Oration on the Life and Character of Henry Winter Davis | Page 3

versed in mathematics and natural
sciences, abounding in classical lore, endowed with a vast memory, and
gifted with a concise, clear, and graceful style; rich and fluent in
conversation, but without the least pretension to oratory and wholly
incapable of extempore speaking. He was removed from the presidency
of St. John's by a board of democratic trustees because of his federal
politics; and, years afterward, he gave his son his only lesson in politics
at the end of a letter, addressed to him when at Kenyon College, in this
laconic sentence: "My son, beware of the follies of Jacksonism."
His mother was Jane Brown Winter, a woman of elegant
accomplishments and of great sweetness of disposition and purity of
life. It might be truthfully said of her, that she was an exemplar for all
who knew her. She had only two children, Henry Winter, and Jane,
who married Rev. Edward Syle.

The education of Henry Winter began very early, at home, under the
care of his aunt, Elizabeth Brown Winter, who entertained the most
rigid and exacting opinions in regard to the training of children, but
who was withal a noble woman. He once playfully said, "I could read
before I was four years old, though much against my will." When his
father was removed from St. John's, he went to Wilmington, Delaware,
but some time elapsed before he became settled there. Meanwhile,
Henry Winter remained with his aunt in Alexandria, Virginia. He
afterward went to Wilmington, and was there instructed under his
father's supervision. In 1827 his father returned to Maryland and settled
in Anne Arundel county.
After reaching Anne Arundel, Henry Winter became so much devoted
to out-door life that he gave small promise of scholarly proficiency. He
affected the sportsman, and became a devoted disciple of Nimrod;
accompanied always by one of his father's slaves he roamed the
country with a huge old fowling-piece on his shoulder, burning powder
in abundance, but doing little damage otherwise. While here he saw
much of slaves and slavery, and what he saw impressed him profoundly,
and laid the foundation for those opinions which he so heroically and
constantly defended in all his after-life. Referring to this period, he said
long afterward, "My familiar association with the slaves while a boy
gave me great insight into their feelings and views. They spoke with
freedom before a boy what they would have repressed before a man.
They were far from indifferent to their condition; they felt wronged and
sighed for freedom. They were attached to my father and loved me, yet
they habitually spoke of the day when God would deliver them."
He subsequently went to Alexandria, and was sent to school at Howard,
near the Theological Seminary, and from Howard he went to Kenyon
College, in Ohio, in the fall of 1833.
Kenyon was then in the first year of the presidency of Bishop
McIlvaine. It was the centre of vast forests, broken only by occasional
clearings, excepting along the lines of the National road, and the Ohio
river and its navigable tributaries. In this wilderness of nature, but
garden of letters, he remained, at first in the grammar school, and then

in the college, until the 6th of September, 1837; when at twenty years
of age he took his degree and diploma, decorated with one of the
honorary orations of his class, on the great day of commencement. His
subject was "Scholastic Philosophy."
At the end of the Freshman year, a change in the college terms gave
him a vacation of three months. Instead of spending it in idleness, as he
might have done, and as most boys would have done, he availed
himself of this interval to pursue and complete the studies of the
Sophomore year, to which he had already given some attention in his
spare moments. At the opening of the next session he passed the
examination for the Junior class. Fortunately I have his own testimony
and opinion as to this exploit, and I give them in his own language:
"It was a pretty sharp trial of resolution and dogged diligence, but it
saved me a year of college, and indurated my powers of study and
mental culture into a habit, and perhaps enabled me to stay long enough
to graduate. I do not recommend the example to those who are
independently situated, for learning must fall like the rain in such
gentle showers as to sink in if it is to be fruitful; when poured on the
richest soil in torrents, it not only runs off without strengthening
vegetation, but washes away the soil itself."
His college life was laborious and successful. The regular studies were
prosecuted with diligence, and from them he derived great profit, not
merely in knowledge, but in what is of vastly more