Nathan's death had been received, Mr. Hale did all he could for the
comfort of passing soldiers. It is said of him that many a time he sat
at the door of his hospitable home and watched for passing soldiers that
he might take them in and feed them; and, if necessary, lodge and clothe
them. He often forbade his household "to use the wool raised upon his
farm for home purposes, that it might be woven into blankets for the
army."
Anxious as had been young Hale to join the army, he appears to have
deferred making any decided plans until he had received the necessary
permission from his father. Having received it, he at once took steps
for securing his dismissal from his school and his admission into the
army. During the weeks of waiting it had become known that he was
anxious to enlist, and a military appointment was waiting his
acceptance. To secure his dismissal, on July 7 he addressed the
following letter to the proprietors of his school,--a letter that for a
young man of twenty is as dignified as it is patriotic:
GENTLEMEN: Having received information that a place is allotted me
in the army, and being inclined, as I hope for good reasons, to
accept it, I am constrained to ask as a favor that which scarce
anything else would have induced me to, which is, to be excused
from keeping your school any longer. For the purpose of conversing
upon this and of procuring another master, some of your number
think it best there should be a general meeting of the proprietors.
The time talked of for holding it is six o'clock this afternoon, at
the schoolhouse. The year for which I engaged will expire within a
fortnight, so that my quitting a few days sooner, I hope, will
subject you to no great inconvenience.
School-keeping is a business of which I was always fond, but since
my residence in this town, everything has conspired to render it
more agreeable. I have thought much of never quitting it but with
life, but at present there seems an opportunity for more extended
public service.
The kindness expressed to me by the people of the place, but
especially the proprietors of the school, will always be very
gratefully remembered by, gentlemen, with respect, your humble
servant,
NATHAN HALE