men of robust natures possessing the instinct of thrifty went, when eighteen years old, to Ohio. There he married Eliza Ballou, of Huguenot ancestry, and died when James, his boy of promise, was under two years of age. When the head of a household is taken away ere his work is done, and the wife is left alone to provide for a family of young children, the struggle is necessarily one of hardship and is attended with much of privation and trial. These were the circumstances that surrounded the childhood and youth of Mr. Garfield; but many of the events of this early period, which were mere episodes in his career, have been given undue prominence. The American public is prone to believe that the men, who have moulded its destinies, have come up from the depths. It learns with peculiar delight that its popular heroes, its orators and statesmen, have been “The Mill Boy of the Slashes,” the inhabitant of a “Log Cabin,” the “Rail Splitter,” and the “Canal Boy of the Towpath.” To meet the exigencies of political campaigns, the good antecedents of Lincoln and Garfield have been passed over lightly or forgotten, while the sombre hues have been painted darker and the pits digged deeper. The lofty aspirations, the correct tastes, and the large capacity of Mr. Garfield, soon enabled him to overcome the obstacles that confronted him. He saved enough from his earnings to get the benefit of a course of schooling at the rural academy of his neighborhood. By teaching school, and by working as a carpenter and a harvest hand, he earned enough more to maintain himself for two years at Williams College. It is worthy of remark that he was fitted to enter the junior class, that he was one of the editors of the college paper, and that, at graduation, he took the class honor in metaphysics. Up to this time, when he was twenty-five years of age, he had never cast
