The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1896-08-13
ERYAE'S ANTECEDENTS.

| IL would SAVIOR OF platllude 10 de-
scribe William Jennings Bryan as the
typical American. The American type
is multifarious, ranging fiom Buffalo
Bill to Chauncey NJ. nepew, each of
whom is accepted beyond the seas as a
fit personihcation of the American
character. Mr.. Bryan, however, may
be recognized as a thoroughly typical
young American of the Middle West
"a late development of that westward
movement which filled the Western
Reserve with New Englanders, whose
descendants in turn went on to Illinois
and thence to Iowa and Nebraska. The
nominees own family, however, sprung
from Virginia-the Mother Of Presi-
denls- where his father, Silas l.. Bryan,
was born in Culpeper County, near the
foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Be
fore his father three generations of W.
J. Bryan's ancestors abode IN the Uni
ted States, tllling the soil and joining
in the movement westward from the
coast as res,lessness or interest impelled
them. Not in any sense pioneers, Tor
they followed rather than led the wave
Of settlement, the Bryans, even to the
! member of the family now 50 much III
the notice of the public, nave always
been inclined to abandon the Centers
of population and seek their fortunes
in the newer and ruder Western com
munities.
WILLIAM J. BRYAN FATHER.
Like many Americans Bryan inher
tied his political beliefs. His father,
going west to Illinois, carried with him
the Democracy Of the Old Dominion,
and through long years Of residence
in a Republican State Clung to the
convictions of his youth. The Demo
cratic nominee, too, comes naturally
by his inclination for public lfc. HIS
father sat for eight years in the Illinois
Senate, made an unsuccessful FaGe i1I
Congress, was in 1870 a member =
the Constitutional Convention which
gave to the State of Illinois the basic
document by which its Legislative acts
are now controlled, and was for Twelve
years Judge of the Circuit Court. In
1852 he married, at Salem, H., Miss
Maria Elizabeth Jennings, who sur
wives him. Five Of their nine children
are still living. TIE elder Bryaas led
the life characteristic of the small
Western towns Educated to the de
gree possible in Western colleges,
deeply religious in life and sentiment,
untravelled beyond the borders Of their
own country, provincial perhaps but
patriotic with patriotism fiercer tnan
that off which cosmopolitanism takes
the rough edges, they would pass un-
noticed among the hundreds of thous-
ands of like god fearing, country-lov
households that make up the bone and
sinew of sturdy Western Americanism.
BRYAN's SCHOOL AND COLLEGE DAYS.
From the more primary grades of
the public schools be went to Whjppie
| Academy, 1T Jacksonville, and thence
to Illinois College in the same city. In
college years as in his earlier days he
manifested no qualities which promised
for him a brilliant future, except per-
haps certain facility in address which
led his relatives to hope for him Ger
tain measure of distinction ct the bar.
A friend Of his boyhood days describes
him before his matriculation at college
as shy, diffident, little given to joining
in the pastimes of the other lads, not
over bright at his books, but always
serious and inclined 10 be abstractcd
: in manner. Men to-day who we're
with him in Illinois College deny
him any great distinction in the class
room except in the department o
{ mathematics The college curriculum,
of those days, however, was not widely
extended mot cne from which the ambl
tious student was able to select wide
g variety Of studies most suited 10 nj
own intellectual traits or most llSel,
to prove available il the career he had
planned for himself His skill in de
bate and in oratory, however, won hIn
some note early in his college course
1t is tradition in Salem to-day tina
; when the boy WAS twelve years old h
father put him forward TO address
Democratic convention, and the laugh
ter which the sight OF the y0ungste
) reused was s,llled by the excellence 0
L his effort Ga the other hand, III
professor Of elocutiOn in Illinois Co!
l lege declares tha. when he entered I'll
d freshman class Bryan had no grace {
i oratory, but forced hi self tc th- iron
u by earnestnes5, determination ard yea
Winning 4 prize in a college contes
) stimulated him. \ summer spent o
the stump in advocacy Of VIM. n
{ Springer's Congressional cand'dac
} gave him confidence, and his succe:
just before graduating in winning
prize in a State cOn;es, with an cratic
on "Iustice" doubtless went far 10 q,
; termine his choice of a profession
a the law--and al avoca;i0n-po.ttlc
or The part that the smaller Western CO
n leges have played in developing CT
=, ~ liens of the type Of Bryan and Of G3
ne field is TOO little recognized throuSj
1g out the nation. In proportion - the
1t attendance they seem - have pTost
81 duced a greater number ofgradua'es
] Ill Il, II /,