Famous American Statesmen Part 22

But a school-house was not sufficient for these New England pioneers; they must have a church building where they could worship. Mrs. Garfield loved her Bible, and had taught her children daily, so that James even knew its stories by heart, and many of its chapters. A church was therefore organized in the log school-house, and now they could work happily, year after year, wondering perchance what the future would bring.

James began to show great fondness for reading. As he lay on the cabin floor, by the big fireplace, he read by its light his "English Reader,"

"Robinson Crusoe" again and again, and, later, when he was twelve, "Josephus," and "Goodrich's History of the United States." He had worked on the farm for years; now he must earn some money for his mother by work for the neighbors. He had helped his brother Thomas in enlarging the house, and was sure that he could be a carpenter.

Going to a Mr. Trent, he asked for work.

"There is a pile of boards that I want planed," said the man, "and I will pay you one cent a board for planing."

James began at once, and at the end of a long day, to the amazement of Mr. Trent, he had planed one hundred boards, each over twelve feet long, and proudly carried home one dollar to his mother. After this he helped to build a barn and a shed for a potashery establishment for leeching ashes. The manufacturer of the "black-salts" seemed to take a fancy to the lad, and offered him work at nine dollars a month and his board, which James accepted. In the evenings he studied arithmetic and read books about the sea. This arrangement might have continued for some time had not the daughter of the salt-maker remarked one evening to her beau, as they sat in the room where James was reading, "I should think it was time for _hired servants_ to be abed."

James had not realized how the presence of a third party is apt to restrain the confidential conversation of lovers. He was hurt and angered by the words, and the next day gave up his work, and went home to his mother, to receive her sympathy and find employment elsewhere.

Doubtless he was more careful, all his life, from this circ.u.mstance, lest he wound the feelings of others.

Soon after this he heard that his uncle in Newburg was hiring wood-choppers. He immediately went to see him, and agreed to cut one hundred cords of wood, at twenty-five cents a cord. It was a man's work, but the boy of sixteen determined to do as much as a man. Each day he cut two cords, and at last carried twenty-five dollars to his mother; a small fortune, it seemed to the earnest boy.

While he chopped wood he looked out wistfully upon Lake Erie, recalled the sea stories which he had read, and longed more than ever to become a sailor. The Orange woods were growing too cramped for him. He was restless and eager for a broader life. It was the unrest of ambition, which voiced itself twenty years later in an address at Washington, D.

C., to young men. "Occasion cannot make spurs, young men. If you expect to wear spurs, you must win them. If you wish to use them, you must buckle them to your own heels before you go into the fight. Any success you may achieve is not worth the having unless you fight for it.

Whatever you win in life you must conquer by your own efforts; and then it is yours--a part of yourself.... Let not poverty stand as an obstacle in your way. Poverty is uncomfortable, as I can testify; but nine times out of ten the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard, and compelled to sink or swim for himself. In all my acquaintance I have never known one to be drowned who was worth saving.... To a young man who has in himself the magnificent possibilities of life, it is not fitting that he should be permanently commanded; he should be a commander. You must not continue to be employed; you must be an _employer_. You must be promoted from the ranks to a command. There is something, young men, that you can command; go and find it, and command it. You can at least command a horse and dray, can be generalissimo of them and may carve out a fortune with them."

Mrs. Garfield, with her mother's heart, deprecated a life at sea for her boy, and tried to dissuade him. Through the summer he worked in the hay-field, and then, the sea-fever returning, his mother wisely suggested that he seek employment on Lake Erie and see if he liked the life.

With his clothing wrapped in a bundle, he walked seventeen miles to Cleveland, with glowing visions of being a sailor. Reaching the wharf, he went on board a schooner, and asked for work. A drunken captain met him with oaths, and ordered him off the boat. The first phase of sea life had been different from what he had read in the books, and he turned away somewhat disheartened.

However, he soon met a cousin, who gave him the opportunity of driving mules for a ca.n.a.l boat. To walk beside slow mules was somewhat prosaic, as compared with climbing masts in a storm, but he accepted the position, receiving ten dollars a month and his board. Says William M.

