Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1880-09-23
READ! READ!! READ!!!
No Young Man Should Fail to
Read Gen. Garfeld's Brave
Struggle, When Young,
for Position.

progress III me- 1lllS Is specially IFue
of those who have, in moderate or in
digent circumstances, toiled up the
rugged sleeps of learning in our high
schools, academies and colleges to gain
afterwards influential positions. Very
many who are, in spite of hundred
obstacles, completing their educational
course in our schools, are disposed to
honor such a leader whose early life
strikingly illustrates their own arduous
career. No other of our foremost men
has attached to himself, more closely
and more assiduOusly, so many young
people as has Gen. Garfield. 1t makes
but little difference whether they agree
with him or not in his political views.
Most of them are certainly not aiming
to occupy official places, but are striv-
ing to perform excellent work in the
humber occupations.
The causes of this marvellous power
of General Garfield are easily discover
ed. They are found in his successful
struggle to acquire thorough educa-
ton in the midst of most abiect power
ty; i'll his superior insight INTO the long
ings, motives, and intellectual exper-
fences of young men; in his large-heart-
ed fellOw-feeling for them; in his as
sistance rendered to them in school,
business or public life, who enjoy his
intimate acquaintance; and his prac-
tical and inspiring suggestions so often
presented in his private and public in
structiOns
The most meager opportunities were
furnished at his bOyhOOd home and in
his first school, for him to obtain even
the rudiments of an education. A
Bible and few ordinary school books
were the only works, at that time with
in his reach; and these he read or
studied until he mastered the elements
of reading, spelling and numbers.
Shortly afterwards he gained access to
other books, not of high character,
as they treated principally of daring
and wild adventures on the land and
sea; but they induced him to seek for
a higher knowledge of the people and
affairs Of the the great world beyond
the horizon of his mothers log house.
His eXertiOns i'll teaching common
schools, in cutting cord-wood, in work
ing at the carpenters bench, and in ring
ing the academy bell to earn the
means by which to support himself
while pursuing studies, are all well
known, as accounts of these have been
published in the sketches of his remark
able career Then follows his mastery
efforts as a college student, and as
teacher III growing institution up
wards of twenty years ago.
The testimony is abundant that he
exercised most wholesome power
over the pupils under his care. He is
represented as exceedingly affectionate
and confiding in his conduct toward
them. Large numbers focked to the
college over which he was made prin-
cipal. He aroused their intellectual
enthusiasm by his own vigorous and
well-balanced mind, and by his effec-
tive methods of securing a grasp upon
their thoughts and feelings. One of his
old scholars states, "He took very
kindly to me and assisted me in various
ways, because [ was poor and was jani-
tor of the buildings, and swept them
out in the morning and built fires, as
he had done only six years before when
was full of animal spirits, and used to
run out on the green almost every day,
and play cricket with his scholars.
When [ was janitor, he used sometimes
to stop me and ask my opinion about
this and that, as if seriously advising
with me- [ can see now that my Opin-
ion could not have been of any value;
and that he probably asked me partly
to increase my self-respect, and partly
to show that he felt an interest in me-"
Another pupil writes, ''There began to
grow up In me an admiration and love
for Garfield that has never abated, and
the like of which [ have never known.
A bow of recognition, or single word
from him, was to me an inspiration.
Garfield taught me more than any
other man, living or dead" Another
scholar says, "He found me out, drew
near to me, and entered into all my
troubles and difficulties pertaining to
questions of the future. In a greater
or less degree this was true of his rela-
tions to his pupils generally. There
are hundreds of these men and wo-
men scattered over the world to-day,
who can not find language strong
enough to express their feeling in con-
templating Garfield as their old in
structor, adviser, and friend"
Here and there in the letters and
speeches of Garfield, occur passages
which record his absorbing interest in
young men, and particularly in their
mental and moral developments. When
a teacher, he wrote to a young acquaint-
ance. "Tell me, do you not feel
spirit stirring within you that longs to
know, to do, and to dare 4? to hold con-
verse with the great world of thought,
and hold before you some high and no
BILE object to which vigor of your mind
and the strength of your arm may be
given? Do you not have lOngings such
as these which you breathe to no one,
and which you feel must be needed,
or you will pass through life unsatisfed
and regretful?" As late as in 1877, he
said, II 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, / 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 future; of gaining access to the
inner soul-life, and at last seeing the
besieged party won to fuller apprec-
iation of himself, to a higher concep-
ton of life, and of the part he is to
bear in it." On other occasions he has