and an old school-book,
began their simple college course.

Garfield's plans to make his money last as long as possible were
amazing. He began with about two pounds, his dear mother's savings,
but text-books and school fees had already reduced his tiny fortune.

At first the lads did their own cooking, with indifferent success.
Next they tried to live on bread and milk, but found it insufficient.
Then Garfield discovered a local carpenter who had planks to plane, and
in his spare time he found employment with him. Thus, working at his
books in the daytime, and toiling at the bench at night, he plodded
along. And yet, though his struggles were long and trying, there was
no need for pity in the condition of the young student.

Probably no conceivable circumstances would have better developed the
character of this backwoods scholar. His hardy limbs found real
pleasure in work, which kept his body braced and healthy, while the
active mind was exerting its great faculties in the keen pursuit of
knowledge.

Some of the most interesting and instructive periods in the lives of
the greatest men, both in this country and in America, have been found
in just such conditions as these. Thoughtful English lads will never
tire of hearing about those men, who, starting at the lowest point of
mental knowledge and social opportunities, have yet contrived to fill
in their day a large space in the world of letters. Take for example
the stories of the three cobbler lads--Drew the historian, Cooper the
reformer, and Carey the missionary, who, each in his own way, proved
superior to poverty and all its attendant disadvantages, and rose, the
one from his bench to a professorship in the London University, the
other from a position equally lowly to a high place among the thinkers
and writers of his day; and the third, leaving his lapstone to take up
the pen of a translator, from cobbling boots in a back kitchen, went
out to be the great master missionary of his age.

And just as in olden times God called His chief servants from the
farmstead and the sheep-run, so even still the men of might have been
those whose natures were made strong by youthful hardship and boyish
battles.

The slave lad who became the Old World's greatest statesman, the
shepherd boy who became its noblest King, and the young farmer who
stood among its mightiest prophets, are but the types and forerunners
of the Luthers and Lincolns and Garfields of more modern