Thayer, in his "From Log-Cabin to the White House": "James appeared to possess a singular affinity for the water. He fell into the water fourteen times during the two or three months he served on the ca.n.a.l boat. It was not because he was so clumsy that he could not keep right side up, nor because he did not understand the business; rather, we think, it arose from his thorough devotion to his work. He gave more attention to the labor in hand than he did to his own safety. He was one who never thought of himself when he was serving another. He thought only of what he had in hand to do. His application was intense, and his perseverance royal."

After a few weeks he contracted fever and ague, and went home to be cared for by his mother, through nearly five months of illness. The sea-fever had somewhat abated. Could he not go to school again? urged the mother. Thomas and she could give him seventeen dollars; not much, to be sure, for some people, but much for the widow and her son.

At last he decided to go to Geauga Seminary, at Chester; a decision which took him to the presidential chair. March 5, 1849, when he was eighteen, James and his cousins started on foot for Chester, carrying their housekeeping utensils, plates, knives and forks, kettle, and the like; for they must board themselves. A small room was hired for a pittance, four boys rooming together.

The seventeen dollars soon melted away, and James found work in a carpenter's shop, where he labored nights and mornings, and every Sat.u.r.day. Though especially fond of athletic games, he had no time for these. The school library contained one hundred and fifty volumes; a perfect mine of knowledge it seemed to the youth from Orange. He read eagerly biography and history; joined the debating society, where, despite his awkward manners and poor clothes, his eloquence soon attracted attention; went home to see his mother at the end of the first term, happy and courageous, and returned with ninepence in his pocket, to renew the struggle for an education. The first Sunday, at church, he put this ninepence into the contribution box, probably feeling no poorer than before.

While at Chester, the early teaching of his mother bore fruit, in his becoming a Christian, and joining the sect called "Disciples." "Of course," said Garfield, years later, "that settled ca.n.a.l, and lake, and sea, and everything." A new life had begun--a life devoted to the highest endeavor.

Each winter, while at Chester, he taught a district school, winning the love of the pupils by his enthusiasm and warm heart, and inciting them to study from his love of books. He played with them as though a boy like themselves, as he was, in reality, and yet demanded and received perfect obedience. He "boarded around," as was the custom, and thus learned more concerning both parents and pupils than was always desirable, probably; but in every house he tried to stimulate all to increased intelligence.

During his last term at the seminary, he met a graduate of a New England college, who urged that he also attend college; told how often men had worked their way through successfully, and had come to prominence. Young Garfield at once began to study Latin and Greek, and at twenty years of age presented himself at Hiram College, Ohio, a small inst.i.tution at that time, which had been started by the "Disciples." He sought the princ.i.p.al, and asked to ring the bell and sweep the floors to help pay his expenses. He took a room with four other students, not a wise plan, except for one who has will enough to study whether his companions work or play, and rose at five in the morning, to ring his bell.

A lady who attended the college thus writes of him: "I can see him even now, standing in the morning with his hand on the bell-rope, ready to give the signal calling teachers and scholars to engage in the duties of the day. As we pa.s.sed by, entering the school-room, he had a cheerful word for every one. He was probably the most popular person in the inst.i.tution. He was always good-natured, fond of conversation, and very entertaining. He was witty and quick at repartee, but his jokes, though brilliant and sparkling, were always harmless, and he never would willingly hurt another's feelings.

"Afterward, he became an a.s.sistant teacher, and while pursuing his cla.s.sical studies, preparatory to his college course, he taught the English branches. He was a most entertaining teacher,--ready with ill.u.s.trations, and possessing in a marked degree the power of exciting the interest of the scholars, and afterward making clear to them the lessons. In the arithmetic cla.s.s there were ninety pupils, and I cannot remember a time when there was any flagging in the interest. There were never any cases of unruly conduct, or a disposition to shirk. With scholars who were slow of comprehension, or to whom recitations were a burden on account of their modest or retiring dispositions, he was specially attentive, and by encouraging words and gentle a.s.sistance would manage to put all at their ease, and awaken in them a confidence in themselves.... He was a constant attendant at the regular meetings for prayer, and his vigorous exhortations and apt remarks upon the Bible-lessons were impressive and interesting. There was a cordiality in his disposition which won quickly the favor and esteem of others. He had a happy habit of shaking hands, and would give a hearty grip which betokened a kind-hearted feeling for all....

