CHAPTER XX.

STUDENT AND TEACHER.

AMES ceased to be a janitor at the close of his first year at Hiram, and was promoted to assistant teacher of the English department and ancient languages. His rapid advancement is set forth by Dr. Hinsdale, who is now president of the institution:

"His mind was now reaching out in all directions; and all the more widely because the elastic course of study, and the absence of traditionary trammels, gave him room. He was a vast elemental force, and nothing was so essential as space and opportunity. Hiram was now forming her future teachers, as well as creating her own culture. Naturally, then, when he had been only one year in the school, he was given a place in the corps of teachers. In the catalogue of 1853-54, his name appears both with the pupils and teachers: 'James A. Garfield, Cuyahoga County,' and 'J. A. Garfield, Teacher in the English Department, and of the Ancient Languages.' His admission to the faculty page may be an index to a certain rawness in the school; but it gave to his talents and ambition the play that an older school, with higher standards, could not have afforded him.

Now he was filling three important positions, student, teacher and carpenter. He had become nearly as indispensable to the carpenter's bysiness as to that of the Institute. The sound of his hammer, before and after school, was familiar to the students and the citizens.

"See there!" exclaimed Clark, pointing to James on the roof of a house, building near the academy. "Jim has taken that roof to shingle."

"Alone?" inquired Jones.

"Yes, alone; and it won't take him long, either, if he keeps his hammer going as it does now. Jim's a brick."

"Very little brick about him, I should say; more brain than brick."

"With steam enough on all the while to keep his brain running. Did you ever see such a worker?" "Never. Work seems as necessary to him as air and food. If he was not compelled to work, in order to pay his way, his brain would shatter his body all to pieces in a year. He is about the only student I ever thought was fortunate in being poor as a stray cat."

"I declare, I never thought of that. Poverty is a blessing sometimes. I had thought it was a curse to a student always.'

"It is Jim's salvation," added Jones. "I have thought of it many times. I suppose that his carpentering business is better exercise for him than our ball-playing, or pitching quoits."

"Minus the fun," added Clark, quickly; really believing that James was depriving himself of all first

class sport.

"Have you not observed how he enjoys a game of ball or quoits when he joins us?"

"Of course; but he does not seem to me to enjoy these games any more than he enjoys study, reading, and manual labor. He studies just as he plays ball, exactly, with all his might; and I suppose that is the way we all ought to do."

"That is what Father Bentley said in his sermon on, 'Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.' You remember it?"

"Certainly; and who knows but Father Bentley has engaged Jim to illustrate his doctrine? He preaches and Jim practices. Nobody in the Eclectic Institute will dispute such a sermon while Jim's about; you can count on that." The remark was made jocosely, and, at the same time, a compliment was intended for James.

This conversation discloses the facts about James' manual labor while connected with the Institute. We have not space for the details of his work with the plane and hammer during the whole period. We can only say, here, once for all, that he continued to add to his money by manual labor to the end of his three. years at Hiram. He planed all the siding of the new house that he was shingling when the foregoing con versation took place. His labor was expended upon other buildings, also, in the place, during that period. Several jobs of farming, also, were undertaken at different times. He was laying up money to assist himself in college, in addition to paying his way at the Institute.

When James entered the school his attention was

attracted to a class of three in geometry. As he listened to the recitation in this study, which was animated and sharp, he became particularly impressed. Since that time he said, "I regarded teacher and class with reverential awe." The three persons in the class were William B. Hazen, who became one of our most distinguished major-generals in the late rebellion, and who is now in the public service; Geo. A. Baker, now a prominent citizen of Cleveland, Ohio; and Miss Almeda A. Booth, a very talented lady of nearly thirty years, who was teaching in the school, and at the same time pursuing her studies in the higher mathematics. and classics. As this Miss Booth exerted a more powerful influence upon James than any other teacher, except Dr. Mark Hopkins, of Williams College, we shall speak of her particularly, and her estimate of our hero. She was the daughter of a Methodist preacher, whose circuit extended a thousand miles on the Reserve; a man of marked mental strength, and of great tact and energy. The daughter inherited her father's intellectual power and force of character, so that, when the young man to whom she was betrothed died, she resolved to consecrate herself to higher intellectual culture, that her usefulness might be augmented. This resolution brought her to the Eclectic Institute. She died in 1875, and afterwards General Garfield said of her talents, "When she was twelve years of age she used to puzzle her teachers with questions, and distress them by correcting their mistakes. One of these, a male teacher, who was too proud to acknowledge the corrections of a child, called upon the most learned man in town for help and advice

in regard to a point of dispute between them. He was told that he was in error, and that he must acknowledge his mistake. The teacher was manly enough to follow this wise advice, and thereafter made this little girl his friend and helper. It was like her to help him quietly, and without boasting. During her whole life, none of her friends ever heard an intimation from her that she had ever achieved an intellectual triumph over anybody in the world."

It was fortunate for James that this accomplished lady became deeply interested in his progress and welfare.

"The most remarkable young man I ever met," she said to the principal. "There must be a grand future before him."

"True, if he does not fall out of the way," answered the principal.

"I scarcely thought that was possible when I spoke. His Christian purpose is one of the remarkable things about him. His talents, work, everything, appear to be subject to this Christian aim. I feel that he will make a power in the world."

"I agree with you: such are my feelings in regard to him, notwithstanding the prevalence of temptations that lure and destroy so many of our hopeful young men." The principal had seen more of the world than Miss Booth, so he spoke with less confidence.

James had been connected with the school but a few months before his studies were the same as those of Miss Booth, and they were in the same classes. "I was far behind Miss Booth in mathematics and the physical sciences," he said, since, "but we were nearly