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GARFIELD 
 
 ^bc Jbeal flDan 
 
 J. O. CONVERSE 
 
 CLEVELAND 
 W'lLLLAM W. WILEIAMS 
 
 1882 
 
'm: 
 
32. 
 
 GARFIELD 
 
 THE IDEAL MAN. 
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 Delivered before the Geauga County Teachers' Instkute, at 
 Burton Ohio, Wednesday evening, August 9, i. 
 and the Portage County Teachers' Institute, 
 at Ravenna, Ohio, Tuesday even- 
 ing, August 17, 1882. 
 
 J. O. CONVERSE, ^ 
 
 Editor of the Geauga kepublican, Chardon, Ohio. 
 
 CLEVELAND, O.: q 
 
 WILLIAM W\ WILLIAMS. ^^O^Vr 
 1882. 
 
E 4^ 
 
 1 
 
 C H 
 
 Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1882, 
 
 By J. O. CONVERSE, 
 in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
GARFIELD, THE IDEAL MAN. 
 
GARFIELD, THE IDEAL MAN. 
 
 Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen of the 
 Institute, Felloiv-eitizens : 
 
 The life of a truly great man, of world- 
 wide renown, passed into history is a 
 theme which, often as it may be presented 
 can never grow old ; and, if that life be one 
 of such noble achievement, and in which 
 centered such high hopes and grand possi- 
 bilities, as in that of James A. Garfield, 
 forever consecrated and enshrined by mar- 
 tyrdom, it will never cease to be of the 
 deepest and most tender interest. It is as 
 
6 GARFIELD, 
 
 an inexhaustible fountain, from which we 
 may ever draw fresh lessons of wisdom, 
 instruction, and inspiration. 
 
 It seems but yesterday since the fatal 
 deed was done which bereft us of that 
 precious life, and, amid the tears of mill- 
 ions, we bore our murdered President to 
 his resting-place at Lake View, and we 
 have scarcely yet emerged from the shadow 
 of that great cloud of sorrow which so sud- 
 denly spread like a pall over the Nation ; 
 but, as it is slowly passing, we may begin 
 to discern its silver lining, as we trace, 
 though dimly as yet, the outlines of the 
 earthly career of him whose loss we all so 
 deeply deplore. 
 
 It is profitable, as well as consoling, now 
 to reflect that great characters and lives, 
 whatever may befall their possessors, are 
 not accidents, nor do great afflictions 
 spring from the ground. To borrow a 
 spray from the departed, who is yet present 
 
THE IDEAL MAN. J 
 
 with US, and who, though dead, yet speak- 
 eth, in so many beautiful, comforting, and 
 inspiring words that will live: **It is one of 
 the precious mysteries of sorrow that it 
 finds solace in unselfish thought. " Never so 
 
 "Sweet are the uses of adversity" 
 
 as when they teach us to find, even in our be- 
 reavements and losses, the sources of higher 
 instruction and greater blessing, if we but 
 view them aright. And what is true of in- 
 dividuals is equally true of a Nation. 
 When bowed in grief by some terrible visi- 
 tation, like the taking off of a Lincoln or a 
 Garfield, it is hard at first to realize how any 
 good can come out of it ; but when, in 
 calmer retrospect, we read the lesson of the 
 great martyr's life, we know he has not 
 lived or died in vain, and are lifted up and 
 ennobled thereby. 
 
 I approach my theme with diffidence, 
 and touch it only because my heart is full 
 of it. We are yet too near to comprehend 
 
8 GARFIELD, 
 
 its full import. As with great objects in 
 nature, so with great men, it is only in the 
 distance that their grandeur fully appears. 
 ''No pageof human history, " said Garfield, 
 " is so instructive and significant as the record 
 of those early influences which develop the 
 character and direct the hves of eminent 
 men." I can do little more than speak of 
 him as seen from my own standpoint, as 
 his humble friend. What was he ? What 
 were the elements of his character? What 
 was the secret of his success? What were 
 the leading motives of his action? What 
 the sources of the majestic current of his 
 great life? 
 
 Were I to describe Garfield in a single 
 sentence, as he seemed to me, I would say 
 he was The Ideal Man. If, as he believed, 
 "every character is the joint product of 
 nature and nurture," then surely no man 
 was ever more highly favored by these two 
 creative forces. Every man of real, native 
 
THE IDEAL MAN. 9 
 
 Strength and genuine worth, though he 
 may not measure them, is conscious — and 
 it is no egotism for him thus to be con- 
 scious — of the existence of his own pecul- 
 iar powers as well as weaknesses. He 
 must, to that extent at least, know himself. 
 That Garfield was not wanting in this self- 
 consciousness is evident from his own declar- 
 ation that, "to every man of great original 
 power, there comes, in early youth, a mo- 
 ment of sudden discovery — of self-recogni- 
 tion — when his own nature is revealed to 
 himself, when he catches, for the first time, 
 a strain of that immortal song to which his 
 own spirit answers, and which becomes 
 thenceforth and forever the inspiration of 
 his life, 
 
 " Like noble music unto noble words." 
 
