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He had a robust frame, and he seemed never to get tired. No doubt he took especial interest in composition and the exercises of the debating society which flourished at Geauga, as at most seminaries of advanced education. In after-life he was so ready and powerful in debate, that we can readily understand that he must have begun early to try his powers.

Haymaking occupied him for several weeks, then a It was this moral courage which gave Garfield his great influence over his companions all through life. And when, after his second term at Geauga; he felt himself able to undertake the charge of one of the winter schools, which were started for small settlers' children, it was this quality, above all others, which made him a successful teacher.

Newbury was one of the twenty-odd townships, five miles square, that then made up the county of Geauga, and a part of the Western Reserve, the Yankee-doodledom of Ohio, settled exclusively by emigrants from New England. It was so much of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, etc., translated into the broader and freer West.

Probably he had; indeed, it is certain that he had, but it may encourage them to learn that he found difficulties at the start. When a student at Geauga, he made his first public speech. It was a six minutes' oration at the annual exhibition, delivered in connection with a literary society to which he belonged.

He continued here but two or three terms, when a more advantageous position was offered him as instructor of a district school in Geauga county, to which he repaired and where he continued about a year. On his return to the city, having fitted himself in part previously, he entered the null of Hon.

His heart had never swerved from the young lady with whom he first became acquainted at Geauga, to whom he was more closely drawn at Hiram, and to whom now for some years he had been betrothed. He felt that he could now afford to be married; and so Lucretia Rudolph became Mrs. Garfield a name loved and honored, for her sake as well as his, throughout the length and breadth of our land.

The rumors produced much excitement everywhere, and especially in the south part of Geauga; and the impression was deepened and confirmed by an article in the Geauga Gazette, issued soon after Myers was committed. With staring head-lines and exclamation points, it stated that Dr. Myers, since his imprisonment, had made a full confession, which it gave in substance, as above.

Ever since he began to study at Geauga Seminary James had looked forward to earning a little money by keeping school himself; not an advanced school, of course, but an ordinary school, such as was kept in the country districts in the winter. He felt no hesitation as to his competence. The qualifications required by the school committees were by no means large, and so far there was no difficulty.

At first the height of his ambition was to attend a little Western college called Geauga Seminary, a school where about a hundred youths and maidens were gathered, under the auspices of the Free-will Baptist denomination, at the town of Chester in the State of Ohio. Garfield, accompanied by two cousins, arrived at Geauga Seminary on March 5, 1849.

With his earnings in that trade he helped himself through the Academy at Chardon in Geauga County. From there he went to Hiram College, in Portage County, and then to Williams College, in Massachusetts. He studied law, and was elected to the Ohio Senate, which he left to enter the army.