114 will sweep like a prairie fire over the continent; burning to the very edge of the St. Lawrence; to the surges that break upon Plymouth Rock; and even to the melancholy murmurs of the great western sea. * * * God bless you, my dear fellow. Remember me affectionately to our honored and loved friend, when you see him; and, though he may never hear from me again, inasmuch as he is now likely to swing out of my horizon, yet tell him I glory in his achievement for good, and shall ever wish him God-speed! Cordially and affectionately yours, EDWARD CLARENCE SMITH. During Garfield's last term at Williams he made his first political speech before a meeting gathered in one of the class-rooms to support the nomination of John C. Fremont. Although he had passed his majority nearly four years before, he had never voted. The old parties did not interest him; he believed that both were corrupted with the sin of slavery; but when a new party arose to combat the designs of the slave-power, it enlisted his earnest sympathies. His mind was free from all bias concerning the parties and statesmen of the past, and could equally admire Clay or Jackson, Webster or Benton. He was, and still is, particularly fond of his Alma Mater. Two letters, the first to Colonel Rockwell, the second to B. A. Hinsdale, furnish us a happy glimpse of this well-bestowed aftection. GARFIELD'S COLLEGE reminiscences. 115 HIRAM, OHIO, August 13th, 1 66. My Dear Jarvis: My visit to Williams has washed out the footprints of ten years and made me a boy again. Strolling on the shore of life, it is with reluctance that I plunge back again into the noisy haunts of men. The noble re-union has wedded my heart more than ever to the class and to old Williams. Let us not hereafter cease to pay that reverence which is due to youth. I mean to go back to Williams as often as I can. The place and its associations shall be to me a fountain of perpetual youth. If wrinkles must be written upon our brows, let them not be written upon the heart. The spirit should not grow old. WASHINGTON, June 30th, 1872. After spending all the day Monday on the law case in Cleveland, I took the train for Williamstown, which I reached in the evening; stayed throughout the examination until Friday morning. The exercises were very solemn and impressive. The resignation of Dr. Hopkins was a noble act and the final speech in which he delivered up the keys to his successor was one of the rarest grandeur and simplicity. His first paragraph was this: "Why do I resign? First, that I may not be asked why I do not resign. Second, because I believe in the law of averages, and the average man of seventy is not able to bear the burdens of this Presidency. And yet I can now bear it. Many of my friends think I should continue to bear it. I think it safer to test the law of averages." I stayed with Dr. Hopkins as his guest, and it was very touching when the old President bade me good-bye, saying, "You will observe that I reserve for the concluding and final act of my official life, before laying down the office, the conferring upon you of the degree of LL.D. I was glad to have my work thus associated with your name. J AMES A. GARFIELD left the venerable dome of Williams, and went directly to his Ohio home, to take a higher step in his hardwon career. He entered Hiram College in the fall of 1856 as the professor of ancient languages and literature. The next year, at the age of twenty-six, he was made the president of the institution. This office he held until he went into the army in 1861. Hoping that he might return-unwilling to part even with his name-the board kept him nominally at the head two years longer. Then his name disappeared from the catalogue, except in 1864 and 1865, when it re-appeared as a trustee, and as advisory principal and lecturer. His last service as an instructor was an admirable series of ten lectures on "Social Science," given in the spring of 1871. Hiram had not much improved, during Garfield's absence at Williams. It was a lonesome country village, three miles from a railroad, built upon a high hill, overlooking twenty miles of cheese-making country to the southward. It contained fifty or sixty houses clustered around the green, in the centre of which stood the homely |