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Today's Featured Biography
Louis Kossuth
 Louis Kossuth was born at Monok, in Zemplin, one of the northern counties of Hungary, April 21, 1802. His family was ancient, but impoverished; his father served in the Austrian army during the wars against Napoleon; his mother is represented to have been a woman of extraordinary force of mind and character. Kossuth thus adds another to the long list of great men who seem to have inherited their genius from their mothers. As a boy he was remarkable for the winning gentleness of his disposition, and for an earnest enthusiasm, which gave promise of future eminence, could he but break the bonds imposed by low birth and iron fortune. A young clergyman was attracted by the character of the boy, and voluntarily took upon himself the office of his tutor, and thus first opened before his mind visions of a broader world than that of the miserable village of his residence. But these serene days of power expanding under genial guidance soon passed away. His father died, his tutor was translated to another post, and the walls of his prison-house seemed again to close upon the boy. But by the aid of members of his family, themselves in humble circumstances, he was enabled to attend such schools as the district furnished. Little worth knowing was taught there; but among that little was the Latin language; and through that door the young dreamer was introduced into the broad domains of history, where, abandoning the mean present, he could range at will through the immortal past.
In times...
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