Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1880-09-22
TO YOUNG MEN.
General Garfield and Young Men Struggling
for Positions

| From the GAINESVILLE Gazette, September 7thl
Young men appreciate most keenly
the example, sympathy, and instruction
of distinguished leader who takes an
active interest in their labors and pro-
gress in life. This is specially true of
those who have, in moderate or INDECENT
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, COM
plotting their educational course in our
schools, are disposed to honor such a
leader whose early life strilzingly illus
trates their own arduous career. No
other of our foremost men has attached
to himself, more closely and more assidu-
ously, SO many young people as has
General Garfield. It 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 striving to per-
form excellent work in the humber oc-
equations.
The causes of this marvellous power of
General Garfield are easily discovered.
They are found in his successful strug-
giles to acquire thorough education in
the midst of the most abject poverty; in
his superior insight into the longings,
motives, and intellectual experiences Of
young men; in his large-hearted fellow
feeling for them; in his assistance rem
dered to them in school, business, or
public life, who enjoy his intimate &C
quaintance; and III his practical and in
spring suggestions so often presented in
his private and public instructions.
The most meagre opportunities we're
furnished at his boyhood home and in
his first school, for him to obtain even
the rudiments of an education. The
Bible and few ordinary school books
were the only works, at that time, with
in his reach; and these heread or studied
until he mastered the elements of read
| ing, spelling and numbers. Shortly af-
forwards 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 higher knowledge of
the people and affairs of the great world
beyond the horizon of his mothers log
house. His exertions in teaching COM
mon schools, in cutting cord-wood, in
working at the carpenters bench, and in
ringing the academy bell, to earn the
pursuing his studies, are all well known,
in the sketches of his remarkable career.
Then follows his mastery efforts as
college student, and as teacher in a
growing institution, upwards of twenty
years ago.
T. he testimony is abundant that he ex-
ercised most wholesome power over
the pupils under his care He is rep1e-
sented as exceedingly affectionate and
confiding In his conduct toward them.
Large numbers flocked to the college
over which he was made principal He
aroused their intellectual enthusiasm by
his own vigorous and we'll balanced
mind, and by his effective 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 janitor of the buildings, and
swept them out in the morning and
built fires, as he had done only six years
before, when he was pupil at the same
college. He was full of animal spirits,
and used to run out on the green almost
every day, and play cricket with
the scholars. When [ was janitor, he
used sometimes to stop me and ask my
opinion about this and that, as if serious
ly advising with me. [ can see now that
my opinion 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 recogni-
ton, or single word from him. was to
me an inspiration. Garfield tau light me
more than an any other man, living or
dead" Another scholar says: "He
found me out and drew near to me, and
entered into all my troubles and difficult
ties pertaining to questions of the
future. In a greater or less degree this
was true of his relations to his pupils
generally. There are hundreds Of these
men and women scattered over the world
to-day who cannot find language strong
enough to express their feeling in con-
templating Garfield as their old instruc-
tor, adviser and friend"
Here and there III the letters and
speeches of Garfield, occur passages
which record his absorbing interest in
young men, and particularly in their
mental and moral development. When
teacher, he wrote to young acquaint-
ance: Tell me, do you not feel a spirit
striving within you that longs to know,
to do, and to dare? to hold converse with
the great world Of thought, and hold be-
fore you some high and noble object to
which the vigor of your mind and the
strength of your arm may be given? Do
younot 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 re-
gretful ?" AS late as III 1877, he said:
81 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 educa-
ton than from anything else in the
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