The Hawaiian gazette., 1880-11-03
Baluaiialt Gazette.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER >. 1880.
-t5nrflerd's Early Life.


In his seventeenth year, young Garfield Sc
cured employment on the Ohio Canal, and from
driver on the tow-patII rose after time TO be
boatrnan. The irregular life disagreed with him,
and the fall of ls4s found him back under his
ncther's roof, slowly recovering from three
months siege of the fever and ague.
Tn to this time he would seem to have cher
ished little ambition for anything beyond the
prospects offered by the laborious life he had
entered. But il happened that this winter the
district school was taught by promising
Young man named Samuel d. Bates (slnce an
esteemed minister of the Gospel at Marion,
Ohio). He had attended high school In an
adjacent township. known as the Geauga
Seminary, and with the PROSECUTING spirit COM
mon among young men in the backwoods, who
were beginning to taste the pleasures of edu-
cation, he was very anxious to take several
new students with him. Garfield listened and
was tempted. He had intended to become
sailor on the lakes, but he was yet to i'll to
carry out his plan, and SO he finally resolved
to attend the high school one term, and post
pone sailing till the next fall. That resolution
made a scholar, Major-General and a Con-
gresham out of him, instead of sailor before
the mast on a lake Erie schooner. SF
Early in March, 1919, young Garfield reach
ed Chester 1.-THE site of the Geauga Academy
in company with cousin and another young
man from his native village They carried with
them frying-pans and dishes, as well as their
few school books. Being too poor to pay for
boarding, they were to board themselves. They
rented room in an old implanted frame house
near the Academy and went to work Garfield
bought the second algebra he had ever seen
and began it. English grammar, natural philos-
ophy, and arithmetic made up the list of his
studies His mother had scraped together u
little sum of money to aid him at the start,
which she gave him with her blessing when
he left her. After that he never had a dollar
in his life that he did not earn. AS soon as he
began to feel at home in bis classes he sought
among the carpenters of the village for EN-
ploynlent at his trade. He worked mornings,
evenings, and Saturdays, and thus earned
enough to pay his way. When the summer
vacation came he had longer interval for
work, and 80 when the fall term opened he had
money enough laid up to pay his tuition and
give him start again.
By the end of this fall term young Garfield
had made such progress that the lad of eight
cen thought he was able to teach district
school. Then his future seemed easy to him.
| The fruits of the winters teaching were
enough with his economical management to
pay his expenses for the spring and fall terms
at the Academy. Whatever he could make in
addition by his mornings and evenings work
at the carpenters trade would 60 10 swell
another fund, the need of which he had begun
to feel.
For the backwoods lad, village carpenter,
tow-path canal hand, would-be sailor, had
now resolved to enter college. alt is great
point gained" he wrote years afterward,
'when, in our hurrying times, young man
makes up his mind to devote several years to
the accomplishment of definite work. " 1t was
so now in his own case. With a definite pur-
| pose before him, he began to save all bis
money and to save all his exertions to the one
end. Through the summer vacation of 1850
he worked at his trade, helping to roof and
weatherboard houses within stones throw
of the Academy benches on which he had re-
Gently been constituting Latin. At the opening
of the next session he was able to rise a little
in the world; he could now abandon boarding
himself But he was thereby ndulging in q
extravaganza. He found boarding, lodging, and
washing at some miraculously cheap house
for 81 and cents per week.
The next winter be taught again: then, il
the spring, removed to Hiram, and attended
the Institute, over which he was after
wards to preside. So he continued, teaching
term each winter, attending school through
the spring and fall, and keeping up with his
classes by private study during the time he
was absent. Before he left the Hiram lnsti.
tute he was the finest Latin and Greek scholar
the school had ever SEEM" Ohio in the War ,