g on your
own work as student?"

Young Garfield's face flushed with pleasure. The compliment was
unexpected, but in every way the prospect it opened was an agreeable
one. His only doubt was as to his qualifications.

"I should like it very much," he said, "if you think I am qualified."

"I have no doubt on that point. You will teach only what is familiar to
you, and I believe you have a special faculty for imparting knowledge."

"Thank you very much, Mr. Hayden," said Garfield. "I will accept with
gratitude, and I will do my best to give satisfaction."

How well he discharged his office may be inferred from the testimony
given in the last chapter.

Though a part of his time was taken up in teaching others, he did not
allow it to delay his own progress. Still before him he kept the bright
beacon of a college education. He had put his hand to the plow, and he
was not one to turn back or loiter on the way. That term he began
Xenophon's Anabasis, and was fortunate enough to find a home in the
president's family.

But he was not content with working in term-time. When the summer
brought a vacation, he felt that it was too long a time to be lost. He
induced ten students to join him, and hired Professor Dunshee to give
them lessons for one month. During that time he read the Eclogues and
Georgics of Virgil entire, and the first six books of Homer's Iliad,
accompanied by a thorough drill in the Latin and Greek grammar. He must
have "toiled terribly," and could have had few moments for recreation.
When the fall term commenced, in company with Miss Almeda Booth, a
mature young lady of remarkable intellect, and some other students, he
formed a Translation society, which occupied itself with the Book of
Romans, of course in the Greek version. During the succeeding winter he
read the whole of "Demosthenes on the Crown."

The mental activity of the young man (he was now twenty) seems
exhaustless. All this time he took an active part in a literary society
composed of some of his fellow-students. He had already become an easy,
fluent, and forcible speaker--a very necessary qualification for the
great work of his life.

"Oh, I suppose he had a talent for it," some of my young readers may
say.

Probably he had; indeed, it is certain that he had, but it may encourage
them to learn that he found difficulties at the start. When a student at
Geauga, he made his first public speech. It was a six minutes' oration
at the annual exh