CHAPTER VIII. Hiram Institute. The faithful Janitor. Miss Almeda Booth. James is appointed Assistant Teacher.-Critical habit of Reading. — Moral and Religious Growth. - Debating Club. IT was towards the latter part of August, 1851, and James was nearly twenty years of age when he first presented himself at Hiram Institute. The board of trustees was then in session, and he was directly introduced into the room where they were seated. Notwithstanding his shabby clothes and awkward manners, his earnest, intelligent face at once prepossessed them in his favor. "I must work my way," he began; "but I am very anxious to get an education. I thought, perhaps, you would let me ring the bell and sweep the floors to pay part of my bills." "How do we know that you can do the work well?" asked one of the trustees. "If, at the end of a couple of weeks," replied James, "you find that my work does not suit you, I will not ask to keep the place." "I think we had better try the young student," said another of the trustees, and so the question was settled, and James was duly installed as janitor. The town of Hiram was at that time twelve miles from the railroad, and consisted of a straggling collection of houses, with two churches and a few stores at the cross-roads. Its natural advantages, however, were wonderfully fine, and to-day it is sometimes called the crown of Ohio." Its location is very near the line where the waters divide, one part flowing northward to Lake Erie, the other southward to the Ohio river. The Institute was a plain, brick building on the top of a hill, whose slopes were thickly planted with corn; from this eminence a charming panorama of the whole surrounding country could be obtained. It was built for the special accommodation of the sons and daughters of the Western Reserve farmers, and among its founders was Mr. Zebulon Rudolph, the father of James' old schoolmate, Lucretia Rudolph. The Rev. A. S. Hayden was, at this time, its principal, and Thomas Munnell and Norman Dunshee were assistant teachers. The aims of the school were, 1st. To provide a sound, scientific and literary education. 2d. To temper and sweeten such education with moral and scriptural knowledge. 3d. To educate young men for the ministry. The charter of the Institute, according to the peculiar tenet of the religious movement in which it originated, was based upon the study of the Holy Scriptures. The Disciples believed that the Bible ought to take a larger place in general culture than had as yet been accorded to it. In the course of study, the system pursued was strictly elective. It was just the place for James to fit for college, and pursue, if he chose, branches that would enable him to enter a university two years in advance. Among the pupils at Hiram, when James entered the Institute, was a Miss Almeda Booth, some nine years his senior, who proved an invaluable friend and helper. She was a teacher as well as scholar, but James, at the end of a few months, found himself pursuing the same studies and ranking in the same classes as Miss Booth. "I was far behind her," he writes, " in mathematics and the physical sciences, but we were nearly in the same place in Greek and Latin." Miss Booth was a lady of rare talent. Upon the death of the young man to whom she was engaged, she resolved to consecrate her life to higher intellectual attainments, in order to increase her usefulness. In a tribute to her memory, a few years ago, Garfield said, "She exerted a more powerful influence over me than any other teacher, except President Hopkins. The few spare hours which schoolwork left us were devoted to such pursuits as |