Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1882-02-28

become anglcised, or have disappeared, but
| their blood is traceabie in many of the mos
reputable families, and their fame is perpetu
ated in honorable memorials and useful insti
| buttons.
From these two sources, the English-Purltar
and the French Huguenot. came the late presi
dent-his father, Abram Garfield, being de-
seconded from the one, and his mother, Ellis
Ballou, from the other.
1t was good stock on both sides-none bet
| ter, none drawer, none truer. There was in il
an inheritance of courage, of manliness, Of
| imperishable love of liberty, of undying ad
| herence to principle. Garfield was proud oil
his blood; and, with as much satisfaction as il
| he were British nobleman reading his stately
| ancestral record in Burke's Peerage, he spoke
of himself as ninth in descent from those who
| would not endure the oppression of the Stu
| arts, and seventh IN descent from the brave
French Protestants who refused to submit to
| tyranny even from the Grand Monarque.
General Garfield delighted to dwell on these
| traits, and, during his only visit to England,
he busie himself in discovering every trace
OF his forefathers in parish registries and on
ancient army rolls Sitting with friend in
the gallery of the house of commons one
night after long days labor in this field of
research, he said with evident citation that in
every war in which for three centuries patri-
OTIS of English blood had struck sturdy blows
for constitutional government and human lib
erty, his family had been represented. They
were at Marston Moor, at Naseby and at Pres
ton; they were at Bunker Hill, at Saratoga +,
and at Monmouth, and in his own person had
battled for the same great cause in the war
which preserved the Union of the states.
POVERTY BUT NOT DESTITUTIoN.
Losing his father before he was two
years old; the early life of Garfield was one
of privation, but its poverty has been made
indelicately and upjustly prominent. Thous-
ands of readers have imagined him as ragged
starving child, whose reality too often greets
the eye in the squalid sections Of our large
cities. Gen. Garfield's infancy and youth had
none of their restitution, none of th.ir pitiful
features appealing to the tender heart and to
the open hand of charity He was poor boy
IN the same sense in which Henry Clay was a
poor boy; in which Andrew Jackson was
poor boy; in which Daniel Webster was
poor boy; in the sense in which large ma
jority of the eminent men of America In all
generations have been poor boys. Before a
great multitude of men, in public speech,
Mr.. Webster bore this testimony:
1t did not happen to me to be born in log cabin,
but my elder brothers and sis born in log
cabin raised amid the snowdrifts Of New Hampshire,
at period 80 early that wheu the smoke rose first
from its rude chimney and curled over the frozen
hills there WAS no similar evidence of q white mans
Initiation between it and the settlements on the rv
ers of Canada. Its remains still exist. make it
an annual visit. Icarry my children to 1t to teach
them the hardships endured by the generations
which have gone before them. love to dwell on the
tender recolectons, the kindred ties, the early at
fecdons, and the touching narratives and incidents
which mingle with all know CT this primitive fami
abode.
With the requisite change of scene the same
words would aptly portray the early days of
Garfield. The poverty of the frontier, where
all are engaged in common struggle and
where a common sympathy and hearty Co
operation Tighten the burdens of each, is very
different poverty, different in kind, different in
influence and effect from that conscious and
humiliating indulgence which is every day
forced to contrast itself with neighbOring
wealth on which it feels sense of grinding
dependence. The poverty of the frontier is
indeed no poverty. 1t is but the beginning of
wealth, and has the boundless possibilities O.
the future always opening before 1t. No man
ever grew up in the agricultural regions of the
West where house-raising, or even corn.
husking, is matter Of common interest and
helpfulness, with any other feeling than that
of broad-minded, generous independence.
This honorable independence marked
the youth of Garfield as it marks the
youth of millions of the best blood and
brain now training for the future citizenship
and future government of the republic. Gar
field was born heir to land, to the title of free
holder which has been the patent ard passport
of self-respect with the Anglo-Saxon race ever
since Hengst and Horsa landed on the shores
of England. His adventures on the canal-an
an alternative between that and the deck of a
Lake Erie schooner-was farmer boys de-
vice for earning money, just as the New En-
gland lad begins a possibly great career by
sailing before the mast on a cOasting
vessel or on merchantmen bound to the
farther India or to the China seas.
No manly man feels anything of shame in
lookinfi back to early struggles with adverse
circumstances, and no man feels worthier
pride thaH when he has conquered the Obsta-
Giles to his progress, But no one of noble
mould desires to be looked upon as having &C.
cupied mental position, asshaving been re-
pressed by a feeling of inferlorlty, or as hav-
ing suffered the evils of poverty until relief
was found at the hand of charity. General
Garfeld's youth presented no hardships which
family love and family energy did not over
come, subjected him to no privations which
he did not cheerfully accept, and left no men,
cries save those which were recalled with de-
light, and transmitted with profit and with
pride.
Garfield's early opportunities for securing
an education were extremely limited, and yet
were sufficient to develop in him an intense de-
sire to learn. He could read at years of
age, and each winter he had the advantage of
the district school. He read all the books to
be found within the circle of his acquaint-
ance; some of them he got by heart. While
yet in childhood he was constant student Of
the Bible, and became familiar with it's litera-
ture. The dignity and earnestness of his
speech in his maturer life evidence of this
early training. At IL years of age he was able
to teach school, and thenceforward his am
bition waa to obtain college education.
To this end he bent all his efforts, working in
the harvest field at the carpenters bench,
and, in the winter season, teaching the COM
mon schools of the neighborhood. While
thus la boriously occupied he found time to
prosecute his studies, and was SO successful
that at twenty-five years of age he was able to
enter the junior class at Williams College,
then under the presidency of the venerable
and honored Mark Hopkins, who, in the full
ness of his powers, survives the eminent pupil
to whom he was of inestlmable service.
BOUND UPWARD.
The history of Garfeld's life to this period,
presents no novel features. He had undoubt-
edly shown perseverance, self-reliauce, selfsac-
rifce, and ambition-qualities which, be it said
for the honor of our country, are everywhere
to be found among the young men of Ameri.
% Rut from his oradu otion of Williams on-