Garfield, intellectually
speaking, was his successor in the presidency of Hiram College, B.A.
Hinsdale. If any one understood the dead President it was he. For many
years they corresponded regularly, exchanging views upon all topics that
interested either. They would not always agree, but this necessarily
followed from the mental independence of each. To Mr. Hinsdale we turn
for a trustworthy analysis of the character and intellectual greatness
of his friend, and this he gives us in an article published in the N.Y.
_Independent_ of Sept. 29, 1881:

"First of all, James A. Garfield had greatness of nature. Were I limited
to one sentence of description, it would be: He was a great-natured man.
He was a man of strong and massive body. A strong frame, broad
shoulders, powerful vital apparatus, and a massive head furnished the
physical basis of his life. He was capable of an indefinite amount of
work, both physical and mental. His intellectual status was equally
strong and massive. He excelled almost all men both in the patient
accumulation of facts and in bold generalization. He had great power of
logical analysis, and stood with the first in rhetorical exposition. He
had the best instincts and habits of the scholar. He loved to roam in
every field of knowledge. He delighted in the creations of the
imagination--poetry, fiction, and art. He loved the deep things of
philosophy. He took a keen interest in scientific research. He gathered
into his storehouse the facts of history and politics, and threw over
the whole the life and power of his own originality.

"The vast labors that he crowded into those thirty years--labors rarely
equaled in the history of men--are the fittest gauge of his physical and
intellectual power. His moral character was on a scale equally large and
generous. His feelings were delicate, his sympathies most responsive,
his sense of justice keen. He was alive to delicate points of honor. No
other man whom I have known had such heart. He had great faith in human
nature and was wholly free from jealousy and suspicion. He was one of
the most helpful and appreciative of men. His largeness of views and
generosity of spirit were such that he seemed incapable of personal
resentment. He was once exhorted to visit moral indignation upon some
men who had wronged him deeply. Fully appreciating the baseness of their
conduct, he said he would try, but added: 'I am afraid some one will
have to help me.'

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