The next spring his father took Daniel to Exeter Academy.
This was the boy's first contact with the world, and there was the usual sting which invariably accompanies that meeting.

His school-mates laughed at his rustic dress and manners, and the poor little farm lad felt it bitterly.

The natural and unconscious power by which he had delighted the teamsters was stifled, and the greatest orator of modern times never could summon sufficient courage to stand up and recite verses before these Exeter school-boys.

Intelligent masters, however, perceived something of what was in the lad, and gave him a kindly encouragement.

He rose rapidly in the classes, and at the end of nine months his father took him away in order to place him as a pupil with a neighboring clergyman.