effort. It is interesting to connect his later life and character with this practical school of his boyhood.

His early education was got in the schools of his village, which he attended until he was fourteen. It is said that he finished his academic studies in his native village when fourteen.

He then began the study of law in an office in Kinderhook, and perseveringly pursued it six years. Then he went to New York city and studied under the tuition of William P. Van Ness, who afterward became much known, and especially for his connection with the Burr and Hamilton duel, in which the latter lost his life. Martin became acquainted with Burr, who was intimate with Van Ness. Burr was at this time a brilliant and seductive man in the midst of a very popular career. Martin Van Buren was a handsome, polite, precocious and talented young man of twenty. There was much that was congenial between them. They were both men of fine manners and forceful and brilliant minds. Burr was unprincipled and came to a great fall, but at this time was suspected by none. His brilliance was froth on a foul pool.

At the end of a year in New York city, in seeking a knowledge of law, he returned to Kinderhook and set up the practice of his profession. At that time such a long study was demanded to get admission to the bar, because he had not a college education. The defect was not remedied by the long study; for beyond a doubt, his whole career was narrowed, weakened, less dignified and high-minded than it would have been had he had the bracing and broadening of a full course of academic study. He became noted as a politician rather than a statesman-just the result that such a defective beginning might have been expected to produce. He was narrow, local, timeserving, studious of expedients, managing for men and votes, artful in management, shrewd in partisanship, rather than broad, general, long-seeing, comprehensive, national. His popularity was temporary and not permanent. He built no great And not because

monuments for the ages to remember him by. he had not ability, but because he did not educate himself broadly.

He sought only a boy's education, the rudiments, not the principles of learning. The education obtained before sixteen is such as a boy comprehends; that got afterward lays the foundation of the man. The boy Van Buren was educated; the man Van Buren was not. The man was put to the law, and made a technical, close, formal lawyer, rather than a broad, great-thinking, fresh and expansive man. A born gentleman, with a rich and vigorous mind, active, studious, eager for knowledge, ambitious for honorable distinction, patriotic and humane, he yet only began to study, and then hurried on to the technology of the law-to the often belittling drudgery of detail. Always will the readers of his externally successful life deplore its too narrow and stinted beginning.

VAN BUREN THE LAWYER.

In 1803, in the twenty-first year of his age, young Van Buren was admitted to the bar as an attorney at law. He immediately entered into partnership with his half brother, James I. Van Allen, and entered into the practice of law in Kinderhook. While a student he often tried cases before justices of the peace, and showed a cleverness and penetration which augured the successful lawyer. Four years later he was admitted to the supreme court. In 1808 he was appointed surrogate of Columbia county; and soon after that he removed to Hudson, the county seat of his county-a thriving town on the Hudson river. His practice increased and became extensive in a few years. His devotion to his profession, his readiness as a speaker, his bland ways and manly and courteous bearing won him friends and success. For some twenty-five years he continued his successful and lucrative practice. In 1806 he married Miss Hannah Hoes, to whom he had been sincerely attached for a number of years. It was an agreeable marriage and brought to both its mutual pleasures and profits. Four sons were born to them when his wife began to decline with consumption, and died in 1818. He remained a widower through his life.

A POLITICIAN.

Mr. Van Buren embraced the political views of his father who was an enthusiastic admirer of Jefferson. Many of the young man's relatives were federalists. The federalists were in the majority in his state. They endeavored to persuade him to the majority as a matter of good business policy. But he was a sincere democrat and gave no heed to such persuasions. As early as his eighteenth year he was appointed a delegate from his native town to a political convention, to nominate a candidate to the legislature. He prepared an address to the electors of his dristrict, young as he was.

ures.

When he was twenty years old Mr. Jefferson was elected to the presidency. He was young Van Buren's ideal statesman. By this event his enthusiasm for his ideal teacher of political truth was all that an ardent young soul could give. Jefferson's messages, addresses, statements of policy, were his study. He gave his ardent support to all the president's men and measThe eight years of Jefferson's administration fixed Mr. Van Buren deeply in the grooves of the democratic party. He was too ardent a follower of his great master to raise any doubts or queries about any of his teachings, and too little breadth of intellectual culture to be an original thinker concerning them. He was educated to the level of partisanship, and not to that of leadership in political thought. He took his doctrines ready formed from his teacher. He was a second and reduced edition of Jefferson. And it was the misfortune of his education, or lack of it, that he was so.