 To learn, then, how to estimate the char- 
 acter of a man like Garfield, we should ac- 
 quaint ourselves as nearly as possible with 
 those elements in him which seem most to 
 
10 GARFIELD, 
 
 be the conscious inner springs of all his 
 thought and action. And in so far as these 
 revealed themselves in his character and life, 
 they proclaimed him what I believe he would 
 have most liked to be regarded, The Ideal 
 Man. Not a perfect man, for none are per- 
 fect, none without human imperfections and 
 defects ; not an idealist, in the sense of being 
 a visionary dreamer or Utopian transcendent- 
 alist, for nothing could be more foreign to 
 his nature ; but, more accurately speaking, 
 pre-eminently 3.man of ideals ; one who, in 
 the grandest and noblest sense, ever strove 
 to make real the ideal in every field of labor, 
 and in every walk of life, from the hum- 
 blest and most obscure to the most exalted 
 and distinguished. From the smallest be- 
 ginning to the culmination of his marvelous 
 career, we find every effort prompted, every 
 achievement gauged and measured, by some 
 lofty ideal. Accordingly, he had no faith 
 in luck, but unbounded faith in patient, 
 
THE IDEAL MAN. I I 
 
 persistent, intelligent industry, which he 
 expressed in the homely but true proverb, 
 "A pound of pluck is worth a ton of 
 luck. " ' * Luck, " said he, " is an ignis fat- 
 uus. You may follow it to ruin, but 
 never to success." And of like. import are 
 these sayings: "Things don't turn up in 
 this world until somebody turns them up." 
 "Young men talk of trusting to the spur 
 of the occasion. That trust is vain. Oc- 
 casions cannot make spurs. If you expect 
 to wear spurs, you must win them. If you 
 wish to use them, you must buckle them 
 to your own heels before you go into the 
 fight." " Occasion may be the bugle-call 
 that summons to battle, but the blast of a 
 bu^le can never make soldiers or win vie- 
 tories. " "Growth is better than perma- 
 nence, and permanent growth is better than 
 all. " * ' For the noblest man that lives there 
 still remains a conflict." " I am more than 
 ever convinced," said he, in a conver- 
 
12 GARFIELD, 
 
 sation at my house, but a year or two 
 before his death, ''that, other things being 
 equal, the great differences . between men 
 are, after all, in their relative capacities for 
 hard work." In saying, " If you are not 
 too large for the place, you are too small 
 for it," he was but expressing in other 
 words the thought that every man should 
 ever keep before him some grand ideal, be- 
 yond his present attainment, in every 
 sphere of duty and endeavor. With a life 
 molded and fashioned by such high and 
 noble conceptions, he was of necessity an 
 ideal boy, an ideal scholar, an ideal soldier, 
 an ideal statesman, an ideal friend, husband, 
 father, man. To him even the Presidency, 
 a prize so many inferior men have vainly 
 coveted, though the free gift of a great 
 people, came too soon. "This honor," he 
 remarked at the Williams Class dinner in 
 Washington, on the day before his inaugu- 
 ration, ' * comes to me unsought. I have 
 
THE IDEAL MAN. I 3 
 
 never had the Presidential fever, not even 
 for a day, nor have I it to-night. I have 
 no feeHng of elation in view of the position 
 I am called upon to fill. I Avould thank 
 God were I to-day a free lance in the House 
 or the Senate. But it is not to be, and I 
 will go forward to meet the responsibilities 
 and discharge the duties that are before me 
 with all the firmness and ability I can com- 
 mand." But he was not unambitious. He 
 may have thought of the Presidency as an 
 honor not to be prematurely grasped, but 
 to be gratefully accepted when it should 
 come to him at last, in the fulness of time, 
 when his labors and triumphs in other fields 
 should be complete, as the ideal crown of a 
 well-rounded life of devotion to the public 
 service. He would have made an ideal 
 Senator, and to forego his natural desire, 
 seemingly about to be realized, to enter the 
 Senatorial arena after graduation from the 
 House, even with the Presidency in view. 
 
14 GARFIELD, 
 
 was like missing an essential link in the 
 chain of an ideal ambition. Knowing him, 
 and remembering the early promise of his 
 administration, can we doubt that, had he 
 lived, he would have proved an ideal Pres- 
 ident? 
 
 The scope of a lecture like this will per- 
 mit but a glance at a few of the many 
 branches of the life of Garfield in which he 
 may be said to have realized in greater or 
 less degree his own ideals. And, first, we 
 will view him as The Ideal Teacher. I use 
 this term not in a restricted or technical, 
 but in the broadest and most comprehen- 
 sive sense, as implying all that is expressed 
 in the terms educator and scholar. We 
 have reason to. believe that no other period 
 in this life was so full of interest to him, or 
 regarded by him with so much satisfaction, 
 as that in which he was known only as a 
 scholar or teacher. 
 
