Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 January 1913 — GREELEY A NATURAL SPELLER [ARTICLE]

GREELEY A NATURAL SPELLER

Said to Have Been Master of the Language When He Was in His Sixth Year. No champion of the old-time spelling matches, perhaps, ever excelled Horace Greeley. He was, in fact, a spelling prodigy. What would the boys and girls of today, who grumble over their daily stint of 20 words, think of a child not yet six years old who could actually spell every word in the language! That is what the young Horace is said to have been able to do. His schooling began in his fourth year, and the art of spelling at once became a passion with him. In school and out, he kept incessantly at its Istudy. Hour after hour he would lie on the floor, spelling over all the difficult words he could find in the few books that the family owned. The fame of his prowess spread. Naturally, Horace was the first one chosen at spelling matches. He had a lisping, whining voice, and spelled his words with the utmost confidence. Sometimes in winter, when the snowdrifts were so deep that one of the big boys had to take him to the school house on his back, the little white-haired fellow would drop asleep between turns. When his word came round, his neighbor would nudge him anxiously; he would wake, spell his word, and drop asleep again at once. So great was the boy’s reputation as a student of unusual powers that the selectment of a neighboring town, in passing a rule forbidding the attendance at the local school of any pupil from outside the township, honored him by adding the clause,. “Excepting only Horace Greeley!”— Youth’s Companion. ■«