"One of his gifts was that of mezzotint drawing, and he gave instruction in this branch. I was one of his pupils in this, and have now the picture of a cross upon which he did some shading and put on the finishing touches. Upon the margin is written, in the hand of the noted teacher, his own name and his pupil's. There are also two other drawings, one of a large European bird on the bough of a tree, and the other a church-yard scene in winter, done by him at that time. In those days the faculty and pupils were wont to call him 'the second Webster,'

and the remark was common, 'He will fill the White House yet.' In the Lyceum, he early took rank far above the others as a speaker and debater.

"During the month of June the entire school went in carriages to their annual grove meeting at Randolph, some twenty-five miles away. On this trip he was the life of the party, occasionally bursting out in an eloquent strain at the sight of a bird or a trailing vine, or a venerable giant of the forest. He would repeat poetry by the hour, having a very retentive memory."

The college library contained about two thousand volumes, and here Garfield read systematically and topically, a habit which continued through life, and made him master of every subject which he touched.

Tennyson's poetry became, like the Bible, his daily study.

Mr. J. M. Bundy, in his Life of Garfield, said, years later, "His house at Washington is a workshop, in which the tools are always kept within immediate reach. Although books overrun his house from top to bottom, his library contains the working material on which he mainly depends.

And the amount of material is enormous. Large numbers of sc.r.a.p-books that have been acc.u.mulating for over twenty years in number and value--made up with an eye to what either is or may become useful, which would render the collection of priceless value to the library of any first-cla.s.s newspaper establishment--are so perfectly arranged and indexed that their owner, with his all-retentive memory, can turn in a moment to the facts that may be needed for almost any conceivable emergency in debate. These are supplemented by diaries that preserve Garfield's multifarious, political, scientific, literary, and religious inquiries, studies, and readings. And, to make the machinery of rapid work complete, he has a large box, containing sixty-three different drawers, each properly labelled, in which he places newspaper cuttings, doc.u.ments, and slips of paper, and from which he can pull out what he wants as easily as an organist can play on the stops of his instrument."

In Hiram College he formed an intellectual friendship with a fellow-student to whose inspiring help he testified gratefully to the end of his life; Miss Almeda A. Booth, eight years his senior, a brilliant and n.o.ble woman, pledged to "virgin widowhood" by the death of the young man to whom she was promised in marriage. Twenty years later, Garfield said, in a memorial address at Hiram College, "On my own behalf I take this occasion to say that for her generous and powerful aid, so often and so efficiently rendered, for her quick and never failing sympathy, and for her intelligent, unselfish, and unswerving friendship, I owe her a debt of grat.i.tude and affection for the payment of which the longest term of life would have been too short.... I remember that she and I were members of the cla.s.s that began Xenophon's 'Anabasis' in the fall of 1852. Near the close of that term I also began to teach in the Eclectic [College], and, thereafter, like her, could keep up my studies only outside of my own cla.s.s hours. In mathematics and the physical sciences I was far behind her; but we were nearly at the same place in Greek and Latin, each having studied them about three terms. She had made her home at President Hayden's almost from the first; and I became a member of his family at the beginning of the winter term of 1852-53.

Thereafter, for nearly two years, she and I studied together, and recited in the same cla.s.ses (frequently without other a.s.sociates) till we had nearly completed the cla.s.sical course....

"During the fall of 1853 she read one hundred pages of Herodotus, and about the same of Livy. During that term, also, Professors Dunshee and Hull, Miss Booth, and I met at her room two evenings of each week to make a joint translation of the Book of Romans. Professor Dunshee contributed his studies of the German commentators De Wette and Tholuck; and each of the translators made some special study for each meeting.

How nearly we completed the translation I do not remember; but I do remember that the contributions and criticisms of Miss Booth were remarkable for suggestiveness and sound judgment. Our work was more thorough than rapid, for I find this entry in my diary for December 15, 1853: 'Translation Society sat three hours at Miss Booth's room, and agreed upon the translation of nine verses.'

