of the ruts of moral and intellectual bigotry. From this moment his zeal to get the best education grew warmer; he began to take wider views, to look beyond the present into the future. As soon as he finished his studies in Chester, he entered (1851) the Hiram eclectic institute (now Hiram college), at Hiram, Portage co., Ohio, the principal educational institution of his sect. He was not very quick of acquisition, but his perseverance was indomitable, and he soon had an excellent knowledge of Latin and a fair acquaintance with algebra, natural philosophy, and botany. He read Xenophon, Caesar, and Virgil with appreciation; but his superiority was more easily recognized in the prayer-meetings and debating societies of the college, where he was assiduous and conspicuous. Living here was inexpensive, and he readily made his expenses by teaching in the English departments, and also gave instruction in the ancient languages. After three years he was well prepared to enter the junior class of any eastern college, and had saved $350 toward the expenses of such an undertaking out of his salary. He hesitated between Yale, Brown, and Williams colleges, finally choosing Williams on the kindly promise of encouragement sent him by its president, Mark Hopkins. It was natural to expect he would choose Bethany college, in West Virginia, an institution largely controlled and patronized by the “Disciples of Christ.” Garfield himself seems to have thought some explanation for his neglect to do so necessary, and with particularity assigns as reasons that the course of instruction at Bethany was not so extended as in the old New England colleges; that Bethany was too friendly in opinion to slavery; and — most significant of all the reasons he gave — that, as he had inherited by birth and association a strong bias toward the religious views there inculcated, he ought especially to examine other faiths. Entering Williams in the autumn of 1854, he was duly graduated with the highest honors in the class of 1856. His classmates unite with President Hopkins in testifying that in college he was warm-hearted, large-minded, and possessed of great earnestness of purpose and a singular poise of judgment. All speak, too, of his modest and unassuming manners. But, outside of these and other like qualities, such as industry, perseverance, courage, and conscientiousness, Garfield had exhibited up to this time no signs of the superiority that was to make him a conspicuous figure. But the effects of twenty-five years of most varied discipline, cheerfully accepted and faithfully used, begin now to show themselves, and to give to history one of its most striking examples of what education — the education of books and of circumstances — can accomplish. Garfield was not born, but made; and he made himself by persistent, strenuous, conscientious study and work. In the next six years he was a college president, a state senator, a major-general in the National army, and a representative-elect to the National congress. American annals reveal no other promotion so rapid and so varied.
On his return to Ohio, in 1856, he resumed his place as a teacher of Latin and Greek at Hiram institute, and the next year (1857), being then only twenty-six years of age, he was made its president. He was a successful officer, and ambitious, as usual, beyond his allotted task. He discussed before his interested classes almost every subject of current interest in scholarship, science, religion, and art. The story spread, and his influence with it; he became an intellectual and moral force in the Western Reserve. It was greatest, however, over the young. They keenly felt the contagion of his manliness, his sympathy, his thirst for knowledge, and his veneration for the truth when it was found. As an educator, he was, and always would have been, eminently successful; he had the knowledge, the art to impart it, and the personal magnetism that impressed his love for it upon his pupils. His intellectual activity at this time was intense. The canons of his church permitted him to preach, and he used the permission. He also pursued the study of law, entering his name, in 1858, as a student in a law-office in Cleveland, but studying in Hiram. To one ignorant of the slow development that was characteristic of Garfield in all directions, it would seem incredible that he now for the first time began to show any noticeable interest in politics. He seems never to have even voted before the autumn of 1856. No one who knew the man could doubt that he would then cast it, as he did, for John C. Frémont, the first Republican candidate for the presidency. As moral questions entered more and more into politics, Garfield's interest grew apace, and he sought frequent occasions to discuss these questions in debate. In advocating the cause of freedom against slavery, he showed for the first time a skill in discussion, which afterward bore good fruit in the house of representatives. Without solicitation or thought on his part, in 1859 he was sent to represent the counties of Summit and Portage in the senate of Ohio. Again in this new field his versatility and industry are conspicuous. He makes exhaustive investigations and reports on such widely different topics as geology, education, finance, and parliamentary law. Always looking to the future, and apprehensive that the impending contest might leave the halls of legislation and seek the arbitrament of war, he gave especial study to the militia system of the state, and the best methods of equipping and disciplining it.
The war came, and Garfield, who had been farmer, carpenter, student, teacher, lawyer, preacher, and legislator, was to show himself an excellent soldier. In August, 1861, Gov. William Dennison commissioned him lieutenant-colonel in the 42d regiment of Ohio volunteers. The men were his old pupils at Hiram college, whom he had persuaded to enlist. Promoted to the command of this regiment, he drilled it into military efficiency while waiting orders to the front, and in December, 1861, reported to Gen. Buell, in Louisville, Ky. Gen. Buell was so impressed by the soldierly condition of the regiment that he gave Col. Garfield a brigade, and assigned him the difficult task of driving the Confederate general Humphrey Marshall from eastern Kentucky. His confidence was such that he allowed the young soldier to lay his own plans, though on their success hung the fate of Kentucky. The undertaking itself was difficult. Gen. Marshall had 5,000 men, while Garfield had but half that number, and must march through a state where the majority of the people were hostile, to attack an enemy strongly intrenched in a mountainous country. Garfield, nothing daunted, concentrated his little force, and moved it with such rapidity, sometimes here and sometimes there, that Gen. Marshall, deceived by these feints, and still more by false reports, which were skilfully prepared for him, abandoned his position and many supplies at Paintville, and was caught in retreat by Garfield, who charged the full force of the enemy, and maintained a hand-to-hand fight with it. for five hours. The enemy had 5,000 men and twelve cannon; Garfield had no artillery, and but 1,100 men. But he held his own until re-