In 1812, when thirty years of age, he was elected in a closely contested election, a member of the State Senate. Mr. Madison was now president, and the second war with England was just opening. Mr. Van Buren gave the force of his influence to the support of the administration and the war. He was

a true patriot, a genuine American in a Dutch setting.

In 1815, at the age of thirty-three, he was elected attorneygeneral of the state of New York-a mark of respect for a young man which indicates an early ripeness in his profession.

He was also elected a regent of the university. The next spring he was re-elected state senator for four years. This was about the time De Witt Clinton was projecting and urging his internal improvements, especially the canal through the state of New York, that has ever since been called "Clinton's Ditch." It received great opposition and was hotly denounced by many of the tax payers. It was the introduction to canal building in the country and did great service in its day in helping to develop the settlement and resources of the country.

Mr. Van Buren took the side of Mr. Clinton on the internal improvements of the state. Afterward De Witt Clinton was elected governor of the state by the democratic party. Mr. Van Buren, in 1818, set up an opposition to the governor's administration, and organized what was called "The Albany Regency," a sort of tammany club, or self-appointed clique, which in a few years got the politics of the state in its hand and held it for many years. It was a break in the party, occasioned by its two leaders, which was fierce for a considerable time. Van Buren won in the end and gathered pretty much the whole party around him.

In February, 1821, the legislature of New York elected Mr. Van Buren to the Senate of the United States, when he was thirty-nine years of age. Mr. Van Buren's opposition to Governor Clinton, division of the democratic party, formation of the Albany Regency, and managing it for fifteen years, got him the name of a politician. His enemies called him a wire-worker, a fox, an oily, deceptive managing man. Many regarded him as the impersonation of cunning. His good looks, his nice taste, which always dressed him like a fine gentleman, as he really was, his polished manners, his absolute self control, his suavity and courtesy, were all interpreted as evidence of his sly cunning and innate duplicity. Because he would not be a boor, many believed him to be an autocrat under the polished garb of a democratic gentleman. The same year that he was elected to the Senate, a convention was held in the state of New York to revise the constitution. Mr. Van Buren was a delegate to this convention, and was of such practical service as won the approval

of all parties. He was opposed to universal suffrage; was in favor of a property qualification; was in favor of colored men having the right of suffrage on the same terms as white men. His course in this convention was so judicious and conservative, that even the federalists had no fault to find with him. In his work here, he showed the real quality of his mind, because he was not acting as a politician, but as a statesman. He was a man of quick and strong power, but that power, for the most part, was put to the service of a party, rather than to the broader and nobler service of the country.

In the Senate of the United States, Mr. Van Buren was active and influential, advocating the abolition of imprisonment for debt, in actions in the United States courts, amendments to the judiciary system, a general bankrupt law, a just investment of the money for the sales of public lands in the states where they were made.

Mr. Monroe was now president. It was the "era of good feeling." The federal party was dead. The democratic party was in full power. The whig party was not yet organized. The old federalists were a scattered host of strong, good men, feeling about for some way to act together. But no great question had come up, around which they could rally in opposition to the triumphant democracy. John Quincy Adams was secretary of state, and conducting the duties of that office with great ability, and to the satisfaction of the federalists. Mr. Monroe respected the rights of the minority, and appointed many moderate federalists to office, as had been the costom thus far by the presidents.

In 1825, John Quincy Adams took his seat as president. Mr. Van Buren opposed his election, advocating the claims of Andrew Jackson. Mr. Adams was a scholar, a non-partisan, a statesman of the largest type, outranking in ability and in knowledge of the world's affairs and history, any statesman in Europe-honest, patriotic, non-sectional, a gentleman and christian. Andrew Jackson was his opposite in almost everything but integrity and patriotism. And yet, Mr. Van Buren threw his great influence and skill in manipulating elections, in favor