The Life and Public Services of James A. Garfield. E. E. Brown
the little Debating Club at Geauga, the question was given out, "Ought slavery to be abolished in this republic?" It was a subject that roused James to his best efforts; and his school-mates, as they listened to his fiery denunciations against slavery, declared that "Jim ought to go to Congress!"
The following winter James procured a school at Warrensville, where he was paid sixteen dollars a month and his board, which was more than he had ever earned before. It was in this school that one of the pupils wanted to take up geometry—a branch of mathematics that James had never studied.
As usual, however, he was equal to the emergency. Buying a text-book, he studied geometry after school-hours, until he had mastered the science, and his pupils never once dreamed but that he was as familiar with it as with algebra or arithmetic.
It was at the annual exhibition of Geauga Seminary, in November, 1859, that James delivered his first oration. It was prepared with his usual carefulness, and delivered with so much magnetic earnestness that the whole audience were held spell-bound.
"He is bound to make his mark in the world," said every one who had listened to the earnest, enthusiastic student.
Mrs. Garfield noted with grateful joy that her son no longer spoke of "going to sea." The one great aim of his life now was to procure a liberal education. A deeper, broader ocean was stretching out before him, and already his pulses thrilled with the mighty, incoming tide.
It was during his last term at Geauga Seminary that James met a young man who was a graduate of a New England college. From him he learned that it was possible to work one's way through college as well as through school. It was a new thought to James. His poverty had seemed to him before an insurmountable obstacle in gaining a university education. Now, he began to study Latin and other branches that might pave the way to a college examination.
On his return home, he found his mother was just about to start on a journey to Muskingum County, where some of her relatives lived. She was very anxious that James should go with her, and, when he found that he could obtain a school near Zanesville, he was quite ready to go. The Cleveland and Columbus Railroad had just been opened, and this was James' first ride in the cars. When they reached Columbus they visited the legislature, which was then in session; and, as James remarked afterwards, "That alone was worth a month's schooling to me."
The mother and son spent three months in this part of Ohio, James teaching the little school at Harrison, and studying hard himself all the time. Having met a student from the Eclectic Institute at Hiram, Portage County, Ohio, he learned that opportunities were there afforded for studying the branches of the first two college years. The expenses of tuition were no greater than at Geauga Seminary, and the Institute was under the direction of the Church of the Disciples.
It seemed a providential opening, and, after talking over the matter with his mother, he determined to seek admission there the following autumn.
CHAPTER VIII.
Hiram Institute.—The faithful Janitor.—Miss Almeda Booth.—James is appointed Assistant Teacher.—Critical habit of Reading.—Moral and Religious Growth.—Debating Club.
It was towards the latter part of August, 1851, and James was nearly twenty years of age when he first presented himself at Hiram Institute. The board of trustees was then in session, and he was directly introduced into the room where they were seated. Notwithstanding his shabby clothes and awkward manners, his earnest, intelligent face at once prepossessed them in his favor.
"I must work my way," he began; "but I am very anxious to get an education. I thought, perhaps, you would let me ring the bell and sweep the floors to pay part of my bills."
"How do we know that you can do the work well?" asked one of the trustees.
"If, at the end of a couple of weeks," replied James, "you find that my work does not suit you, I will not ask to keep the place."
"I think we had better try the young student," said another of the trustees, and so the question was settled, and James was duly installed as janitor.
The town of Hiram was at that time twelve miles from the railroad, and consisted of a straggling collection of houses, with two churches and a few stores at the cross-roads. Its natural advantages, however, were wonderfully fine, and to-day it is sometimes called "the crown of Ohio." Its location is very near the line where the waters divide, one part flowing northward to Lake Erie, the other southward to the Ohio river.
The Institute was a plain, brick building on the top of a hill, whose slopes were thickly planted with corn; from this eminence a charming panorama of the whole surrounding country could be obtained. It was built for the special accommodation of the sons and daughters of the Western Reserve farmers, and among its founders was Mr. Zebulon Rudolph, the father of James' old school-mate, Lucretia Rudolph. The Rev. A. S. Hayden was, at this time, its principal, and Thomas Munnell and Norman Dunshee were assistant teachers.
The aims of the school were—
1st. To provide a sound, scientific and literary education.
2d. To temper and sweeten such education with moral and scriptural knowledge.
3d. To educate young men for the ministry.
The charter of the Institute, according to the peculiar tenet of the religious movement in which it originated, was based upon the study of the Holy Scriptures. The Disciples believed that the Bible ought to take a larger place in general culture than had as yet been accorded to it. In the course of study, the system pursued was strictly elective. It was just the place for James to fit for college, and pursue, if he chose, branches that would enable him to enter a university two years in advance.
Among the pupils at Hiram, when James entered the Institute, was a Miss Almeda Booth, some nine years his senior, who proved an invaluable friend and helper. She was a teacher as well as scholar, but James, at the end of a few months, found himself pursuing the same studies and ranking in the same classes as Miss Booth. "I was far behind her," he writes, "in mathematics and the physical sciences, but we were nearly in the same place in Greek and Latin."
Miss Booth was a lady of rare talent. Upon the death of the young man to whom she was engaged, she resolved to consecrate her life to higher intellectual attainments, in order to increase her usefulness.
In a tribute to her memory, a few years ago, Garfield said—
"She exerted a more powerful influence over me than any other teacher, except President Hopkins. … The few spare hours which schoolwork left us were devoted to such pursuits as each of us preferred, but much study was done in common. I can name twenty or thirty books, which will be doubly precious to me because they were read and discussed in company with her. I can still read between the lines the memories of her first impressions of the page, and her judgment of its merits."
Whenever James had a thesis to prepare, he would talk over the subject for hours with Miss Booth, and together they read during one term a hundred pages of Herodotus and a hundred of Livy.
At the close of his first year at Hiram, James was given the position of assistant teacher of the English department and ancient languages. He had also secured regular work with the carpenter in Hiram, so it was no longer necessary for him to serve as janitor. But many of his old schoolmates still remember the faithfulness with which he performed the menial services of his first position. He was promptness itself at the ringing of every bell, and seemed the personification of Herbert's servant, in making "drudgery divine"—for truly,
"Who sweeps a room as to Thy laws,
Makes that and the action fine!"
It was while at Hiram Institute that he formed