on the farm. The family was very poor, and
his services were needed to help 'make both ends meet.' At school, as a
little boy, he allowed no one to impose upon him. He is said to have
never picked a quarrel, but was sure to resent any indignity with
effect, no matter how large a boy the offender happened to be. He
attended school during the cold months when it was impossible to be of
value on the farm; summers he generally 'worked out,' at one time being
a driver-boy on the canal.

He attended school at the Geauga Seminary, where he got through his
first term on the absurdly small sum of seventeen dollars. When he
returned to school the next term he had but a six pence in his pocket,
and this he dropped into the contribution box the next day at church. He
made an arrangement with a carpenter in the village to board with him,
and have his washing, fuel and light furnished for one dollar and six
cents per week. The carpenter was building a house, and Garfield
engaged to help him nights and Saturdays. The first Saturday he planed
fifty-one boards, and thereby made one dollar and two cents. So the term
went, and he returned home, having earned his expenses and AND THREE
DOLLARS OVER.

The following winter he taught school at $12 a month and 'boarded
around.' In the spring he had $48, and when he returned to school he
boarded himself at an expense of thirty-one cents a week. Heretofore, he
had supposed a college course beyond him, but meeting a college graduate
who explained that it was barely possible for a poor boy to graduate, if
he worked and attended alternate years, he determined to try it. After
careful calculation Garfield concluded he could get through school
within TWELVE YEARS. He accordingly began to lay his plans to graduate.
Think of such determination, dear reader, and then see if you can
reasonably envy the position attained by Garfield. He appeared as a
scholar at Hiram, a new school of his own denomination, in 1851. Here he
studied all the harder, as he now had an object in life. Returning home
he taught a school, then returned to college, and attended the spring
term. During the summer he helped build a house in the village, he
himself planning all the lumber for the siding, and shingling the roof.
Garfield was now quite a scholar, especially in the languages, and upon
his return to Hiram he was made a tutor, and thenceforward he worked
both as a pupil and teacher, doing a tremendous amount of work to fit