who afterwards became prominent than any other educator in the whole country. Judge O'Neall, in his account, says that McDuffie was then so poor that he had nothing but a little blue box, in which his scanty supply of clothing was contained. Judge McGowan in mentioning the same facts said that when McDuffie came up to Abbeville District to Dr. Waddell's school, he brought his clothes in a goods box, which Hon. Armistead Burt, who married Mr. Calhoun's daughter, had in his posses sion afterwards, and that this box was burnt when Col. J. T. Robertson's house was des troyed by fire, several years ago. From the information which I have been able to gather it seems to have been a little, dark blue chest with a lid and hinges. Although from Judge O'Neall's statement McDuffie's father appears to have been a land-owner, still, he does not seem to have given his son anything with which to com mence life. At a meeting of the Abbeville Literary Club several years ago, Major Burt, to whom I have already alluded, gave a talk on McDuffie and in the course of his remarks he vigorously combated the idea that McDuffie owed much to the Calhouns, or any one else, so far as pecuniary aid was concerned, for his education and start in life; — he further contended that Mc Duffie's success was due to his own in domitable will and pluck, and that he was emphatically a self-made man. In speak ing of his education he also said that McDuffie mastered the Latin grammar in six weeks' time. Owing to his family con nection with the Calhouns and his intimacy with McDuffie, Major Burt was peculiarly well situated to know the facts. However this may be, we find that thus early in his career McDuffie attracted the attention and enlisted the sympathy of warm-hearted people who, in turn, put him under the tutelage of a veritable Gamaliel in the edu cational world, Here too is a lesson for American youth which they would do well
to learn, — that they can't begin too soon to cultivate habits of industry and that, if they do so, they are likely to receive their reward. And there is a lesson here for grown up people also, — this is an age when colleges and universities are being handsomely en dowed by liberal philanthropists, and this is all very well in its place, but we need something more than this, — we need more observing and kind-hearted people, like these Calhouns, to seek out and encourage poor but aspiring boys and girls and to put around them environments that will tend to a healthy development. While in attendance upon the Willington school, McDuffie devoted himself with great assiduity to his books. He mastered the Latin grammar in ten days. Within a fortnight after he commenced Virgil, from Friday evening to Monday morning, he prepared for recitation eleven hundred lines, a feat which absolutely astounded his teach ers. He took an active part also in a debat ing society where he gave evidence of that remarkable power as an orator which after wards characterized him to so eminent a de gree. Nor did his superior talents excite the envy of his schoolmates. So amiable was he and so manifest and decided was his superiority over them, that they entertained no feelings of envy or jealousy towards him. Among McDuffie's schoolmates at Willington, and indeed one of his most intimate friends, was Augustus B. Longstreet, who afterwards became president of the South Carolina College and the author of" Georgia Scenes." Those who have read the book just referred to will remember the amusing and interesting query which so puzzled the members of the debating society: Whether at public elections should the votes of fac tions predominate by internal suggestions or the bias of jurisprudence? We are told that McDuffie and Longstreet together com posed the subject. Says Mr. Burt : In the sketch McDuffie is called Mr. McDermott, and Judge Longstreet says of him: " He