 Emerson says, in his lecture on "The 
 
THE IDEAL MAN. I 5 
 
 American Scholar," that *'it is one of those 
 fables which, out of an unknown antiquity, 
 convey an unlooked for wisdom, that the 
 gods, in the beginning, divided man into 
 men, that he might be more helpful to him- 
 self; just as the hand was divided into 
 fingers, the better to answer its end. The 
 old fable," he avers, ** covers a doctrine ever 
 new and sublime ; that there is one man, — 
 present to all particular men only partially, 
 or through one faculty; and that you must 
 take the whole society to find the whole 
 man. Man is not a farmer, or a professor, 
 or an engineer, but he is all. Man is priest, 
 and scholar, and statesman, and producer, 
 and soldier. In the divided or social state, 
 these functions are parceled out to indi- 
 viduals, each of whom aims to do his stint 
 of the joint work, whilst each other performs 
 his." 
 
 "In this distribution of functions the 
 scholar is the delegated intellect. In the 
 
10 GARFIELD, 
 
 right State he is Man Thinking. In the de- 
 generate state, when the victim of society, 
 he tends to become a mere thinker, or, 
 still worsCj the parrot of other men's think- 
 ing." 
 
 Though some may hesitate to accept 
 this definition to the fullest extent,- all must 
 admit that, on the whole, Garfield, in the 
 character of his mental processes, in the 
 depth and breadth of his culture, and in the 
 quality and variety of his gifts and achieve- 
 ments, realized more nearly than any other 
 man of his time, the Emersonian ideal of 
 the American scholar — Man Thinking. 
 When in the maturity of his 'powers and at 
 the height of his usefulness and fame, we 
 could hardly think of him as a scholar, for, 
 though we recognized his rare acquire- 
 ments, they seemed never prominent save 
 as an element in that complete, symmetrical 
 manhood of which he was so splendid an 
 embodiment and type. The most perfect 
 
THE IDEAL MAN. 1/ 
 
 results are attained only when we are un- 
 conscious of the skill or ability in any 
 particular department they require, and 
 affected only by their influence. The most 
 eloquent orator does not impress us with 
 the thought that he is eloquent, but his 
 eloquence, like a subtle, all-powerful influ- 
 ence, moves and thrills us, we know not 
 why. And so of the true scholar. Garfield 
 was so much more than an ordinary scholar 
 — so utterly devoid of everything resem- 
 bling pedantry — that, while he gave us so 
 abundantly of his unfailing mental re- 
 sources, we received his gifts, like the air 
 and light of heaven, unconscious of their 
 presence. 
 
 In seeking for the elements which made 
 Garfield the Ideal Teacher, let us first in- 
 quire how he was regarded by those with 
 whom he was earliest, longest, and most 
 intimately associated in the same field 
 of labor and pursuit, — who drank with 
 
1 8 GARFIELD, 
 
 him the earhest and richest draughts from 
 the fountain of knowledge. And here we 
 find but one unvarying testimony : that he 
 was, first and foremost of all, an ideal stu- 
 dent. Garfield recognized the fact that he 
 who would govern must first learn to obey; 
 he who would be a successful teacher must 
 prove himself capable and worthy by being 
 a patient, industrious, and faithful pupil. I 
 quote from President Hinsdale's "Hiram 
 College Memorial," as follows: 
 
 "President H. W. P^verest, of Butler 
 University, Indiana, who was a student 
 with Garfield in Chester, as well as a student 
 and teacher with him in Hiram, thus speaks 
 in a late private communication: 
 
 " *I met him first at Chester. Rooming 
 in the same building, and working for a 
 while at the same carpenter's bench, we 
 soon became intimate. He was a notice- 
 able student, both on the play-ground and 
 in the class-room. We recited Robinson's 
 
THE IDEAL MAN. 1 9 
 
 algebra together, and belonged to a literary 
 society of our own getting-up, called the 
 "Mystic Ten." At Hiram I was not 
 classed with him, yet knew much of him 
 as a student, but more of him as a teacher. 
 My estimate is briefly as follows ; and for 
 many of the items I remember distinct 
 illustrations: 
 
 "'I. His intellections were clear, vig- 
 orous, and easy in all directions, but espe- 
 cially so in the languages. 
 
 " ' 2. He did not study merely to recite 
 well, but to knozv, and for the pleasure of 
 learning and knowing. 
 
 " ' 3. It was his main object to master 
 the thought, but the language was retained 
 with the thought. 
 
 " ' 4. As study was the easy play of his 
 mind, so to recount and review his lessons 
 and reading was a frequent pleasure. 
 
 '''5. He was a master at condensed 
 classifications, so that his memory easily 
 
20 GARFIELD, 
 
 held and reproduced what he had learned. 
 
 '''6. He had a wide-awake curiosity, 
 which seemed never to be satiated. A new 
 thing, however unimportant, always at- 
 tracted his attention. 
 
 " ' 7. He had a great desire and settled 
 purpose to conquer, to master the lesson, 
 to prove superior to every difficulty, to 
 excel all competitors, to conquer and sur- 
 pass himself. 
 
 " * 8. With this desire to conquer, there 
 was found the most generous and exultant 
 admiration at the success of another. 
 
