The Story of Garfield / Farm-boy, Soldier, and President

by William G. Rutherford

On entering Hiram Institute, Garfield was too poor to pay the ordinary fees. He had applied, therefore, for the post of janitor, and his duties were to sweep the rooms and ring the bell. He held this office for one year, and during the whole of that time it was said that never once did his bell ring behind the time.

From the humble position of janitor he was promoted at the end of the session to the more honourable one of assistant tutor. It seemed as if his experience was to be a continual example of the possibility, and even the advantage in some respects, to a healthy lad, of combining great success in study with great industry in manual labour.

His pay as a teacher was little more than nominal, and it was still necessary that he should work to live, therefore he engaged his mornings and evenings, as at Geauga, to a local carpenter, and thus supported himself.

Such perseverance as this of course attracted the attention of both his fellow-students and his professors. By the former he was voted "a brick," by the latter he was mentally designated for a future professor and principal of the Institute; while in the minds of both young men and old there was a feeling, slowly shaping itself into a prophecy, that such ability and courage and character could have but one end, and that Garfield was destined to become President of the United States.

When he entered the Geauga Seminary, it was probably with no expectation of proceeding farther on the road of learning than the limited resources of that little country college could carry him. His success there had sent him on to the Hiram Institute, and now it was a matter of course that he should go to a university and take his degree. But once more the money difficulty faced him, and once more the devotion of one of the best brothers in the world opened the way. Thomas was doing fairly well as a farmer; he had saved a little money, and this he offered as a loan to his brother. James accepted the loan gladly; and, to secure his generous brother against loss in case of his own death, he insured his life for one hundred pounds.

Garfield had acquired none of the outward graces of fashionable young men when he entered upon his career at Williams' University. He was tall, big-limbed, and rather lanky. His garments were of the homeliest manufacture, and his speech was somewhat broad and provincial. In mental stature, however,—in scholarship and reading and judgment,—he was a man, every inch of him. His fine face and magnificent head and sparkling eyes gave promise of rare powers, and once more, and with perfect ease, he took his place in the front rank of his fellow-students.

Here, as at each stage in his eventful life, young Garfield proved that every person must decide for himself the amount of respect that is really due to him from his companions.

No one could have entered college with a more homely appearance than Garfield. His rustic manners and still more rustic dress invited criticism among the smart young men of his college, yet because he was by nature a gentleman, he was treated from the first as such, by both teachers and students alike.

His vacations, as before, were spent in teaching, and his Sabbaths in preaching. In this latter office he acquitted himself so well, that it became quite an accepted opinion that he was to become a minister. This was one mark of the high estimation in which he was held, but there were others besides. The position of teacher in a high school, at the handsome salary of two hundred and fifty pounds, was offered him at this time. The offer, however, was declined, for the reason that it would prevent him taking his degree, and thus interfere with his plans in life.

His ambition was a very noble one. He wished, he said, to take a degree, to win, if possible, a name for scholarship; and then to go back to the modest salary and the limited sphere of the Hiram Institute, and thus help the humble college which had done so much for him.