Page:American Boy's Life of William McKinley.djvu/35

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OF WILLIAM McKINLEY
11

CHAPTER II


Removal to Poland—Life as a Schoolboy—The Debating Society—His Opinion of a Law Case


As the McKinley family were numerous and the paternal purse by no means large, it soon became a question of what should be done with so many boys and girls. The older ones had outgrown the Niles school, and there was no other school in the neighborhood to which they could be sent.

"We will move to Poland," said Mr. McKinley. "There are more chances there, and I want to do the best I can by the children." And to Poland the family moved when William McKinley was nine years old. Poland was well known for its educational facilities, for it boasted of two good institutes of learning, one controlled by the Methodists and the other by the Presbyterians. Shortly after the McKinley's came to the place the Presbyterian school was burned down, and then both institutions were merged into one, known as the Union Seminary.