 "'9. Over all his study he shed the 
 glory of a happy disposition — of youth, 
 hope, and manly courage.' 
 
 "All these points," remarks President 
 Hinsdale, **are well taken, but several of 
 them deserve especial emphasis. He stud- 
 ied to know, and for the pleasure of learn- 
 ing and knowing. With this may be con- 
 nected President Everest's seventh point, 
 
THE IDEAL MAN. 21 
 
 Garfield's settled purpose to conquer, to 
 prove superior to every difficulty. His love 
 of victory, over men or things, was the 
 strongest ; but it was a love born of the 
 noblest elements. He took no pleasure in 
 a merely personal triumph ; but a triumph 
 that was a test of honorable superiority, he 
 keenly enjoyed. Here, too, may be men- 
 tioned his full appreciation and generous 
 recognition of all men, even though compet- 
 itors or opponents. His determination to 
 master whatever he undertook, especially 
 to subdue his own nature, is well illustrated 
 by an anecdote. Sitting on a log in the 
 edge of the woods, back of the college 
 building in Hiram, he once said to the 
 companion of his walk : ' I have made a 
 painful discovery. I have found that my 
 mind needs interest in a subject to incite 
 it to continuous action. The other day I 
 tried to read through a long bill in which 
 I had no interest ; it was merel}' my duty to 
 
22 GARFIELD, 
 
 read it. My attention wandered, thus 
 revealing a defect in my training. If I 
 cannot otherwise overcome this defect,' he 
 said, ' I will give up my work, renounce 
 public life, go to Germany, and take a full 
 course in one of the universities. I must 
 be full master of my powers at any cost. ' 
 
 "At this time he had been in Congress 
 several years." 
 
 Years after Garfield had ceased to teach, 
 and when he had already acquired a na- 
 tional reputation as a statesman (to further 
 quote from the same work), he one day 
 gave a lecture to the teachers' class in 
 Hiram College, in which he related the fol- 
 lowing anecdote, characteristic of himself 
 in this early yet important period of his life: 
 
 ' ' When I first taught a district school, I 
 formed and carried out this plan : After I 
 had gone to bed at night, I threw back the 
 bedclothes from one side of the bed. Then 
 I smoothed out the sheet with my hand. 
 
THE IDEAL MAN. 25. 
 
 Next, I mentally constructed on this smooth 
 surface my school-room. First I drew the 
 aisles, here I put the stove, there the teach- 
 er's desk, in this place the water-pail and 
 cup, in that the open space at the head of 
 the room. Then I put in the seats, and 
 placed the scholars upon them in their 
 proper order. I said here is John, with 
 Samuel by his side ; there Jane and Eliza, 
 and so on, until they were all placed. 
 Then I took them, up in order, beginning 
 next my desk, in this manner: This is 
 Johnny Smith. What kind of a boy is he ? 
 What is his mind, and what his temper ? 
 How is he doing? What is he now as 
 compared with a week ago ? Can I do any- 
 thing more for him ? And so I went on 
 from seat to seat, and from pupil to pupil, 
 until I had made the circuit of the room. 
 I found this study and review of my pupils 
 of great benefit to them and to me. 
 Besides, my ideal construction, made on 
 
24 GARFIELD, 
 
 the bed-sheet in the dark, aided me mate- 
 rially in the work." 
 
 To President Everest's analysis of Gar- 
 field's character as a student, I here add his 
 analysis of his character as a teacher : 
 
 "I. He was always clear and certain. 
 
 '* 2. He impressed the main things, but 
 passed perhaps too lightly over the subor- 
 dinate portions. 
 
 " 3. He had rare ability at illustration. 
 
 '* 4. He gave more attention to the boy 
 than to the book. He strove to develop 
 the student, not the lesson or science. 
 
 "5. He was abundant in praise of suc- 
 cess, but sparing of blame. 
 
 "6. He inspired his students with a 
 spirit of investigation and conquest. 
 
 *'/. By frequent and rapid reviews he 
 kept the whole work in hand, and gave it 
 completeness." 
 
 Among the peculiar qualifications of Gar- 
 field as a teacher, I would name the power 
 
THE IDEAL MAN. 25 
 
 of self-control ; he was ever master of him- 
 self. And not the least of his qualifications 
 was his generous and sensitive appreciation 
 of the needs and possibilities of those 
 under his charge — a qualification every 
 teacher ought to possess, and in which he 
 was certainly unsurpassed, if not un- 
 equalled. It was this, joined with other 
 qualities, that gave him the tact to meet all 
 emergencies that might arise, and turn them 
 to the best account for the good of the 
 individual scholar and the interest of the 
 school. In the spirit of the ideal teacher, 
 as well as of the philosopher, patriot, and 
 philanthropist that he was, he could say in 
 his address on The Elements of Success : 
 
 ** I feel a profounder reverence for a boy 
 than for a man. I never meet a ragged 
 boy on the street without feeling that I may 
 owe him a salute, for I know not what pos- 
 sibilities may be buttoned up under his 
 shabby coat. When I meet you in the full 
 
26 GARFIELD, 
 
 flush of mature life, I see nearly all there is 
 of you ; but among these boys are the 
 great men of the future, — the heroes of the 
 next generation, the philosophers, the 
 statesmen, the philanthropists, the great re- 
 formers and molders of the next age. 
 Therefore, I say, there is a peculiar charm 
 to me in the exhibitions of young people 
 engaged in the business of education." 
 
