The now President of the United States.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3703, 6 November 1880, Page 2

The now President of the United States.

The following particulars are published respecting the life of the newlyelected President of the United States. He was born in November, 1831, at a small village called Orange, in the northeastern part of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, a village at that time of but a few score inhabitants. His parents were in too humble a position to provide him with anything more than a radinentary education, and at an early age he commenced the battle of life for himself in the position of a day labourer. After following this occupation {for some time became a driver, and then a boatman ob the Pennsylvania and Ohio Canal, and in 1849, with the object of improving bis education, attended an academy, and studied with such • success that the following winter he undertook the tewhing of a district school. Seven years later he had made such progress that he was appointed teacher of language in the Eclectic Institute of Hiram Ohio, the following year becoming president of that institution, which office he held till 1861. In the meantime, in 1850, he had been elected a member of the Senate of his native State, and in 1860 was admitted to the bar. An ardent supporter of the Union; aftar the War of Secession had commenced, he raised in th«#"S of 1861 the 43nd Begiment of Ohio Volunteers, of which he was made colonel,.and; despatched to Eastern Kentucky; where, with his own regiment, in conjunction with tnV^atH.QhiD B*g£— merit* he defeated Hnmpnrey Matthall. Mr Garfield further distinguished himself during the war, and was created MajorGeneral for gallant and meritorious services on the field of battle.

When General Garfield. wu elected Senator, President Hinsdale, in a speech to the students of Hiram College, gate a sketch of his life-and character, from which we extract a few passages:— President Hinsdale commenced by saying that Garfield, when a boy, was once the bellringer in the school, and afterwards its president. The speaker said,«— " He was born in the wodds or Ora'njp, Cuyahoga County, in 1831. His father" died when the son was a year and a half old. Abram Garfield'f circumstances rare those of his neighbors. Measured by o;r standard, they were all 1 poor; they lired on small farms for which they had gone iii debt, hoping to clear and pay for them by their toil. ■, Garfield dying, left his wife and feur jbung ohildren in 7 tb& condition that any one of his neighbours would haire been—poor. The family life before had been close and hard enough:; now it became closer and harder. GratyiH* Garfield, as some of us .familiarly called her, was a woman of unusual energy, fiakh and courage. She aaid .the children should not be separated, but kept together and that the home should be maintained as when its head, was tiring. The battle was a. hard one and shCiiroli.it/ All honor to her; but let us not make her ridiculous by inrenting impossible stories. To external appearance, young Gsrneld's life did ' not •„• differ materially from the life of the' neighbours' boys, fie chopped wood, and so did they; he 1 mowed, and so did they; he carried butter to the store in a little pail and so did they. Other families that bad not lost their heads naturally shot ahead of the Garfields in property, but suoh differences counted far less then than they do now. The traits of his maturer character appeared early; stadiottscttss, ' • truthfulness, generosity of natnre/ and mental Dower. Garfield is the man hfif. t because God gave him a noble endoiiujipt V: of faculties-that lie has nobly haadled. We must look within, and tiot withoat, for the secret of destiny. The dungs to look at in a man's life are his aspirations, his energy, his courage, his strength and will, and not the wood he may hare chopped or the salt he may hare boiled How a man works, and not what he does, is the test of worth."