Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1880-09-09
OUR CANDIDATE.
James A, Garfield.

land. He comes of plain New England
country stock. His father, Abraham
Garfield, was farmer in very moderate
circumstances, who died in 1888, leaving
family of four children, of whom
James was the youngest. His mother,
a woman of unusual strength of char
acter, is still living. By her exertions
she managed to keep the family to-
gether until the boys were old enough
to earn their own living. The land in
Orange is poor, and the little Garfield
farm afforded only scanty subsistence
to the family. James got a few months
CT district school tuition winters, and
the rest of the year worked upon the
farm or he'ped in carpenters shop.
He had an absorbing ambition to get
good education, which at an early age
gave his character its bent, and shaped
his future course in life. The Ohio and
Erie Canal ran not far from his mothers
house, and, finding that the men en-
ployed upon it got better wages than
he could earn at the carpenters bench,
he hired out as a driver when he was
seventeen years old, and soon rose to
the position of boatman Hard work
and exposure brought on fever in the
Fall of 1913, which lasted three months
and put an end to q scheme for shipping
as a sailor on the lakes.
In the Spring of 1849, the boys mother
gave him few dollars which she had
saved for the purpose by pinching econ
omy, and told him he could now realize
his ambition of learning something more
than the district school could teach. He
went to GeaUga Academy, an obscure
Institution in country village not far
from Orange, and being too poor to pay
the $1.5O a week, which was the price
asked for board, he took few cooking
utensils and stock of provisions, and,
hiring a room in an old implanted farm
house, boarded himself. From the day
he left home for the Academy he never
had dollar which he did not earn.
He soon found employment with the
carpenters of the village, and by work
ing mornings and evenings and Satur-
days he earned enough to pay his way.
The Summer vacation enabled him to
save something toward the Fall term,
and in the ensuing Winter he taught a
district school. Thus he kept on for
several years, teaching in the Winter,
working at the bench in Summers, and
attending the Academy during the Fall
and Spring terms. He was a tall. mus
cular, fair-haired country lad in those
days, looking a good deal like German
i'll spite of his pure Yankee blood.
Healthy in mind and body, genial in
temperament, good wrestler and ball
player as well as a good student, he was
great favorite with his comrades and
teachers.
AT COLLEGE.
When he was twenty three years old,
he felt that he had got all the education
out of the country academy which it
was capable of giving, and resolved to
go to college. He was confident that
he could enter the junior class, and so
have only two years to complete the
college course, and he calculated that
he had saved by his teaching and car
penter work about bali enough money
to pay his expenses. How to get the
rest of the sum needed was a problem.
A kind-hearted gentle nan, many years
his senior, who has ever since been one
of his closest friends, loaned him the
amount. So scrupulous was the young
man about the payment of the debt
that he got his life insured and placed
the policy in his creditors hands. "If
[ i've" ne said, | shall pay you, and
if I die you will suffer no loss" The
debt was repaid soon after he gradu-
ated. He went to Williams College in
the Fall of 1854, and, as he had antici-
pated, passed the examination for the
junior class. Two years later he grad
uated, and bore off the metaphysical
honor. His classmates remember well
his prodigious industry as a student,
his physical activity in the college
games, and his cordial, hearty social
ways.
While at the Geauga Academy Gar
field joined the Disciples Church, a
new sect which had spread with remark
able rapidity in Ohio under the infu-
ence of the preaching of Alexander
Campbell It has often been said that
Garfield was at one time a minister.
This is not true. The story had a
foundation, however, in the fact that he
used to speak in the churches of the
denomination. The Disciples at that
time had no regular paid ministry.
They supported travelling elders, but
the congregations had no pastors, and
were usually addressed by some one
among the members who had a natural
talent for pulpit oratory. Garfeld's
purpose was to be a lawyer, and he had
not swerved from it at the time he used
to talk of religion and future life to
the little congregations in the Disciples
meeting-houses in Northern Ohio.
COLLEGE PRESIDENT.
In the County of Portage, not far
from where Garfield lived, the Disciples
had struggling college, called Hiram
Eclectic Institute, which undertook to
furnish education and religious training
at the lowest possible price. 1t was
natural that the young, talented Disciple,
who had just been graduated with dis
tinction in an Eastern college, should be
attracted to this school. He became
professor of Latin and Greek, and the
next wear, when he was only twenty-six
wears old. he was made president of the
institute. There probably never was a
Younger college president. He carried
into his new position the remarkable
energy and vigor and good sense, which
are the mainsprings of his character.
He soon doubled tue attendance at the
school, raised its standard of scholar
ship, strengthened its faculty, and in