 In estimating Garfield's service in the 
 cause of education, we are not limited to 
 that period of his life in which he was 
 known and recognized merely as a student 
 or teacher, rich and fruitful as it was in its 
 wealth of intellectual and moral resources, 
 — but the same characteristics were mani- 
 fested alike in the school-room, the pulpit, 
 and the forum. Since to educate, and be 
 educated, was to him the business of life, 
 he was never content with present attain- 
 ments or old methods, and his constant 
 plea was for a higher and more practical 
 
THE IDEAL MAN. 2J 
 
 education. *'The old necessities," he de- 
 clared, ' ' have passed away. We now have 
 strong and noble languages ; rich in litera- 
 ture, replete with high and earnest thought, 
 the language of religion, science, and liber- 
 ty ; and yet we bid our children feed their 
 spirits on the life of the dead ages, instead 
 of the inspiring life and vigor of our own 
 times. I do not object to classical learning 
 — far from it — but I would not have it ex- 
 clude the living present." Accordingly, he 
 did not leave his character as a teacher be- 
 hind him when he entered Congress, but 
 there gave to the country the ripe fruit of 
 his thought and experience as an educator 
 in such exhaustive and unanswerable 
 speeches, and well-matured and beneficent 
 laws, for the promotion of National educa- 
 tion, as had never before emanated from the 
 mind and heart of any American states- 
 man. He believed (to use his own words) 
 that ''the intellectual resources of this 
 
28 GARFIELD, 
 
 country are the elements that he behind all 
 material wealth, and make it either a curse 
 or a blessing;" and, so believing, "I in- 
 sist," said he, '* that it should be made an 
 indispensable condition of graduation in 
 every American college [as our legislators 
 are at last coming to regard it as an essen- 
 tial qualification in a school-teacher], that 
 the student must understand the history of 
 this continent since its discovery by Euro- 
 peans, the origin and history of the United 
 States, its constitution of government, the 
 struggles through which it has passed, and 
 the rights and duties of citizens who are to 
 determine its destiny and share its glory." 
 Sufficient importance has never been 
 attached to the fact that Garfield was the 
 author of the bill for the establishment of 
 a National Bureau of Education, which be- 
 came a law in 1867, and, although it met 
 with much unwise opposition, and was sub- 
 sequently reduced to a bureau in the De- 
 
THE IDEAL MAN. 29 
 
 partment of the Interior, it will stand as a 
 monument to his far-seeing statesmanship 
 long after the smaller schemes that now 
 engross the attention of politicians and 
 divide the people into parties and factions, 
 shall have been forgotten. He was also 
 the author of that section of the Revised 
 Statutes of the United States which pro- 
 vides for Army Post Schools, — a measure 
 from which, if carried out as it should be, 
 untold benefits may be expected to follow. 
 Besides being the author of both these 
 measures, he was a most earnest, persistent, 
 and eloquent supporter of every scheme 
 for advancing the just claims upon the Gov- 
 ernment, of education, science, and relig- 
 ion. "The children of to-day," said Gar- 
 field, ''will be the architects of our 
 country's destiny in 1900;" and "school- 
 houses are less expensive than rebellions." 
 In his speech in favor of his bill for the 
 establishment of a National Bureau of Edu- 
 
30 GARFIELD, 
 
 cation, he made the humihating statement 
 that, " if we inquire what has been done 
 by the Governments of other countries to 
 support and advance pubHc education, we 
 are compelled to confess with shame that 
 every Government in Christendom has 
 given more intelligent and effective support 
 to schools than has our own." This he 
 supported by ample authorities and statis- 
 tics, showing especially the condition of 
 education under the leading Governments 
 of Europe. He stated that "teaching is 
 one of the regular professions in France; 
 and the Government' offers prizes, and 
 bestows honors upon the successful instruc- 
 tor of children. . . . After a long and 
 faithful service in his profession, the teacher 
 is retired on half-pay, and, if broken down 
 in health, is pensioned for life." Contrast 
 this with the short-sighted and illiberal 
 policy too often pursued in this boasted 
 land of free schools, w4iere, as Garfield 
 
THE IDEAL MAN. 3 I 
 
 conclusively showed in • the speech from 
 which I quote, an enlightened and generous 
 policy is more essential than in any other; 
 for here, to use his own forcible language, 
 "The alternatives are, not education or no 
 education ; but shall the power of the citi- 
 zen be directed aright toward industry, lib- 
 erty, and patriotism ? or, under the baneful 
 influence of false theories and evil influ- 
 ences, shall it lead him continually down- 
 ward, and work out anarchy and ruin, both 
 to him and the Government?" "Liberty," 
 in the calm, philosophic view of a Garfield, 
 " can be safe only when suffrage is illumined 
 by education," for "the life and light of 
 a Nation are inseparable." 
 
