From Canal Boy to President Part 15

"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. He was always ready to turn his mind and hands in any direction whereby he might add to his meagre store of money.

"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 name 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.

"At the Inst.i.tute the members were like a band of brothers and sisters, all struggling to advance in knowledge. Then all dressed plainly, and there was no attempt or pretence at dressing fashionably or stylishly.

Hiram was a little country place, with no fascinations or worldly attractions to draw off the minds of the students from their work."

Such is an inside view--more graphic than any description I can give--of the life of James Garfield at Hiram Inst.i.tute.

CHAPTER XV.

THREE BUSY YEARS.

Among the readers of this volume there may be boys who are preparing for college. They will be interested to learn the extent of James Garfield's scholarship, when he left the Geauga Academy, and transferred himself to the Inst.i.tute at Hiram. Though, in his own language, he remembers with great satisfaction the work which was accomplished for him at Chester, that satisfaction does not spring from the amount that he had acquired, but rather that while there he had formed a definite purpose and plan to complete a college course. For, as the young scholar truly remarks, "It is a great point gained when a young man makes up his mind to devote several years to the accomplishment of a definite work."

When James entered at Hiram, he had studied Latin only six weeks, and just begun Greek. He was therefore merely on the threshold of his preparatory course for college. To antic.i.p.ate a little, he completed this course, and fitted himself to enter the Junior cla.s.s at Williams College in the s.p.a.ce of three years. How much labor this required many of my readers are qualified to understand. It required him to do nearly six years' work in three, though interrupted by work of various kinds necessary for his support.

He was not yet able to live luxuriously, or even, as we suppose, comfortably. He occupied a room with four other students, which could hardly have been favorable for study. Yet, in the first term he completed six books of Caesar's commentaries, and made good progress in Greek. During the first winter he taught a school at Warrensville, receiving the highest salary he had yet been paid, eighteen dollars a month--of course in addition to board.

At the commencement of the second year the president sent for him.

James obeyed the summons, wondering whether he was to receive any reprimand for duty unfulfilled.

President Hayden received him cordially, thus dissipating his apprehensions.

"Garfield," he said, "Mr. ----, tutor in English and ancient languages, is sick, and it is doubtful whether he will be able to resume his duties. Do you think you can fill his place, besides carrying on your own work as student?"

Young Garfield's face flushed with pleasure. The compliment was unexpected, but in every way the prospect it opened was an agreeable one. His only doubt was as to his qualifications.

"I should like it very much," he said, "if you think I am qualified."

"I have no doubt on that point. You will teach only what is familiar to you, and I believe you have a special faculty for imparting knowledge."

"Thank you very much, Mr. Hayden," said Garfield. "I will accept with grat.i.tude, and I will do my best to give satisfaction."

How well he discharged his office may be inferred from the testimony given in the last chapter.

Though a part of his time was taken up in teaching others, he did not allow it to delay his own progress. Still before him he kept the bright beacon of a college education. He had put his hand to the plow, and he was not one to turn back or loiter on the way. That term he began Xenophon's Anabasis, and was fortunate enough to find a home in the president's family.

But he was not content with working in term-time. When the summer brought a vacation, he felt that it was too long a time to be lost. He induced ten students to join him, and hired Professor Dunshee to give them lessons for one month. During that time he read the Eclogues and Georgics of Virgil entire, and the first six books of Homer's Iliad, accompanied by a thorough drill in the Latin and Greek grammar. He must have "toiled terribly," and could have had few moments for recreation.

When the fall term commenced, in company with Miss Almeda Booth, a mature young lady of remarkable intellect, and some other students, he formed a Translation society, which occupied itself with the Book of Romans, of course in the Greek version. During the succeeding winter he read the whole of "Demosthenes on the Crown."

The mental activity of the young man (he was now twenty) seems exhaustless. All this time he took an active part in a literary society composed of some of his fellow-students. He had already become an easy, fluent, and forcible speaker--a very necessary qualification for the great work of his life.

"Oh, I suppose he had a talent for it," some of my young readers may say.

Probably he had; indeed, it is certain that he had, but it may encourage them to learn that he found difficulties at the start. When a student at Geauga, he made his first public speech. It was a six minutes' oration at the annual exhibition, delivered in connection with a literary society to which he belonged. He records in a diary kept at the time that he "was very much scared," and "very glad of a short curtain across the platform that hid my shaking legs from the audience." Such experiences are not uncommon in the career of men afterward noted for their ease in public speaking. I can recall such, and so doubtless can any man of academic or college training. I wish to impress upon my young reader that Garfield was indebted for what he became to earnest work.

