But let us not forget that James is still a boy in his teens.  He had many hardships to encounter, and many experiences to go through before he could set up a home of his own.  He had studied three years, but his education had only begun.  The Geauga Seminary was only an academy, and hardly the equal of the best academies to be found at the East.

He began to feel that he had about exhausted its facilities, and to look higher.  He had not far to look.

During the year 1851 the Disciples, the religious body to which young Garfield had attached himself, opened a collegiate school at Hiram, in Portage County, which they called an eclectic school.  Now it ranks as a college, but at the time James entered it, it had not assumed so ambitious a title.

It was not far away, and James’ attention was naturally drawn to it.  There was an advantage also in its location.  Hiram was a small country village, where the expenses of living were small, and, as we know, our young student’s purse was but scantily filled.  Nevertheless, so limited were his means that it was a perplexing problem how he would be able to pay his way.

He consulted his mother, and, as was always the case, found that she sympathized fully in his purpose of obtaining a higher education.  Pecuniary help, however, she could not give, nor had he at this time any rich friends upon whom he could call for the pittance he required.

But James was not easily daunted.  He had gone to Geauga Seminary with but seventeen dollars in his pocket; he had remained there three years, maintaining himself by work at his old trade of carpenter and teaching, and had graduated owing nothing.  He had become self-reliant, and felt that what he had done at Chester he could do at Hiram.

So one fine morning he set out, with a light heart and a pocket equally light, for the infant institution from which he hoped so much.

The Board of Trustees were in session, as we learn from the account given by one of their number, when James arrived and sought an audience.

After a little delay, the doorkeeper was instructed to bring him in.

James was nineteen at this time.  He was no longer as homespun in appearance as when he sat upon a log with Dr. Robinson, in the seclusion of the woods, and asked his advice about a career.  Nevertheless, he was still awkward.  He had grown rapidly, was of slender build, and had no advantages of dress to recommend him.  One who saw him in after-life, with his noble, imposing presence, would hardly recognize any similarity between him and the raw country youth who stood awkwardly before the Board of Trustees, to plead his cause.  It happens not unfrequently that a lanky youth develops into a fine-looking man.  Charles Sumner, at the age of twenty, stood six feet two inches in his stockings, and weighed but one hundred and twenty pounds!  Yet in after-life he was a man of noble presence.