 I have only to add of Garfield as the 
 Ideal Teacher, that he never ceased to be a 
 student, nor to learn from all sources, 
 — books, or nature, or men — even the hum- 
 blest and most obscure. 
 
 Early transferred from the school room 
 
32 GARFIELD, 
 
 and the forum to the field, at the call of his 
 country, which was to him as the voice of 
 God, Garfield could not but make The Ideal 
 Soldier. The quality or value of his service 
 in the war for the Union is not to be meas- 
 ured by the period of its duration, though 
 long enough to include Middle Creek, and 
 Shiloh, and Corinth, and Chickamauga; nor 
 by the rank he held, or the numbers he 
 commanded, though, in scarcely more than 
 a year, he was successively Lieutenant- 
 Colonel, Colonel, Brigadier-General, Chief- 
 of-Staff, and Major-General, and though he 
 showed himself a master spirit at a most 
 important and critical period of the con- 
 flict; but by the same grand conceptions 
 of the meaning and issues of war and peace 
 that made him elsewhere the ideal teacher 
 and statesman. It was true of our late 
 war, as of no other great conflict in the 
 world's history, that it developed the sub- 
 limest courage and devotion in the purest 
 
THE IDEAL MAN. 33 
 
 and most peaceful walks of life, and, when 
 it was ended, left fewer traces than any 
 other of like magnitude, of violence and 
 demoralization. As a rule, our soldiers went 
 forth to battle from no love of arms, but 
 from an imperative sense of patriotic duty, 
 and those who survived returned to their 
 homes and their former pursuits, to mingle 
 again with the mass of their countrymen, and 
 prove themselves as worthy and exemplary 
 in peace as they had been loyal and valiant 
 in war. And, in such a conflict, I repeat, 
 Garfield could not but be the ideal soldier. 
 "Ideas," said he, "are the great war- 
 riors of the world, and a war that has no 
 ideas behind it is simply brutality." He 
 fitly described his own ideal of a battle 
 when, in his oration on General George H. 
 Thomas, he said of that noble soldier: 
 ' ' To him a battle was neither an earth- 
 quake, nor a volcano, nor a chaos of brave 
 men and frantic horses involved in vast 
 
34 GARFIELD, 
 
 explosions of gunpowder. It was rather a 
 calm, rational combination of force against 
 force." "Think," he exclaimed, in address- 
 ing the Boys in Blue in New York, during 
 the campaign of 1880, " think of the great 
 elevating spirit of war itself. We gathered 
 the boys from all our farms, and shops, and 
 stores, and schools, and homes, from all 
 over the Republic, and they went forth 
 unknown to fame, but returned enrolled on 
 the roster of immortal heroes." Philoso- 
 pher as well as soldier, he realized that 
 "after the battle of arms comes the battle 
 of history," and that "victory is worth 
 nothing except for the fruits that are 
 under it, in it, and above it." Of the 
 fruits of such a war as the one in which 
 he drew his sword, he thus eloquently 
 spoke on Decoration Day, May 30th, 
 1868, at Arlington, where, with thoughts 
 of his country " redeemed, regenerated, 
 and disenthralled." he stood "beside the 
 
THE IDEAL MAN. 35 
 
 graves of fifteen thousand men, whose Hves 
 were more significant than speech, and 
 whose death was a poem, the music of 
 which can never be sung : " " This arena of 
 rebelhon and slavery is a scene of violence 
 and crime no longer. This will be forever 
 the sacred mountain of our capital. Here 
 is our temple ; its pavement is the sepul- 
 chre of heroic hearts ; its dome, the bend- 
 ing heaven ; its altar candles, the watching 
 stars." With unwavering faith in the prom- 
 ise of the Right, he could "look forward 
 with joy and hope to the day when our 
 brave people, one in heart, one in their 
 aspirations for freedom and peace, shall see 
 that the darkness through which we have 
 traveled was but a part of that stern but 
 beneficent discipline by which the great Dis- 
 poser of events has been leading us on to 
 a higher and nobler National life." 
 
 Summoned by the voice of the people 
 from the school-room to the service of his 
 
36 GARFIELD, 
 
 State, and thence by the call of his country 
 to the field of duty and of glory, Garfield 
 was soon recalled to enter upon that 
 more distinguished career of statesmanship 
 which, extending through nearly two dec- 
 ades of almost uninterrupted successes, 
 was to culminate in his promotion to the 
 most exalted station in the gift of any peo- 
 ple, and be crowned at last with an im- 
 mortality of fame. Is it too much to say 
 in this presence, and with his life and 
 martyrdom still fresh in all minds and 
 hearts, that Garfield had earned his right 
 to be called TJie Ideal Statesman ? Where 
 else in all our history as a Nation, shall our 
 ideal be realized, if not in him, whose life 
 was so complete and full of meaning? 
 What, then, were the elements in the char- 
 acter of the ideal statesman, that Garfield 
 exemplified in his career ? These, namely : 
 He should be a man of broad and liberal 
 culture, honest purpose, catholic spirit, and 
 