While upon the subject of public speaking I am naturally led to speak of young Garfield's religious a.s.sociations. His mind has already been impressed with the importance of the religious element, and he felt that no life would be complete without it. He had joined the Church of the Disciples, the same to which his uncle belonged, and was baptized in a little stream that runs into the Chagrin River. The creed of this cla.s.s of religious believers is one likely to commend itself in most respects to the general company of Christians; but as this volume is designed to steer clear of sect or party, I do not hold any further reference to it necessary. What concerns us more is, that young Garfield, in accordance with the liberal usages of the Disciples, was invited on frequent occasions to officiate as a lay preacher in the absence of the regular pastor of the Church of the Disciples at Hiram.

Though often officiating as a preacher, I do not find that young Garfield ever had the ministry in view. On the other hand, he early formed the design of studying for the legal profession, as he gradually did, being admitted to the bar of Cuyahoga County, in 1860, when himself president of Hiram College.

So pa.s.sed three busy and happy years. Young Garfield had but few idle moments. In teaching others, in pursuing his own education, in taking part in the work of the literary society, and in Sunday exhortations, his time was well filled up. But neither his religion nor his love of study made him less companionable. He was wonderfully popular. His hearty grasp of the hand, his genial manner, his entire freedom from conceit, his readiness to help others, made him a general favorite. Some young men, calling themselves religious, a.s.sume a sanctimonious manner, that repels, but James Garfield never was troubled in this way. He believed that

"Religion never was designed To make our pleasures less,"

and was always ready to take part in social pleasures, provided they did not interfere with his work.

And all this while, with all his homely surroundings, he had high thoughts for company. He wrote to a student, afterward his own successor to the presidency, words that truly describe his own aspirations and habits of mind. "Tell me, Burke, do you not feel a spirit stirring within you that longs _to know, to do, and to dare_, to hold converse with the great world of thought, and hold before you some high and n.o.ble object to which the vigor of your mind and the strength of your arm may be given? Do you not have longings like these which you breathe to no one, and which you feel must be heeded, or you will pa.s.s through life unsatisfied and regretful? I am sure you have them, and they will forever cling round your heart till you obey their mandate."

The time had come when James was ready to take another step upward. The district school had been succeeded by Geauga Seminary, that by Hiram Inst.i.tute, and now he looked Eastward for still higher educational privileges. There was a college of his own sect at Bethany, not far away, but the young man was not so blinded by this consideration as not to understand that it was not equal to some of the best known colleges at the East.

Which should he select?

He wrote to the presidents of Brown University, Yale, and Williams, stating how far he had advanced, and inquiring how long it would take to complete their course.

From all he received answers, but the one from President Hopkins, of Williams College, ended with the sentence, "If you come here, we shall be glad to do what we can for you." This sentence, so friendly and cordial, decided the young man who otherwise would have found it hard to choose between the three inst.i.tutions.

"My mind is made up," he said. "I shall start for Williams College next week."

He was influenced also by what he already knew of Dr. Hopkins. He was not a stranger to the high character of his intellect, and his theological reputation. He felt that here was a man of high rank in letters who was prepared to be not only his teacher and guide, but his personal friend, and for this, if for no other reason, he decided in favor of Williams College. To a young man circ.u.mstanced as he was, a word of friendly sympathy meant much.

CHAPTER XVI.

ENTERING WILLIAMS COLLEGE.

James Garfield had reached the mature age of twenty-two years when he made his first entrance into Williamstown. He did not come quite empty-handed. He had paid his expenses while at Hiram, and earned three hundred and fifty dollars besides, which he estimated would carry him through the Junior year. He was tall and slender, with a great shock of light hair, rising nearly erect from a broad, high forehead. His face was open, kindly, and thoughtful, and it did not require keen perception of character to discern something above the common in the awkward Western youth, in his decidedly shabby raiment.

Young Garfield would probably have enjoyed the novel sensation of being well dressed, but he had never had the opportunity of knowing how it seemed. That ease and polish of manner which come from mingling in society he entirely lacked. He was as yet a rough diamond, but a diamond for all that.

Among his cla.s.smates were men from the cities, who stared in undisguised amazement at the tall, lanky young man who knocked at the doors of the college for admission.

"Who is that rough-looking fellow?" asked a member of a lower cla.s.s, pointing out Garfield, as he was crossing the college campus.

"Oh, that is Garfield; he comes from the Western Reserve."

"I suppose his clothes were made by a Western Reserve tailor."

"Probably," answered his cla.s.smate, smiling.