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I joined two other young men, and, with the necessary provisions for boarding ourselves, we reached Chester, March 6, 1849, and `rented a room in an unpainted frame house, nearly west from the seminary and across the street from it. I bought the second algebra I ever saw, and commenced the study of it. Studied, also, natural philosophy and grammar. I attended there in the fall of 1849, and during the winter I taught my first school.

"Returned to the seminary again in the spring of 1850. I commenced the study of Latin and finished algebra and botany. At the close of the spring term I made my first public speech; it was a six minutes' oration at the annual exhibition. My diary shows the anxiety and solicitude through which I passed in its preparation and delivery.

"During the summer vacation of 1850 I worked at the carpenter's trade in Chester. Among other things I helped to build a two-story house on the east side of the road, a little way south of the seminary grounds.

"Attended school during the fall term of 1850, and commenced the study of Greek. Worked mornings, evenings and Saturdays at my trade, and thus paid my way. After the first term at Chester I never received any pecuniary assistance. The cost of living, however, was much less than it now is. In my second term at Chester I had board, lodging and washing for one dollar and six cents per week."

Then it was that "the sea lost her lover," and the last strand of the cord that bound him to the dream of the ocean was severed. Not that he wholly forgot the sea, or lost the desire to be a sailor, but it had no more power over him to draw him thitherward.

Not many years since, in speaking of the trials, temptations and ambitions of his early years, he said: "But even now, at times, the old feeling (the longing for

the sea) comes back. I tell you I would rather now command a fleet in a great naval battle than to do anything else on this earth. The sight of a ship often fills me with a strange fascination; and when upon the water, and my fellow-landsmen are in the agonies of seasickness, I am as tranquil as when walking the land in the serenest weather."

He had been, however, on a voyage of discovery, and to a large degree, he had discovered himself. Perhaps it was in view of this fact that years afterward he said: "To every man of great original power, there comes, in early youth, a moment of sudden discovery-of self-recognition --when his own nature is revealed to himself, when he catches for the first time a strain of that immortal song to which his own spirit answers, and which becomes thenceforth and forever the inspiration of his life

'Like noble music unto noble words.'"

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CHAPTER VI.

THE YOUNG STUDENT.

The second period of Garfield's life began about one year before he entered Geauga Seminary, as a student, in 1849. His real student life dates from this time, and began at this place. Chester, where the school was located, was a little country village in Geauga County, Ohio.

At this place the "Free-Will Baptists" had erected a plain two-story building, and commenced a school which was called Geauga Seminary.

The Academy was quite an institution for the time and place, and was well patronized by the people of the surrounding towns. Besides other things, it had a library of about one hundred volumes-more books than the young student from Orange had ever seen before.

There was also a literary society connected with the institution which afforded the young people an excellent opportunity for practice in writing and speaking. To this society Garfield belonged, and here in Chester, in the spring of 1850, he made his first public speech. That speech cost its author much "anxiety and solicitude" in its preparation and delivery.

Into his study he carried all the enthusiasm of his nature, and we may well believe that "he never forgot, even for a moment, the purpose for which he was there. Every

recitation found his work well done; every meeting of the literary society knew his presence and heard his voice. The library was his favorite corner of the building. A new world was to be conquered in every science, a new country in every language."

When Garfield went to Chester he was accompanied by two young men, one of them his cousin. The three boys rented a room large enough for their two beds and a cookstove, and began their student housekeeping on a very moderate scale.

There were six teachers at that time in the Academy. They were: Daniel Branch and wife, Mr. and Mrs. Coffin, Mr. Bigelow, and Miss Abigail Curtis. Before the close of Garfield's attendance, Mr. and Mrs. Branch were succeeded by Mr. Fowler and Mr. Beach. There were about

one hundred students of both sexes in the school.

There are many incidents related of Garfield's two years at Chester. All of them are interesting, and some of them are important, in the light of the added years of his life.

Mrs. Branch, the wife of the principal, appears to have been a woman of some originality. She had introduced into the school a grammar, with which she was determined to "break in pieces" all other systems. It was a regular iconoclast among grammars, and assailed all others, as founded on a false basis. One has said of it: "It maintained that but' was a verb in the imperative mood, and meant be out'; that 'and' was also a verb in the imperative mood, and meant add,' and in many other ways it tried to destroy the accepted etymology. The young student was not captured by the new method,' and fought with great skill and success. for the honor of 'old Kirkham.'"

Mornings and evenings and Saturdays he worked in a carpenter's shop near by. The carpenter was building a

two-story house, and James' first work was to get out siding at two cents a board. The first Saturday he planed fifty-two boards, and so earned one dollar and four cents. This was the most he had ever received for a day's work. During that term his lodging and board and washing and fuel and light cost him one dollar and six cents a week; and he earned so much during the term that he not only paid his way, but he also bought a few books, and returned home at the close of the term with a few dollars in his pocket.

He worked for Worthy Taylor, of Aurora, in haying, and the incident has been recorded thus: With two of his schoolfellows, he made application to Mr. Taylor for work. Mr. Taylor said he wanted more hands, but he wanted men and not boys. He was paying men seventy-five cents a day, and he offered finally to pay the boys half price, but with the understanding that, if they earned as much as men they should have the same pay.

When Garfield went into the hay-field he was placed between the men who were mowing. They tried to crowd him, but he worked so vigorously that the leader could hardly keep out of his way, and the rear man was left some distance behind. In the afternoon Garfield led, and he pushed forward so rapidly, that Mr. Taylor said: "You men had better look to your laurels; the boy is beating ye all holler." It is needless to say that when pay day came he received men's wages" for his work. At night, instead of going to bed early, as the rest of the hands did, he called for a candle and read for several hours, until Mr. Taylor said to him, "You have worked hard and ought to go to bed." Garfield replied, "Nights is all the time I get to read."

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The boys of the time of which we are writing who had any ambition whatever in the direction of an education

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