THE IDEAL MAN. 37 
 
 untiring industry, thoroughly conversant 
 with the history, wants, resources, and 
 possibiUties of the country, and the ivholc 
 country. Loving his country and race, he 
 should be a patriot in the broadest, best, 
 and noblest sense, which would make him 
 a philanthropist as well, and, though of 
 necessity a strong party man where parties 
 are representative of great principles and 
 policies, never giving to party what (was 
 meant for his country or mankind. To 
 him "Partisanship is opinion crystallized,— 
 party organizations are the scaffoldings 
 whereon citizens stand while they build up 
 the wall of their national temple." He 
 should, moreover, be, what the mere poli- 
 tician unfortunately is not always, a man of 
 deep, earnest, and abiding convictions upon 
 all questions vitally affecting the moral wel- 
 fare of the people, and possessing the cour- 
 age thereof, to boldly avow them, when to 
 do so would be to incur the danger of 
 
38 GARFIELD, 
 
 differing from the majority of his party, or 
 being misunderstood by his friends, — be- 
 heving that, in the end, "the men who 
 succeed best in pubHc Hfe are those who 
 take the risk of standing by their own con- 
 victions." And, finally, as the crowning 
 glory of all, he should be a Christian gentle- 
 man. "This public life," wrote Garfield, 
 " is a weary, wearing one, that leaves one 
 but little time for that quiet reflection which 
 is so necessary to keep up a growth and 
 vigor of Christian character. But I hope 
 I have lost none of my desire to be a true 
 man, and keep ever before me the charac- 
 ter of the great Nazarene. " All these 
 essentials of the ideal statesman were found 
 in Garfield, and it was because he possessed 
 them in such an eminent degree, and so 
 harmoniously blended in his grand and 
 symmetrical character, that smaller men 
 sometimes failed to comprehend, and were 
 even inclined to criticise and disparage 
 
THE IDEAL MAN. 39 
 
 him. The noblest elements of his great- 
 ness were at times mistaken for weaknesses. 
 He was too honorable ever, for the sake of 
 a temporary advantage, to misstate the 
 position of an opponent, but, on the con- 
 trary, he would disarm criticism and give 
 proof of the consciousness of his own 
 strength by stating it more fully and accu- 
 rately than he could do it himself. He would 
 never compromise the proprieties of debate 
 or lower the ideal standard of parliament- 
 ary dignity to win a cheap reputation for 
 personal courage. If he ever seemed to 
 modify a statement in debate, it was of his 
 own position, and not of another's, and 
 from magnanimity, and not from fear. No 
 braver soul ever lived. His ideal of states- 
 man-like courage was the true Shaksperean 
 one : 
 
 " I dcare do all that may become a man; 
 Who dares do more is none." 
 
 Like the memorable sentiment of Henry 
 
40 GARFIELD, 
 
 Clay, **I would rather be right than be 
 President," is this of Garfield: "I would 
 rather be beaten in Right than succeed in 
 Wrong." ''There are some things," said 
 he in a speech at Cleveland, "I am afraid 
 to do ; I confess it in this great presence : I 
 am afraid to do a mean thing." And no 
 braver or more sublime utterance ever 
 came from the lips of a Christian statesman 
 than, when a candidate for the Presidency, 
 he said at Chautauqua: "I would rather 
 be defeated than make capital out of my 
 religion." He could indorse no such motto 
 as "Everything is fair in politics;" but 
 public and private honor and virtue were 
 alike, to him," dear as the apple of his eye.'' 
 I can never forget how, in the conversation 
 at my house, to which I have before alluded, 
 he emphasized the necessity of maintaining 
 the National credit. He said he had often 
 been reminded, during the contests over the 
 currency, of the pious exhortation heard at 
 
THE IDEAL MAN. 4 1 
 
 religious meetings, to stand up for Jesus, 
 Then, rising with his thought, as he often 
 would in private conversation, as well as 
 public speech, and with that peculiar ges- 
 ture of his strong, uplifted arm, so familiar 
 to those who knew him, he added : "The 
 public credit is the Jesus of our political 
 faith;" — a sentiment as noble as it was 
 characteristic of this ideal statesman. " Let 
 us," said he, in a speech on the financial 
 situation, "have equality of dollars before 
 the law, so that the trinity of our political 
 creed shall be equal States, equal men and 
 equal dollars throughout the Union." 
 
