Return to Geauga Seminary.--Works at Haying through the
Vacation.--Teaches a higher Grade of School.--First
Oration.--Determines to Go to College.--He visits the State
Capitol at Columbus.
When James returned to the academy, he made an arrangement with Mr.
Woodworth, by which he could have a comfortable boarding-place at one
dollar and six cents a week. This was at Mr. Woodworth's own house, and
the payment was to be taken out in labor at the carpenter's shop. It was
an excellent plan, and gave James more time for his studies, in spite of
the hard manual labor he performed out of school-hours. He could use the
square and the scratch-awl now, as well as the plane; and his wages were
correspondingly increased.
In the summer vacation of his third term at Geauga, James and a
schoolmate resolved to earn a little money at haying. They accordingly
hired themselves out to a neighboring farmer who wanted some extra
hands. Noticing how vigorously the boys worked, the farmer turned to his
men and said,--
"Lookee here, you lubbers! these boys are gitting way ahead of you.
They make broader swaths, and they mow a sight better than you do!"
When the haying was done, and the settling day came, the farmer asked
the boys what wages they expected.
"Whatever you think is right," replied James.
"Wall," said the farmer, "as yer only boys, of course yer won't expect
men's wages."
"But didn't you say yourself," argued James, "that we did more work than
your men? If that is so, why should you pay us less?"
The farmer was nonplussed, and gave the boys the same wages he paid his
men, remarking, as he did so,--
"It's the fust time I ever paid boys so much, but you've fairly earned
it--that's a fact!"
It was just about this time that the anti-slavery contest began to
assert itself throughout the country.
In the little Debating Club at Geauga, the question was given out,
"_Ought slavery to be abolished in this republic?_" It was a subject
that roused James to his best efforts; and his school-mates, as they
listened to his fiery denunciations against slavery, declared that "Jim
ought to go to Congress!"
The following winter James procured a school at Warrensville, where he
was paid sixteen dollars a month and his board, which was more than he
had ever earned before. It was in this school that one of the pupils
wanted to take up geometry--a branch of mathematics that James had never
studied.
As usual, however, he was equal to the emergency. Buying a text-book, he
studied geometry after school-hours, until he had mastered the science,
and his pupils never once dreamed but that he was as familiar with it as
with algebra or arithmetic.
It was at the annual exhibition of Geauga Seminary, in November, 1859,
that James delivered his first oration. It was prepared with his usual
carefulness, and delivered with so much magnetic earnestness that the
whole audience were held spell-bound.
"He is bound to make his mark in the world," said every one who had
listened to the earnest, enthusiastic student.
Mrs. Garfield noted with grateful joy that her son no longer spoke of
"going to sea." The one great aim of his life now was to procure a
liberal education. A deeper, broader ocean was stretching out before
him, and already his pulses thrilled with the mighty, incoming tide.
It was during his last term at Geauga Seminary that James met a young
man who was a graduate of a New England college. From him he learned
that it was possible to work one's way through college as well as
through school. It was a new thought to James. His poverty had seemed to
him before an insurmountable obstacle in gaining a university education.
Now, he began to study Latin and other branches that might pave the way
to a college examination.
On his return home, he found his mother was just about to start on a
journey to Muskingum County, where some of her relatives lived. She was
very anxious that James should go with her, and, when he found that he
could obtain a school near Zanesville, he was quite ready to go. The
Cleveland and Columbus Railroad had just been opened, and this was
James' first ride in the cars. When they reached Columbus they visited
the legislature, which was then in session; and, as James remarked
afterwards, "That alone was worth a month's schooling to me."
The mother and son spent three months in this part of Ohio, James
teaching the little school at Harrison, and studying hard himself all
the time. Having met a student from the Eclectic Institute at Hiram,
Portage County, Ohio, he learned that opportunities were there afforded
for studying the branches of the first two college years. The expenses
of tuition were no greater than at Geauga Seminary, and the Institute
was under the direction of the Church of the Disciples.
It seemed a providential opening, and, after talking over the matter
with his mother, he determined to seek admission there the following
autumn.