The young man’s heart beat for a moment with repressible excitement.  It was a strong temptation.  He was offered, deducting vacations, about one hundred and twenty-five dollars a month, while heretofore his highest wages had been but eighteen dollars per month and board.  Moreover, he could marry at once the young lady to whom he had been for years engaged.

He considered the offer a moment, and this was his answer: 

“You are not Satan and I am not Jesus, but we are upon the mountain, and you have tempted me powerfully.  I think I must say, ’Get thee behind me!’ I am poor, and the salary would soon pay my debts and place me in a position of independence; but there are two objections.  I could not accomplish my resolution to complete a college course, and should be crippled intellectually for life.  Then, my roots are all fixed in Ohio, where people know me and I know them, and this transplanting might not succeed as well in the long run as to go back home and work for smaller pay.”

So the young man decided adversely, and it looks as if his decision was a wise one.  It is interesting to conjecture what would have been his future position had he left college and accepted the school then offered him.  He might still have been a teacher, well known and of high repute, but of fame merely local, and without a thought of the brilliant destiny he had foregone.

So he went back to college, and in the summer of 1856 he graduated, carrying off the highest honor—­the metaphysical oration.  His class was a brilliant one.  Three became general officers during the rebellion—­Garfield, Daviess, and Thompson.  Rockwell’s name is well known in official circles; Gilfillan is Treasurer of the United States.  There are others who fill prominent positions.  In the class above him was the late Hon. Phineas W. Hitchcock, who for six years represented Nebraska in the United States Senate—­like Garfield, the architect of his own fortunes.

“What are your plans, Garfield?” asked a classmate but a short time before graduation.

“I am going back to Ohio, to teach in the school where I prepared for college.”

“What is the name of the school?”

“Hiram Institute.”

“I never heard of it.”

“It has only a local reputation.”

“Will you get a high salary?”

“No; the institute is poor, and can pay me but little.”

“I think you are making a mistake.”

“Why so?”

“You are our best scholar, and no one can rival you in speaking in the societies.  You should study law, and then go to one of our large cities and build up a reputation, instead of burying yourself in an out-of-the-way Ohio town, where you may live and die without the world hearing of you.”

“Thank you for your good opinion of me.  I am not sure whether I deserve it, but if I do, I shall come to the surface some day.  Meanwhile, to this humble school (it was not yet a college) I owe a large debt of gratitude.  I am under a promise to go back and do what I can to pay that debt.”