 At Geauga Academy, which he attended from 1848 to 1850, Garfield learned academic subjects he had not previously had time for. He shone as a student, and was especially interested in languages and elocution. He began to appreciate the power a speaker had over an audience, writing that the speaker's platform "creates some excitement. I love agitation and investigation and glory in defending unpopular truth against popular error." Geauga was co-educational, and Garfield was attracted to one of his fellow students, Lucretia Rudolph, whom he later married. To support himself at Geauga, he worked as a carpenter's assistant and as a teacher. The need to go from town to town to find a place as a teacher disgusted Garfield, and he thereafter developed a dislike of what he called "place-seeking", which became, he said, "the law of my life". In later years, he would astound his friends by letting positions pass that could have been his with a little politicking. Garfield had attended church more to please his mother than to worship God, but in his late teens underwent a religious awakening, and attended many camp meetings, at one of which he was born again. The next day, March 4, 1850, he was baptized into the Disciples by being submerged in the icy waters of the Chagrin River.
