The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1886-09-02

grinding dependence. The poverty of
the frontier is indeed no poverty. 1t is
but the beginning of wealth, and has the
boundless possibilities of the future al
ways opening before it. No man ever
West, where a raising, or even a |
is matter of common in
terest and helpfulness, with any other
feeling than that of broad-minded,
generous independence. This honorable
marked the youth of Gar
field, as it marks the youth of millions of
the best blood and brain now training tor
the future citizenship and future govern
ment of the Republic. Garfield was born
heir to land, to the title of freeholder,
which has been the patent and passport
of self-respect with the Anglo-Saxon race
ever since Hengist and Horsa landed on
the shores of England. His adventure
on the canal-an alternative between that
and the deck of Lake Erie schooner
was farmer boys device for earning
money, just as the New England lad be-
gins 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 ANY THING OF
SHAME
In looking back to early struggles with
adverse circumstances, and no man feels
a worthier pride that when he has con-
quered the obstacles to his progress. But
no one of noble mold desires to be looked
upon as having occupied menial posi-
ton, as having been repressed by feel
ing of inferiority, or as having suffered
at the hand of charity. General Garfield's
youth presented no hardships which fam
lily love and family energy did not over
come, subjected him to no privations
which he did not cheerfully accept, and
left no memories save those which were
recalled with delight, and transmitted
with profit and with pride.
GartieId's early opportunities for secur-
ing an education were extremely limited,
and yet were sufficient to develop in him
an intense desire to learn. He could read
at three 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 acquaintance; some of
them he got by heart. While yet in child
hood he was constant student of the
Bible. and became familiar with its itera-
ture. The dignity and earnestness of his
speech in his maturer life gave evidence
of this early training. At eighteen years
of age he was able tol teach school, and
thenceforward his ambition was to obtain
a 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 Common
Schools of the neighborhood he found
time to prosecute his studies, and was so
successful that at tweLty two years of
age he was able to enter the junior class
at Williams College. then under the Pres
idency of the venerable and honored
Mark Hopkins, who, in the fulIness of
his powers, survives the eminent pupil to
whom he was of inestimable service.
THE HISTORY OF CARTEL D's LIFE
To this period presents no novel features.
He had undoubtedly shown perseveT-
ance, self-reliance, self-sacrifice and am
bition-oualities which, be it said i'll
honor of our country, are everywhere to
be found among the young men of Amer
lea. But from his graduation at Will
Jams onward, to the hour of his tragic
death, Garield's career was eminent and
exceptional. Slowly working through
his educational period, receiving his di-
ploma when he was twenty-four years of
age, he seemed at one bound to spring
into conspicuous and brilliant success.
Within six years he was successively
President of College, State Senator of
Ohio, Major-General of the Army of the
UNITED States, and Representative-e1ect
to the National Congress. A combina-
ton of honors so varied, SO elevated,
within period so brief and to man SO
young, is without precedent or parallel
in the history of the country.
GARFIELD's ARMY LIFE
Was begun with no other military knowl-
edge than such as he had hastily gained
from books in the few months preceding
his march to the field. Stepping from
civil life to the head of a regiment, the
first order he received when ready to
cross the Ohio was to assume command
of brigade, and to operate as an inde-
pendent force in Eastern kentucky. His
immediate duty was to check the advance
ing down the Big Sandy with the inten-
ton of. occupying, in connection with
other Confederate forces, the entire terri
tory of Kentucky, and of precipitating
the State into secession. This was at the
close of the year 1861. Seldom, if ever,
has a young College Professor been thrown
into more embarrassing and discoura-
ging position. He knew just enough of
military science, as he expressed it him
self, to measure the extent of his ignor-
ance, and with handful of men he was
marching, in rough winter weather, into
a strange country, among hostile popu-
lation, to confront a largely superior
force under the command of a distin-
guished graduate of West Point, who had
seen active and important service in two
preceding wars.
The result of the campaign is matter of
history. The skill, the endurance, the
extraordinary energy shown by Garfield,
the courage he impaired to his men, raw
and untried as himself, the measures he
adopted to increase his force and to create
in the enemy's mind exaggerated esti-
mates of his numbers, bore perfect fruit
in the routing of Marshall, the capture
of his camp, the dispersion of his force
and the emancipation of an important
territory from the control of the re-
bellion. Coming at the close of long
series of disasters to the Union arms,
Garfield's victory had an unusual
and extraneous importance, and in
the popular judgment elevated the young
commander to the rank of military hero.
With less than two thousand men in his
entire command, with a modified force
of only eleven hundred, without cannon,
he met an army of five thousand and de-
feated them = driving Marshall's forces
successfully from two strongholds of their
own selection, fortified with abundant