"During the winter term of 1853-54 she continued to read Livy, and also the whole of Demosthenes 'On the Crown.' During the spring term of 1854 she read the 'Germania' and 'Agricola' of Tacitus and a portion of Hesiod."

To Garfield she was another Margaret Fuller. "I venture to a.s.sert that in native powers of mind, in thoroughness and breadth of scholarship, in womanly sweetness of spirit, and in the quant.i.ty and quality of effective, unselfish work done, she has not been excelled by any American woman.... I can name twenty or thirty books which will forever be doubly precious to me because they were read and discussed in company with her.... She was always ready to aid any friend with her best efforts. When I was in the hurry of preparing for a debate with Mr.

Denton, in 1858, she read not less than eight or ten volumes, and made admirable notes for me on those points which related to the topics of discussion. In the autumn of 1859 she read a large portion of Blackstone's 'Commentaries,' and enjoyed with keenest relish the strength of the author's thought and the beauty of his style. From the rich stores of her knowledge she gave with unselfish generosity. The foremost students had no mannish pride that made them hesitate to ask her a.s.sistance and counsel. In preparing their orations and debates they eagerly sought her suggestions and criticisms....

"It is quite probable that John Stuart Mill has exaggerated the extent to which his own mind and works were influenced by Harriet Mill. I should reject his opinion on that subject, as a delusion, did I not know from my own experience, as well as that of hundreds of Hiram students, how great a power Miss Booth exercised over the culture and opinions of her friends."

The influence of such a woman upon an intellectual young man can scarcely be estimated, or over-estimated. The world is richer and n.o.bler for such women. Garfield never forgot her influence. The year he died, he said at a Williams College banquet held in Cleveland, January 10, 1881: "I am glad to say, reverently, in the presence of the many ladies here to-night, that I owe to a woman, who has long since been asleep, perhaps a higher debt intellectually than I owe to any one else. After that comes my debt to Williams College."

He used to say, "Give me a log hut with only a simple bench, Mark Hopkins on one end and I on the other, and you may have all the buildings, apparatus, and libraries without him."

After two years at Hiram College, Garfield decided to enter some eastern college, and wrote to Yale, Brown, and Williams. Their replies are shown in his letter to a friend at this time. "Their answers are now before me. All tell me I can graduate in two years. They are all brief business notes; but President Hopkins concludes with this sentence: 'If you come here, we shall be glad to do what we can for you.' Other things being so nearly equal, this sentence, which seems to be a kind of friendly grasp of the hand, has settled the question for me. I shall start for Williams next week." A kind sentence gave to Williams a distinguished honor for all coming years.

Garfield had not only paid his way while at Hiram, but he had saved three hundred and fifty dollars for his course at Williams. Here he earned money, as he had at Hiram, by teaching, and borrowed a few hundreds from Dr. J. P. Robinson of Cleveland, Ohio, offering a life insurance policy as security.

In college, says Dr. Hopkins, "as General Garfield was broad in his scholarship, so was he in his sympathies. No one thought of him as a recluse or as bookish. Not _given_ to athletic sports, he was fond of them. His mind was open to the impression of natural scenery, and, as his const.i.tution was vigorous, he knew well the fine points on the mountains around us. He was also social in his disposition, both giving and inspiring confidence. So true is this of his intercourse with the officers of the college, as well as with others, that he was never even suspected of anything low or trickish.... General Garfield gave himself to study with a zest and delight wholly unknown to those who find in it a routine. A religious man and a man of principle, he pursued of his own accord the ends proposed by the inst.i.tution. He was prompt, frank, manly, social, in his tendencies; combining active exercise with habits of study, and thus did for himself what it is the object of a college to enable every young man to do,--he made himself a MAN."

