"No matter how old the pupils were, Garfield always called us by our first names, and kept himself on the most intimate terms with all. He played with us freely, and we treated him out of the class-room just about as we did one another. Yet he was a most strict disciplinarian, and enforced the rules like a martinet. He combined an affectionate and confiding manner with respect for order in a most successful manner. If he wanted to speak to a pupil, either for reproof or approbation, he would generally manage to get one arm around him, and draw him close up to him. He had a peculiar way of shaking hands, too, giving a twist to your arm, and drawing you right up to him. This sympathetic manner has helped him to advancement. When I was janitor, he used sometimes to stop me, and ask my opinion about this and that, as if seriously advising with me. I can see now that my opinion could not have been of any value, and that he probably asked me partly to increase my self-respect and partly to show that he felt an interest in me. I certainly was his friend all the firmer for it.
"I remember once asking him what was the best way to pursue a certain study.
"'Use several text-books,' he answered. 'Get the views of different authors as you advance. In that way you can plow a deeper furrow. I always study in that way.'
"He tried hard to teach us to observe carefully and accurately. He broke out one day in the midst of a lesson with, 'Henry, how many posts are there under the building down-stairs?' Henry expressed his opinion, and the question went around the class, hardly any one getting it right. Then it was, 'How many boot-scrapers are there at the door?' 'How many windows in the building?' 'How many trees in the field?' He was the keenest observer I ever saw. I think he noticed and numbered every button on our coats. A friend of mine was walking with him through Cleveland one day, when Garfield stopped and darted down a cellar-way, asking his companion to follow, and briefly pausing to explain himself. The sign, 'Saws and Files,' was over the door, and in the depths was heard a regular clicking sound. 'I think this fellow is cutting files,' said he, 'and I have never seen a file cut.
"Down they went, and, sure enough, there was a man recutting an old file; and they stayed ten minutes, and found out all about the process. Garfield would never go by anything without understanding it.
"Mr. Garfield was very fond of lecturing in the school. He spoke two or three times a week, on all manner of topics, generally scientific, though sometimes literary or historical. He spoke with great freedom, never writing out what he had to say, and I now think that his lectures were a rapid compilation of his current reading, and that he threw it into this form partly for the purpose of impressing it upon his own mind.
"His facility of speech was learned when he was a pupil at Hiram. The societies had a rule that every student should take his stand on the platform and speak for five minutes on any topic suggested at the moment by the audience. It was a very trying ordeal. Garfield broke down badly the first two times he tried to speak, but persisted, and was at last, when he went to Williams, one of the best of the five-minute speakers. When he returned as principal, his readiness was striking and remarkable."
Henry James says: "Garfield taught me more than any other man, living or dead, and, proud as I am of his record as a soldier and a statesman, I can hardly forgive him for abandoning the academy and the forum."
So President Hinsdale, one of Garfield's pupils, and his successor as president, testifies: "My real acquaintance with Garfield did not begin till the fall of 1856, when he returned from Williams College. He then found me out, drew near to me, and entered into all my troubles and difficulties pertaining to questions of the future. In a greater or less degree this was true of his relations to his pupils generally. There are hundreds of these men and women scattered over the world to-day, who can not find language strong enough to express their feeling in contemplating Garfield as their old instructor, adviser, and friend.
"Since 1856 my relations with him have been as close and confidential as they could be with any man, and much closer and more confidential than they have been with any other man. I do not say that it would be possible for me to know anybody better than I know him, and I know that he possesses all the great elements of character in an extraordinary degree. His interest in humanity has always been as broad as humanity itself, while his lively interest in young men and women, especially if they were struggling in narrow circumstances to obtain an education, is a characteristic known as widely over the world as the footsteps of Hiram boys and girls have wandered.