were not able to spend much for fine clothing; and Van Amburgh's show in a South Carolina village would not today cause half the commotion that a Geauga student would have caused, at that time, on the Western Reserve, if he had been seen walking the streets in a suit of "fine clothes." Notwithstanding Garfield had worked hard all summer, and earned considerable money, it had taken nearly all of it to pay the debts which his previous sickness had thrown against him, and to prepare himself for the new term of school. He had neither overcoat nor underclothing, and only one suit of clothes, made of cheap Kentucky jeans. Long before the term closed his pantaloons wore thin on the knees, and one day the last threads gave way and exposed his bare knees to view.

The young student was exceedingly mortified, but pinned the torn garment together as well as he could, and laid the question of repairs before Mrs. Stiles, who was a mother to him during that term.

In reply to the question, "How can the misfortune be remedied?" Mrs. Stiles replied: "Why, that is easy enough; you go to bed, and one of the boys will bring down your trousers, and I will darn the hole so that it will be as good as new. You shouldn't care for such small matters. You will forget all about them when you get to be President."

There was another event at Chester which had a marked influence on the young student, who was already beginning to feel the "pulses of a Titan's heart," and to see "new wealth, new wonders, and new ambitions toss above him." It was here that he met for the first time the plain farmer's daughter, Lucretia Rudolph, who was destined. to become the "Nation's Lucretia," and receive the heritage of the world's tenderness.

In 1851, when the Cleveland and Columbus Railroad

was new, in company with his mother, he went to Columbus. The representative in the Legislature at that time, from his neighborhood, was Gamaliel Kent, who very kindly showed him the sights of the State Capital. From here they went to Zanesville, and then down the Muskingum to visit a brother of Mrs. Garfield's. A young man had been trying to teach the district school in the neighborhood, but found himself unable to govern it, and was dismissed, and James A. Garfield was pressed to take the school for a couple of months. It is said that while he was in this part of the State he made a journey of seventy miles to Athens, to see for himself "a real college."

His school days at Chester covered a space of less than three years. At the end of that time Chester had done about all it could for him. As it was afterward said of his leaving Hiram, "He exhausted Hiram, and he needed more," so, it could be said with even greater emphasis, "He exhausted Chester, and he needed more."

We come now to Hiram and the Eclectic Institute, or the "old Eclectic" as the "Hiram fellowship" of a quarter of a century ago delight to call it. At Chester the young student had made brave efforts toward an education. He was now to transfer his versatile ability and his great capacity to a wider, and, in some respects, a more congenial field. In 1850, Hiram was very much like other townships on the Western Reserve. It had twenty-five square miles of surface and was unknown to either "fortune" or "fame." Its population consisted of eleven hundred and six persons, mostly farmers. At the cross-roads, called by way of distinction "the Centre," were a post-office, a blacksmith shop, an old "stone jug," called a school-house, two white meeting houses and a few dwelling houses.

So far as altitude was concerned, Hiram Centre was an "exceeding high" place. Looking eastward from the top

of the highest ladder ever placed beside any building in Hiram, the hills of western Pennsylvania, thirty miles away, could be seen; and when the institute building was put on the top of the windy hill, and surmounted with a dome, many a time when the southern sun flashed upon it, young men and maidens could be seen leaning on the stout balustrade, and gazing wishfully toward Pennsylvania, that Eldorado for love-sick children.

Hiram was remote from any main thoroughfare, and the trumpeter of the old-fashioned stage-coach had never waked the sleeping children or set the dogs wild, in this quiet country place. Perhaps twenty farm-houses could be counted within the radius of a mile.

The "Jeddo" of the Mahoning Railroad was not yet in existence, and even Garrettsville, four miles away, which in these latter days has become somewhat notorious as the place where somebody "blows up" meeting houses in an unorthodox way, was scarcely larger than its name. "And this was all." Here, on the eastern slope of the "divide," or high ridge, dividing the waters flowing into Lake Erie from those running southward into the Ohio, and "a mile from its crest," the Disciples of Christ planted the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute in the summer of 1850.

This institution was not a hastily conceived undertaking. It was the result of frequent and long conferences, and consultations intermingled with prayers and hope. There were several places which contested for the honor of having the new institution located in their midst, and, to secure it, strong inducements were offered. Bedford, and Dr. J. P. Robison, the Boanerges of the Disciple pulpit of that day, wanted it; Chagrin Falls, and William Hayden wanted it; Collamer, and A. S. Hayden would be glad to have it, and other places would in no wise refuse it; and hence when it was finally decided to locate it at Hiram,

the decision was reached after much careful thought, and the sinking of strong personal preferences.

Among the reasons that entered into the final settlement of the question, and the location of the school, the following are named: First, the Disciples of the Western Reserve were mostly rural people, and shared in the oldfashioned and often senseless prejudices against towns and cities.

"Thought in Northern Ohio was narrowly provincial in 1850. There were only two or three railroads in the State. No one dreamed of our present railroad system, or foresaw the centralization of wealth and population that the steam locomotive has wrought. Traveling was done in wheeled vehicles or on horseback. People owned their own conveyances and horses. So the fathers asked, 'Why can they not turn their horses' heads toward Hiram, as well as toward any other place?" Hiram, then, offered the desired. seclusion."

In the second place, as the school was to help on the religious work of the Disciples, it was necessary that it should be environed by a healthy and vigorous church. The church at Hiram, though not so large as some, was, nevertheless, among the best of the "Disciple" churches.

In the third place, the church and the people of Hiram were willing to pay about four thousand dollars, which was no mean sum of money for those days, if the trustees would locate the school at Hiram.

Other reasons, probably, were given; but these are sufficient. And toward the close of the summer of 1850, the Institute building, a plain, but substantially built brick structure, was finished, ready for use, and in that building, in November, 1850, Rev. Thomas Munnell, now of Mt. Sterling, Kentucky, heard the first lesson ever recited within its walls."

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The object of the school was both general and special: 1. "To provide a sound scientific and literary education."

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2. To temper and sweeten such education with moral and scriptural knowledge.

3. "To educate young men for the ministry."

Space will not be taken here to name, with any completeness of detail, the elements of the faith held by the Disciples of Christ. That will appear in another chapter. But, in connection with Hiram, it has been well said: "One peculiar tenet of the religious movement in which it originated was impressed upon the Eclectic Institute at its organization. The Disciples believed that the Bible had been in a degree obscured by theological speculations and ecclesiastical systems. Hence their religious movement was a revolt from the theology of the schools, and an overture to men to come face to face with the Scriptures.

They believed, also, that to the Holy Writings belonged a larger place in general education than had yet been accorded to them.

Accordingly, in all their educational institutions, they have emphasized the Bible and its related branches of knowledge. This may be called the distinctive feature of their schools. The charter of the Eclectic Institute, therefore, declared the purpose of the institution to be, "The instruction of youth of both sexes in the various branches of literature and science, especially of moral science, as based on the facts and precepts of the Holy Scriptures."

The contrast between the Hiram of 1850 and the Hiram of to-day is quite marked. It has taken almost a third of a century to effect the change. It is now a bright Ohio village, with its neat, white houses, its maples and elms, planted by some who are living and some who are dead, a substantial college building, in the midst of a beautiful