James was informed that his petition was granted, and he at once made arrangements for his residence at Hiram.
Chapter XIV—At Hiram Institute.
Hiram, the seat of the Eclectic Institute, was not a place of any pretension. It was scarcely a village, but rather a hamlet. Yet the advantages which the infant institution offered drew together a considerable number of pupils of both sexes, sons and daughters of the Western Reserve farmers, inspired with a genuine love of learning, and too sensible to waste their time on mere amusement.
This is the account given of it by President B.A. Hinsdale, who for fifteen years has ably presided over its affairs: "The institute building, a plain but substantially built brick structure, was put on the top of a windy hill, in the middle of a cornfield. One of the cannon that General Scott's soldiers dragged to the City of Mexico in 1847, planted on the roof of the new structure, would not have commanded a score of farm houses.
"Here the school opened at the time Garfield was closing his studies at Chester. It had been in operation two terms when he offered himself for enrollment. Hiram furnished a location, the Board of Trustees a building and the first teacher, the surrounding country students, but the spiritual Hiram made itself. Everything was new. Society, traditions, the genius of the school, had to be evolved from the forces of the teachers and pupils, limited by the general and local environment. Let no one be surprised when I say that such a school as this was the best of all places for young Garfield. There was freedom, opportunity, a large society of rapidly and eagerly opening young minds, instructors who were learned enough to instruct him, and abundant scope for ability and force of character, of which he had a superabundance.
"Few of the students who came to Hiram in that day had more than a district-school education, though some had attended the high schools and academies scattered over the country; so that Garfield, though he had made but slight progress in the classics and the higher mathematics previous to his arrival, ranked well up with the first scholars. In ability, all acknowledged that he was the peer of any; soon his superiority to all others was generally conceded."
So James entered upon his duties as janitor and bell-ringer. It was a humble position for the future President of the United States; but no work is humiliating which is undertaken with a right aim and a useful object. Of one thing my boy-reader may be sure—the duties of the offices were satisfactorily performed. The school-rooms were well cared for, and the bell was rung punctually. This is shown by the fact that, after the two weeks of probation, he was still continued in office, though doubtless in the large number of students of limited means in the institute there was more than one that would have been glad to relieve him of his office.
It will hardly be supposed, however, that the position of janitor and bell-ringer could pay all his expenses. He had two other resources. In term-time he worked at his trade of carpenter as opportunity offered, and in the winter, as at Chester, he sought some country town where he could find employment as a teacher.