GARFIELD 



2389 



GARFIELD 



teacher, and with this end in view he entered 

 Geauga Seminary at Chester, ten miles from 

 his home; then from 1851 to 1854 he studied 

 at the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute, now 

 called Hiram College. In the vacations he 

 learned and practiced the trade of carpentry, 

 helped on the farms at harvest time and taught 

 school to earn money for his education. After 

 his first term at Geauga Seminary he asked 

 and needed no financial assistance from his 

 mother. 



During the three years Garfield spent at 

 Hiram College he not only earned his way, but 

 he saved $350 towards the expense of several 

 years at an Eastern college. After hesitating 

 as to Yale, Brown or Williams, he finally 

 chose the last, chiefly because Mark Hopkins, 



JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD 

 Of his brief and tragic career in the Presidency 

 Woodrow Wilson, a later President, in his History 

 of the American People, says : "Office seekers 

 swarmed about the President with quite un- 

 wonted arrogance, and before he had been four 

 months in his uneasy place of authority one of 

 the crowding throng whom he had disappointed 

 wreaked foul vengeance upon him." 



its great president, wrote him a friendly letter 

 of encouragement. There was some feeling 

 among his friends and the members of his fam- 

 ily that Garfield should have chosen Bethany 

 College, in West Virginia, an institution con- 

 trolled by the Disciples of Christ. Garfield 

 was by nature religious, and he had recently 

 been received into that denomination, of which 

 his mother was also a member. The actual 

 reasons he assigned for his decision against 

 Bethany College revealed the independence of 

 mind which was one of his most pronounced 



characteristics. In addition to the fact that 

 the course of instruction at Bethany was lim- 

 ited, he said that Bethany was too friendly 

 toward slavery, and, most significant of all, 

 that as he had "inherited by birth and associa- 

 tion a strong bias toward the religious views 

 there inculcated, he ought especially to ex- 

 amine other faiths." Two years at Williams 

 College completed his formal education, and in 

 1856 he returned to Hiram College to teach 

 Latin and Greek. 



Up to that time Garfield had given no indi- 

 cation of great ability. He was industrious, 

 conscientious and courageous, but by no means 

 conspicuous for his superiority. He had, how- 

 ever, laid a firm foundation, and within the 

 next seven years was in turn professor, college 

 president, state senator, major-general in the 

 United States Army, and member of the Na- 

 tional House of Representatives. This is a 

 rise to fame paralleled in the lives of but few 

 men. 



In 1857, when only twenty-six, he was chosen 

 president of Hiram College. As a teacher he 

 was remarkably successful, because his own 

 youthful enthusiasm, his thirst for knowledge 

 and his regard for the truth communicated 

 itself to his pupils. His classes discussed al- 

 most every subject of current interest in 

 science, religion, ethics, art and scholarship, 

 and felt his influence at every point. He occa- 

 sionally preached, a practice permitted by his 

 Church, and h\ was also studying law. At 

 first he seems to have taken no interest in 

 politics, but when the slavery question, which 

 he thought a moral issue, became political, 

 he sought every possible opportunity to oppose 

 it. His prominence among anti-slavery men 

 in Ohio led to his election, without solicitation 

 on his part, to the state senate. There his 

 industry and versatility were again apparent, 

 and he investigated and made reports on such 

 widely separate fields as geology, parliamentary 

 law, education, finance and the state militia. 



Garfield as a Soldier. In August, 1861, the 

 governor of Ohio commissioned Garfield lieu- 

 tenant-colonel of the Forty-Second Regiment 

 of Ohio Volunteers. Most of the members of 

 the regiment were graduates or students of 

 Hiram College and were drawn into the army 

 by Garfield's example. Very soon promoted 

 to the rank of colonel, he reported with his 

 regiment to General Buell, then in Louisville, 

 Ky. Buell was so impressed by the efficiency 

 of Garfield's regiment that he gave him the 

 command of a brigade and ordered him to 



