There is further evidence of Hale's notable gifts as a teacher. Colonel Samuel Green, who had been a pupil of Hale in New London, said of him, in oldtime phrase: "Hale was a man peculiarly engaging in his manners--these were mild and genteel. The scholars, old and young, were attached to him. They loved him for his tact and amiability.
"He was wholly without severity and had a wonderful control over boys. He was sprightly, ardent, and steady--bore a fine moral character and was respected highly by all his acquaintances. The school in which he taught was owned by the first gentlemen in New London, all of whom were exceedingly gratified by Hale's skill and assiduity."
A lady of New London who was for some time an inmate of the same family with Hale, adds her testimony:
"His capacity as a teacher was highly appreciated both by parents and pupils. His simple and unostentatious manner of imparting right views and feelings to less cultivated understandings was unsurpassed by any other person I have ever known."
He was, as we see, a successful teacher, and, as we learn elsewhere, had serious thoughts of remaining a teacher.
Unexpectedly, however, events verified the truth of the old adage, "Man proposes, God disposes." A great historical drama was to be enacted before the eyes of the wondering world, and events were ripening that were to form a great epoch in history.
America was being led first to protest against the unjust exactions laid upon its people, and then to resist the oppressions that were being forced upon it. Gradually the idea prevailed that a taxation which might have been acceptable, if coupled with representation in Parliament, was absolutely intolerable without representation, and the Stamp Act in 1765 struck the first note of intense opposition. Thenceforward the political clouds grew darker and the warning incidents multiplied.
And yet, as a people, Americans were walking as if their personal plans lay easily in their own control. Scores of young men were fitting themselves for ordinary callings, Nathan Hale among them. His father's plans combining with his own appeared to be that he was to teach for a while, and then follow his brother Enoch into the ministry. As it proved, his days as a teacher were numbered. He was never to enter a pulpit, though he was to utter one sentence that, graven upon bronze or granite, will last while America lasts. He was to teach, by his last, unpremeditated words, and by an example more potent than any other in American history, what all generations of Americans must venerate--the sublimity of a complete sacrifice.