CHAPTER VI.

GARFIELD AT WILLIAMS.

W

HEN Garfield reached Williams College, in June, 1854, he had about three hundred dollars, which he had saved while teaching at Hiram. With this amount he hoped to finish the first year. The college year had not quite closed. A few weeks remained, which he utilized by attending the recitations of the Sophomore class, that he might become familiar with the methods of the professors before testing his ability to pass the examinations of the Junior year. He had a keen sense of his want of the social advantages and general culture, which the students, with whom he came in contact, had enjoyed all their lives; but his homely manners and Western garb did not subject him to any slights or mortifications. The spirit of the college was generous and manly. No student was estimated by the clothes he wore; no one was snubbed, because he was poor. The intellectual force, originality and immense powers of study, possessed by the new-comer from Ohio, were soon recognized by his classmates; and he was shown as much respect, cordiality and companionship, as if he had been the son of a millionaire. His mates

FIRST DAYS AT WILLIAMS,

85

recall him as very large, quite German in appearance -so strong is good Saxon blood, after centuries of exile from the Saxon land-blonde and bearded, strong-limbed, serious but sociable, and with easygoing, Western manners, ready wit, and broad sympathy going out to all his fellows. The boys called him "Old Gar," so readily did he assume the patriarchate of the college in the brief two years he was there. He boarded in club, and did not smoke or drink.

The beauty of the scenery around Williamstown made a strong impression upon his fancy. He had never seen mountains before. The spurs of the Green Hills, which reach down from Vermont and inclose the little college-town in their arms, were to the young man from the monotonous landscapes of the Western Reserve a wonderful revelation of grandeur and beauty. He climbed Greylock and explored all the glens and valleys of the neighborhood.

The examination for entering the Junior class was passed without difficulty. Although self-taught (he received help from his friend and companion in his studies, Miss Booth), he had a thorough knowledge of the books required. A long Summer vacation followed his examination; and this time he employed in the college-library, the first large collection of books he had ever seen. His absorption in the double work of teaching and fitting himself for college had hitherto left him little time

for general reading, so that the library opened a new world of profit and delight. Of Shakespeare he had read only the few extracts, which he had found in his reading-books in his early school-days. Of the whole range of fiction he had voluntarily deprived himself at eighteen, when he joined the church, having serious views of the business of life, and imbibing the notion, then almost universal among religious people in the country-districts of the West, that novel-reading was a waste of time, and, therefore, a simple, worldly sort of intellectual With weeks of leisure to range at will over shelves of the college-library, he began with Shakespeare, which he read through from cover to cover. Then he took up English history and poetry. Of the poets, Tennyson pleased him best, which is not to be wondered at, for the influence of the Laureate was then at its height. He learned whole poems by heart, and could always repeat them.

amusement.

After he had been six or eight months at college, and had devoured an immense amount of serious reading, he began to suffer from intellectual dyspepsia. He found, that his mind was not assimilating what he read, and would often refuse to be held down to the printed page. Then he revised his notions about books of fiction, and concluded, that romance is as valuable a part of intellectual food as salad is of a dinner. He prescribed for himself one novel a month; and on

HIS COLLege work.

87

this medicine his mind speedily recuperated and recovered all its old elasticity. Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales were the first novels he read, and afterwards Sir Walter Scott's. An English classinate introduced him to the works of Dickens and Thackeray. He formed a habit in those days of making notes, while he read, of everything, which he did not clearly understand, such as historical references, mythological allusions, technical terms, etc. These notes he would look up afterwards in the library, that he might leave nothing obscure in his mind concerning the books he absorbed. The thoroughness, which he displayed in his work in after life, was thus begun at that early period, and applied to every snbject he took hold of. The ground, which his mind traversed, he carefully cleared and ploughed before leaving it for fresh fields.

Garfield studied Latin and Greek, and took up German as an elective study. One year at Williams completed his classical studies, in which he was far advanced before he came there. German he carried on successfully, until he read Goethe and Schiller readily and acquired considerable fluency in conversation. He entered with zeal into the literary work of the college, becoming a vigorous debater in the Philologian Society, of which he was president in 1855-56. The influence of the mind and character of Dr. Hopkins was especially felt in shaping the direction of Gar

field's thought and views of life. He often said that the good president rose like a sun before him, and enlightened his whole mental and moral

nature.

His preaching and teaching were a constant inspiration to the young Ohio student; and he became the centre of his college life, the object of his hero-worship.

At the end of the Fall term of 1854, Garfield enjoyed a Winter vacation of two months in North Pownal, Vt., teaching a writing class in the same school-honse, where a year before Chester A. Arthur was the principal. Garfield wrote a broad, handsome hand, that was strongly individual, and was the envy of the boys and girls, who tried to imitate it.

At the end of the college year, Garfield returned home to see his mother, who was then living with a daughter at Solon. His money was exhausted; but two expedients were open to him, either to borrow enough to take him through to graduation at the end of the next year, or to resume teaching, until he earned the requisite amount, and so break the continuity of his college course. He however insured his life for eight hundred dollars, which his brother Thomas undertook to furnish in instal

After Thomas became unable to advance money, Dr. Robinson of Hiram assumed the obligation and took the insurance policy as a security.

He returned to Williams in the Fall, and was again active in his contributions to the College