nts. Shutting himself away from
the prying curiosity of the ignorant and superstitious, he plodded on,
making steady, if slow, advance toward the realization of his dream.

"One day, while old Coster was thus busily at work," says George
Makepeace Towle, "a sturdy German youth, with a knapsack slung across
his back, trudged into Haarlem. By some chance this youth happened to
hear how the churchwarden was at work upon a wild scheme to print books
instead of writing them. With beating heart, the young man repaired to
Coster's house and made all haste to knock at the churchwarden's humble
door."

The "sturdy German youth" who knocked at Laurence Coster's door was
Johann Gutenberg, the inventor of modern printing. Coster invited him
to enter. Gutenberg accepted the invitation, and then stated the object
of his visit. He desired to learn more about the work on which Coster
was engaged. Delighted to have a visitor who was honestly interested in
his work, the old man eagerly explained its details to the youth, and
showed him some examples of his printing.

Gutenberg was much impressed by what he saw, but still more by the
possibilities which he dimly foresaw in Coster's discovery. "But we can
do much better than this," he said with the enthusiasm of youth. "Your
printing is even slower than the writing of the monks. From this day
forth I will work upon this problem, and not rest till I have solved
it."

Johann Gutenberg kept his word. He never rested until he had given the
art of printing to the world. But to Laurence Coster, in the first
place, if legend speaks truth, we owe one of the greatest inventions
that has ever blessed mankind.

SEA FEVER AND WHAT IT LED TO

"Jim, you've too good a head on you to be a wood chopper or a canal
driver," said the captain of the canal boat for whom young Garfield had
engaged to drive horses along the towpath.

"Jim" had always loved books from the time when, seated on his father's
knee, he had with his baby lips pronounced after him the name
"Plutarch." Mr. Garfield had been reading "Plutarch's Lives," and was
much astonished when, without hesitation or stammering, his little son
distinctly pronounced the name of the Greek biographer. Turning to his
wife, with a glow of love and pride, the fond father said, "Eliza, this
boy will be a scholar some day."

Perhaps the near approach of death had clarified the father's vision,
but when, soon after, the sorrowing wife was left