liams, setting forth the amount of study I had done, and asking how long it would take me to finish their course. "These answers are now before me. All tell me I can graduate in two years. They are all brief, business notes, but President Hopkins concludes with this sentence: 'If you come here we shall be glad to do what we can for you.' Other things being so nearly equal, this sentence, which seems to be a kind of friendly grasp of the hand, has settled that question for me. I shall start for Williams next week." HIS THEATRE. CHAPTER VIII. LIFE AT WILLIAMS COLLEGE, HEALTH.-APPEARANCE OF THE HOOSAC VALLEY. THE SCENERY ABOUT WILLIAMS COLLEGE. THE GREAT NATURAL AMPHITHE MOUNTAINS IN OCTOBER. CHARACTER OF THE STUDENTS. GARFIELD'S HABITS AS A STUDENT.-ENTERS THE JUNIOR CLASS. HIS MODESTY. THE FRIENDSHIP OF PRESIDENT HOPKINS AND PROFESSOR CHADBOURNE. HIS TRUTHFULNESS AT COLLEGE. HIS GRADUATION. - HIS CLASS-MATES. -- THE three years of study at Hiram had not impaired young Garfield's health, and when, in September, 1854, at twenty-three years of age, he presented himself before the faculty at Williamstown College, for examination, he was a picture of health and strength. His broad shoulders, large face, bright blue eyes, high forehead, and brown hair were visible over the heads of many of his fellow students, and he was at once known among them as the “Ohio giant." He appears to have been delighted with the professors, with the locality in which the college was situated, and with the extended mountain scenery. In his letters to his friends in Ohio, he was quite enthusiastic in his descriptions of the men and the landscapes. In fact he had been especially favored during his school days in the natural scenery which surrounded academies and college. Williamstown is situated on the Hoosac river, and among the most majestic of those mountains of which the term "Berkshire Hills" is both belittling and misleading. The college building stands on the top of a natural eminence, overlooking a wide plain, which all around it stretches away to the distant, towering mountains, and reminds the traveler somewhat of the situation of Jerusalem, where the city itself is on a hill, with higher mountains all around looking down upon it. But the great natural amphitheatre, in which the college hill at Williamstown stands, is far more attractive, more extensive, more majestic. The lofty mountains appear to enclose the plain, with no opening apparent anywhere for the egress of the streams whose clear waters unite below the town, to form the Hoosac river. Extensive forests of neverfading green crown the mountains, while woodlands of maple, birch, beach, poplar, and ash, adorn the mountain sides and checker the valley. ་་ In October, and soon after the college term opened, the frost and sunlight combined to beautify the landscape, and nowhere in all the world can a more gorgeous scene be found than from the encircled plains of Williamstown, in the brilliant October days. The distant mountains, under their caps of green, are arrayed in all the varied hues and all the possible combinations and shades which the prism can show. A flowery landscape, as enchanting as the fabled beauty of the ancient vale of Cashmere. No one will obidea of its autumn splendor unless he sees tain any it for himself, nor believe the accurate descriptions of it until he visits the scene, and for himself "Sees old Hoosac on his throne, With hills of beauty gathered round." It is no overwrought figure which the Alumni of Williams use when they sing: "Dear Alma Mater, long as stand, Thy grateful children shall proclaim In every clime thy growing fame." Aside from its scenery, Williams College possessed various attractions for the young Ohio student, which caused him to select that college as the most desirable place to pursue his studies. The locality, the design of the founder and incorporators, the conservative character of the president, whose highest aim was to sustain a safe college, the class of students who frequented its halls, the absence of offensive, aristocratic and senseless snobs, and the quiet and honest habits of the little native community, made it a most appropriate and desirable institution for a self-made, country youth, like him. His modesty, his dislike for display, his indisposition to go anywhere or do anything for the name of it, and his desire to work undisturbed by outside attractions, as well as his limited means, combined to make congenial his opening days at Williams College. He was admitted, without question, to the Junior class, he having in three years' time, in the work of preparing for college and in the studies of the Freshman and Junior years, accomplished the usual work of six years. The achievement is made more astonishing by the large amount of other labor, physical and mental, which he performed during that period, in order to secure his board, clothing and tuition. men. He became at once a favorite of President Hopkins, and a close friend of Professor Chadbourne, who had been elected a professor one year before. It was a strong recommendation for young Garfield to have the esteem and love of two such remarkable Yet both those gifted scholars have kept him fresh in their memories, and both have watched his career with unabated interest. It was among such men that he made his closest friendship. Only thoughtful, studious, and earnest men would have seen anything attractive in him. His class-mates testify that his life was so retiring and his behavior so unostentatious, that he made no especial impression on their memories. He studied hard, often walked alone in the roads or fields, and attended to all his duties with quiet promptness. It was understood that he was to enter the ministry, and in his entire stay they saw nothing inconsistent with that profession. He took an especial interest in metaphysical studies, rhetoric, and debate, and was a leading mind among his class-mates on those topics. During his collegiate course he tried to secure small sums of money by teaching evening writing |