Nathan Hale

Nathan Hale

Nathan Hale
Reading Level

	edHelper's suggested reading level:	grades 4 to 6
	Flesch-Kincaid grade level:	6.51

Vocabulary

	challenging words:		intention, ammunition, diploma, giveaway, regiment, undertake, unrest, successful, education, revolution, colonist, commander, immediately, saying, teaching, colonial
	content words:		Nathan Hale, Elizabeth Hale, Yale College, Union Grammar School, New London, Grammar School, First Lieutenant, General George Washington, New York, General Washington

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Nathan Hale
By Jane Runyon

¹     Nathan Hale had no intention of becoming a hero when he was a boy. He was the sixth of twelve children growing up in Connecticut. He was born June 6, 1755, to a successful farmer and his wife, Richard and Elizabeth Hale. Nathan and his brother, Enoch, were sent to Yale College to further their education. Nathan was only fourteen years old at the time. Enoch decided to become a minister, and Nathan set his goal to become a school teacher.

²     Nathan graduated near the top of his class at age eighteen. He accepted a job as teacher in the Union Grammar School in New London, Connecticut. Nathan had already taken on causes that he felt were unfair. He did not believe in the common practice of educating only the young men of the new world. He made an arrangement with the leaders of the Union Grammar School to teach the young ladies of the area. Because this was not something normally done, Nathan had to teach his class of twenty women between the hours of five and seven in the morning. This way it would not interfere with his main job, teaching the boys.

³     It was during this same time that a movement of unrest started to make its way through the colonies. It is debated among some scholars that Nathan Hale may have been the first colonist to use the word independence to describe what the colonists were striving for.

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