X.

JAMES G. BLAINE.

WE have seen how the precocious promise of the youth of one statesman, Samuel J. Tilden, was amply fulfilled in his maturer years. But the historian will say that this was an exception to a general rule. Brilliant men have not usually evinced much of their brightness in their boyhood. There is great hope for the dull boy, after all. James G. Blaine, if not a boy of very commonplace traits of mental character, certainly was not a lad of remarkable promise. When he was a student at Washington College, in Western Pennsylvania, one who knew him well said of him that "he was a plain, quiet, good-tempered, studious boy," remarkable for nothing but his love of reading, and giving no hint of the greatness of his future career as a statesman. One of his college mates has said of him: "I knew Blaine at Washington College, he being in the next class below me. Blaine's parents lived at Washington during their son's college course, and on that account the students saw less of 'Jim' Blaine, as he was familiarly called, than if he had boarded at the college instead of at home. Young Blaine was a sturdy, heavy-set, matter-offact looking young fellow, not at all prepossess

ing in appearance, and exceedingly awkward at times, and giving no hint of the elegant gentleman he has grown to be. He was never seen on the street or play-ground, and rarely mingled in the customary sports of the boys. I remember we had a very fine foot-ball ground, but I never remember to have seen young Blaine on it. In fact, I cannot say for certain that I ever saw him engaged in any kind of sport during the entire time I was at college. It is my impression that he passed all his leisure at home or in one of the college halls or with a book. He was a great reader, almost a book-worm, and would become absorbed to a wonderful degree in his books."

The bent of his mind, so far as it was manifested at all, was in the direction of newspaper writing. In his graduation address, delivered in September, 1847, when he was in the eighteenth year of his age, he devoted himself to "The Duty of an Educated American." Texas had just been annexed to the United States, and gold had just been discovered in California. The budding young statesman said: "The sphere of labor for the educated American is continually enlarging. But recently we added the vast dominion of the Lone Star Republic to our glorious Union. The war to which that act gave rise is now in victorious progress, and will not end without another great accession to our territory, possibly carrying our flag beyond the Great American Desert to the shores of the Pacific sea. Where our armies march, population follows; and the full duty for the scholar is to be continental in ex

tent and as varied as the domains of a progressive civilization." It will be observed that the youthful orator took no part in the discussion that then raged among his elders as to the righteousness or injustice of the annexation of Texas and the war which it provoked.

After graduation, Blaine found employment as a professor of mathematics in a military school at Blue Lick Springs, Ky., where about two hundred young students, sons of the planters of the South, were pupils. These lads were of a class hard to govern, and early in his connection with the school there was a rebellion against the faculty. Some of the students attacked the professors with pistols and knives, but Blaine, who was conspicuous in this fight at the head of the faculty, used only his fists and arms, and his party finally triumphed in the fight, and Blaine won from the young Southerners more respect on account of his having been the hero of the struggle than if he had been only the accomplished professor that he was.

In the third year of his professorship at Blue Lick, having married Miss Harriet Stanwood, of Maine, he went to her native State, where he tarried for a time; then returned to Pennsylvania and taught in the Philadelphia Blind Asylum. But from 1854 onward he was wholly identified with Maine, having taken up his residence at Augusta, the capital of that State. He became part owner and editor-in-chief of the Kennebec Journal, and entered upon a career of active politics and journalism. It is interesting to note

here that early in his editorial work Blaine evinced his high admiration for Henry Clay, who, as everybody now knows, was the pattern and exemplar of the life and career of the future "Man from Maine." Blaine was always pleased when a parallel in his and Clay's public life was found, and he never disguised the ardent admiration which Clay's character and services inspired in him. In his newspaper, very soon. after he took charge of it, Blaine said: "As a speaker, Mr. Clay is very earnest and persuasive; not polished either in manner or diction, but still irresistibly pleasing. He speaks from the soul, and the moment you hear him you are assured that he gives utterance only to what he knows and feels to be the truth and the cause of human freedom."

Blaine's first public address was made with much diffidence, because he had not been successful as a debater in the literary society of his college, had had no experience, and was nervous and easily embarrassed, and his speech was hindered by a slight impediment. He had attended the first national convention of the Republican party, which was held at Philadelphia in 1856, and on his return he was asked to address a meeting of his fellow Republicans in Augusta, to tell them the story of the convention's doings. When he became accustomed to the sound of his voice, and the friendly audience before him encouraged him by their sympathetic applause, he was emboldened to make what was said to be a very creditable speech. A more important