When Garfield was at Williams, the slavery question had become the exciting topic of the day. Preston Brooks' attack on Charles Sumner had aroused the indignation of the students, who called a meeting, at which Garfield made an eloquent and powerful speech. At his graduation in 1856, when he was twenty-five, he delivered the metaphysical oration, the highest honor awarded. He now returned to Hiram College, having been appointed professor of Greek and Latin. At once he began his work with zest. He said later: "I have taken more solid comfort in the thing itself, and received more moral recompense and stimulus in after life from capturing young men for an education than from anything else in the world.

"As I look back over my life thus far, I think of nothing that so fills me with pleasure as the planning of these sieges, the revolving in my mind of plans for scaling the walls of the fortress; of gaining access to the inner soul-life, and at last seeing the besieged party won to a fuller appreciation of himself, to a higher conception of life and of the part he is to bear in it. The princ.i.p.al guards which I have found it necessary to overcome in gaining these victories are the parents or guardians of the young men themselves. I particularly remember two such instances of capturing young men from their parents. Both of those boys are to-day educators, of wide reputation,--one president of a college, the other high in the ranks of graded-school managers. Neither, in my opinion, would to-day have been above the commonest walks of life unless I, or some one else, had captured him. There is a period in every young man's life when a very small thing will turn him one way or the other.

He is distrustful of himself, and uncertain as to what he should do. His parents are poor, perhaps, and argue that he has more education than they ever obtained, and that it is enough. These parents are sometimes a little too anxious in regard to what their boys are going to do when they get through with their college course. They talk to the young man too much, and I have noticed that the boy who will make the best man is sometimes most ready to doubt himself. I always remember the turning period in my own life, and pity a young man at this stage from the bottom of my heart. One of the young men I refer to came to me on the closing day of the spring term, and bade me good-by at my study. I noticed that he awkwardly lingered after I expected him to go, and had turned to my writing again.

"'I suppose you will be back again in the fall, Henry,' I said, to fill in the vacuum. He did not answer, and, turning toward him, I noticed that his eyes were filled with tears, and that his countenance was undergoing contortions of pain. He at length managed to stammer out, 'No, I am not coming back to Hiram any more. Father says I have got education enough, and that he needs me to work on the farm; that education don't help along a farmer any.'

"'Is your father here?' I asked, almost as much affected by the statement as the boy himself. He was a peculiarly bright boy,--one of those strong, awkward, bashful, blond, large-headed fellows, such as make men. He was not a prodigy by any means; but he knew what work meant, and, when he had won a thing by true endeavor, he knew its value.

"'Yes; father is here, and is taking my things home for good,' said the boy, more affected than ever.

"'Well, don't feel badly,' I said. 'Please tell him Mr. Garfield would like to see him at his study, before he leaves the village. Don't tell him that it is about you, but simply that I want to see him.' In the course of half an hour the old gentleman, a robust specimen of a Western Reserve Yankee, came into the room and awkwardly sat down. I knew something of the man before, and I thought I knew how to begin. I shot right at the bull's-eye immediately.

"'So you have come up to take Henry home with you, have you?' The old gentleman answered, 'Yes.' 'I sent for you because I wanted to have a little talk with you about Henry's future. He is coming back again in the fall, I hope?'

"'Wal, I think not. I don't reckon I can afford to send him any more.

He's got eddication enough for a farmer already, and I notice that when they git too much they sorter git lazy. Yer eddicated farmers are humbugs. Henry's got so far 'long now that he'd rather hev his head in a book than be workin'. He don't take no interest in the stock nor in the farm improvements. Everybody else is dependent in this world on the farmer, and I think that we've got too many eddicated fellows setting around now for the farmers to support.'

"'I am sorry to hear you talk so,' I said; 'for really I consider Henry one of the brightest and most faithful students I have ever had. I have taken a very deep interest in him. What I wanted to say to you was, that the matter of educating him has largely been a constant outgo thus far, but, if he is permitted to come next fall term, he will be far enough advanced so that he can teach school in the winter, and begin to help himself and you along. He can earn very little on the farm in the winter, and he can get very good wages teaching. How does that strike you?'

"The idea was a new and good one to him. He simply remarked, 'Do you really think he can teach next winter?'

"'I should think so, certainly,' I replied. 'But, if he cannot do so then, he can in a short time, anyhow.'