lso as an eloquent orator and a powerful
argumentative debater.

In 1856, Garfield took his degree at Williams College, and had now
finished his formal education. By that time, he was a fair though not
a great scholar, competently read in the Greek and Latin literatures,
and with a good knowledge of French and German. He was now nearly
twenty-five years old; and his experience was large and varied enough
to make him already into a man of the world. He had been farmer,
carpenter, canal driver, and student; he had seen the primitive life of
the forest, and the more civilized society of the Atlantic shore; he
had taught in schools in many states; he had supported himself for
years by his own labours; and now, at an age when many young men are,
as a rule, only just beginning life on their own account, he had
practically raised himself from his own class into the class of
educated and cultivated gentlemen. As soon as he had taken his degree,
his old friends, the trustees of the "Eclectic Institute" at Hiram,
proud of their former sweeper and bell-ringer, called him back at a
good salary as teacher of Greek and Latin. It was then just ten years
since he had toiled wearily along the tow-path of the Ohio and
Pennsylvania Canal.

As a teacher, Garfield seems to have been eminently successful. His
genial character and good-natured way of explaining things made him a
favourite at once with the rough western lads he had to teach, who
would perhaps have thought a more formal teacher stiff and stuckup.
Garfield was one of themselves; he knew their ways and their manners;
he could make allowances for their awkwardness and bluntness of speech;
he could adopt towards them the exact tone which put them at home at
once with their easy-going instructor. Certainly, he inspired all his
pupils with an immense love and devotion for him; and it is less easy
to inspire those feelings in a sturdy Ohio farmer than in most other
varieties of the essentially affectionate human species.

From 1857 to 1861, Garfield remained at Hiram, teaching and working
very hard. His salary, though a good one for the time and place, was
still humble according to our English notions; but it sufficed for his
needs; and as yet it would have seemed hardly credible that in only
twenty years the Ohio schoolmaster would rise to be President of the
United States. Indeed, it is only in America, that country of
peculiarly unencumbered political action, where every