"Why did Garfield in two weeks do what would have taken one of you Regular folks two months to accomplish?"
"Because he was not educated at West Point," answered the West-Pointer, laughing.
"No," replied Mr. Lincoln. "That wasn't the reason. It was because, when he was a boy, he had to work for a living."
But our good President, for once, was wrong,—for once, he did not get at the core of the matter. Jordan, as well as Garfield, "had, when a boy, to work for a living." The two men were, perhaps, of about equal natural abilities,—both were born in log huts, both worked their own way to manhood, and both went into the war consecrating their very lives to their country: but one came out of it with a brace of stars on his shoulder, and honored by all the nation; the other never rose from the ranks, and went down to an unknown grave, mourned only among his native mountains. Something more than work was at the bottom of this contrast in their lives and their destinies. It was Free Schools, which the North gave the one, and of which the South robbed the other. Plant a free school at every Southern cross-road, and every Southern Jordan will become a Garfield. Then, and not till then, will this Union be "reconstructed."
FOOTNOTES:
[B] The Baine is a small stream which puts into the Big Sandy, a short distance from the town of Louisa, Ky.
NOËL.[C]
L'Académie en respect,
Nonobstant l'incorrection,
A la faveur du sujet,
Ture-lure,
N'y fera point de rature;
Noël! ture-lure-lure.