chools. We want an experienced
teacher, and I am sure you will suit us. I offer you the place, with a
salary of twelve hundred dollars a year. What do you say?"

The young man's heart beat for a moment with repressible excitement. It
was a strong temptation. He was offered, deducting vacations, about one
hundred and twenty-five dollars a month, while heretofore his highest
wages had been but eighteen dollars per month and board. Moreover, he
could marry at once the young lady to whom he had been for years
engaged.

He considered the offer a moment, and this was his answer:

"You are not Satan and I am not Jesus, but we are upon the mountain, and
you have tempted me powerfully. I think I must say, 'Get thee behind
me!' I am poor, and the salary would soon pay my debts and place me in a
position of independence; but there are two objections. I could not
accomplish my resolution to complete a college course, and should be
crippled intellectually for life. Then, my roots are all fixed in Ohio,
where people know me and I know them, and this transplanting might not
succeed as well in the long run as to go back home and work for smaller
pay."

So the young man decided adversely, and it looks as if his decision was
a wise one. It is interesting to conjecture what would have been his
future position had he left college and accepted the school then offered
him. He might still have been a teacher, well known and of high repute,
but of fame merely local, and without a thought of the brilliant destiny
he had foregone.

So he went back to college, and in the summer of 1856 he graduated,
carrying off the highest honor--the metaphysical oration. His class was
a brilliant one. Three became general officers during the
rebellion--Garfield, Daviess, and Thompson. Rockwell's name is well
known in official circles; Gilfillan is Treasurer of the United States.
There are others who fill prominent positions. In the class above him
was the late Hon. Phineas W. Hitchcock, who for six years represented
Nebraska in the United States Senate--like Garfield, the architect of
his own fortunes.

"What are your plans, Garfield?" asked a classmate but a short time
before graduation.

"I am going back to Ohio, to teach in the school where I prepared for
college."

"What is the name of the school?"

"Hiram Institute."

"I never heard of it."

"It has only a local reputation."

"Will you get a high salary?"

"No; the institute is poor, and