Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1880-09-22

TO YOUNG MEN.
General Garfield and Young Men Struggling
FIR Poai&iont

TO YOUNG MEN.
General Garfield and Young Men Struggling
a for Positions.
(From the GAINESVILLE Gazette, September 7th.]
Young men appreciate most keenly
the example, sympathy, and instruction
of a 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 a hundred obstacles, COM
pleting their educational course in our
schools, are disposed to honor such
leader whose early life strikingly 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-
AOAAA CAOCAACAO "O1h LII O1C AlluIU1cI w.
cupations.
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 ac-
quaintance; and in his practical and in
spring suggestions so often presented in
his private and public instructions.
The most meagre opportunities were
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-
terwards he gained access to other books,
not Of a high character, as they treated
principally of daring and wild adventures
on the land and sea; but they induced
him to seek for hi CHER 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
means by which to support himself while
pursuing his studies, are all well known,
as accounts Of these have been published
in the sketches of his remarkable career.
Then follows his mastery efforts as a
college student, and as teacher in 4
growing institution, upwards of twenty
years ago.
The testimony is abundant that he ex-
ercised q most wholesome power over
the pupils under his care. He is rep1e-
sented as exceedingly affectionate and
confding in his conduct toward them.
Large numbers hocked to the college
over which he was made principal. He
his own vigorous and we'll balanced
mind, and by his effective methods of
securing q 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 q 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 I was janitor, he
used sometimes to stop me and ask my
opinion about this and that, as if serious
ly advising with me. I 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
I have never known. A bow of recogni-
ton, or single word from him, was to
me an inspiration. Garfield taught me
more than an any other man, living OF
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 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 in 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
u teacher, he wrote to young acquaint-
ance: "Te]l 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 unsatisfied and re-
gretful ?" AS late as in 1877, he said:
"I have taken more solid comfort in
the thing itself, and received more moral
recompense and stimulus in after lite
from capturing young men for an educa-
tion than from anything else in the
world. As I look back over my life
thus far I 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 gain
ing access to the inner soul-ife, and at
last seeing the besieged party won to a
fuller appreciation Of himself, toa higher
conception of life, and Of the part he is
to bear in it." On other occasions he
has remarked, cit is great point
gained, when a young man makes up bis
mind to devote several years to the &C,
complishment Of definite work. >
"With the educational facilities now af-
forded in our country, no young man
who has health and is master of his
own actions, can be excused from not oh.
tanning good education" He lately
said, with much warmth of feeling, Ell
the Supreme Being of the universe
would look down upon the world to fine