 Having profoundly studied the problem 
 of free government, Garfield well under- 
 stood all the conditions of our National 
 existence. He saw that greater liberty 
 involved greater responsibility to the indi- 
 vidual citizen — the unit of power in the 
 Republic — and that wealth, extension of 
 territory and increase of population, with- 
 
42 GARFIELD, 
 
 out corresponding patriotism, intelligence 
 and virtue, would but augment the perils of 
 our institutions. It is not surprising, there- 
 fore, that the famous prediction by Macau- 
 lay, of the ultimate failure of our Constitu- 
 tion, as one "all sail and no anchor," 
 should have weighed upon his mind, and 
 been more than once quoted in his 
 addresses. It was to him, as to every 
 thoughtful American, like an alarm-bell in 
 the night. But his unswerving fidelity 
 alike to his country and his ideal, con- 
 strained him to answer the great English- 
 man : " We point to the fact, that in this 
 country we have no classes in the British 
 sense of the word — no impassable barriers 
 of caste. Now that slavery is abolished, 
 we can truly say that through our political 
 society there run no fixed horizontal strata 
 through which none can pass upward. Our 
 society resembles rather the waves of the 
 ocean, whose every drop may move freely 
 
THE IDEAL MAN. 43 
 
 among its fellows, and may rise toward the 
 light until it flashes on the crest of the 
 highest wave." 
 
 The Hon. A. G. Riddle, in his admirable 
 analysis of Garfield's character and life, 
 which his great friend declared was to him- 
 self "a revelation," written while he was 
 yet a member of the House, asks and well 
 answers these among other questions : 
 "Why don't he lead his party in the 
 House? Long service, rare ability, com- 
 plete mastery of all the essentials— position 
 included— quickness, temper, personal bear- 
 ing, absence of enmities, all unite. The 
 reins train carelessly through the hall, are 
 thrown over his desk repeatedly, are some- 
 times in his hands, and admirably used on 
 occasion. Why don't he take them firmly 
 as his, assert himself, be the man he is, and 
 make the most of it? " The answer Mr. 
 Riddle finds in his lack of egoism, or self- 
 seeking. There is also, in my judgment, 
 
44 GARFIELD, 
 
 another answer. A man so royally en- 
 dowed, so richly and variously cultured, so 
 broad, so magnanimous, so philosophical, 
 could never be a mere parliamentarian, or 
 dashing gladiator in the arena of debate; and 
 accordingly, on the higher plane whereon 
 he moved so grandly, though an acknowl- 
 edged leader, he always led the tJioiight 
 rather than the tactics of the House, and 
 this was, to him, an ideal leadership. At 
 the same time, he gave the most thorough 
 and careful attention to the minutest de- 
 tails of every question which came before 
 Congress. A noteworthy example of this, 
 as well as of his comprehensive statesman- 
 ship, is to be found in the act under which 
 the census of 1880 was taken, which is sub- 
 stantially the same as the bill introduced 
 and advocated by him for the basis of the 
 census of 1870, and which then passed the 
 House but failed in the Senate. He 
 believed that a census should not be a mere 
 
THE IDEAL MAN. 45 
 
 compendium of barren figures, but that it 
 should exhibit as fully as possible the life, 
 the progress, and the resources of the peo- 
 ple. In a speech in the House, February 
 i8th, 1879, in advocacy of this bill, he said: 
 *'Ifwe had the power to photograph the 
 American people in one second, all in one 
 picture, and get all the conditions that the 
 inquiries of the census could give us all at 
 once, as through a telephone, and have it 
 all recorded, it would be the ideal perfect 
 census." 
 
 My theme expands as I go forward, and 
 I must end as I began. To define in a sin- 
 gle sentence all the greatness of Garfield, 
 he was The Ideal Man. Strength, symme- 
 try, completeness, are words descriptive of 
 the magnificent structure of his ideal man- 
 hood. He was brave, yet considerate and 
 forbearing; conservative, without weakness 
 or compromise ; ambitious, without selfish- 
 ness or dishonor. Barring all that was 
 
46 GARFIELD, 
 
 unworthy, we might apply to him as most 
 fitting, all the eulogium pronounced by 
 Antony upon Brutus: 
 
 " This was the noblest Roman of them all ; 
 All the conspirators, save only he, 
 Did that they did in envy of great Caesar ; 
 He, only, in a general honest thought, 
 And common good of all, made one of them. 
 His life was gentle ; and the elements 
 So mix'd in him, that Nature might stand up 
 And say to all the world. This was a man ! " 
 
 Living or dying, two things Garfield ever 
 aimed to win and merit : his own self- 
 respect and the smile of God. As he re- 
 marked in his speech before the Ohio 
 Legislature accepting his election as Sena- 
 tor, '' I have represented for many years a 
 district in Congress whose approbation I 
 greatly desired ; but, though it may seem, 
 perhaps, a little egotistical to say it, I yet 
 desired still more the approbation of one 
 person, and his name is Garfield. He is 
 the only man that I am compelled to sleep 
 with, and eat with, and live with, and die 
 
THE IDEAL MAN. A.'] 
 
 Avith ; and, if I could not have his appro- 
 bation, I should have bad companionship." 
 From his post of duty in the House, he 
 went to Chicago, all unconscious of what 
 awaited him, yet seemingly in accordance 
 with that strange Providence which guided 
 him ever onward and upward to the end 
 of his career, to become the ideal can- 
 didate of the great part}' to whose support 
 he had devoted the best energies of his 
 manhood, because he believed it to repre- 
 sent the highest interests of his countr}' 
 and the welfare of mankind. Here I need 
 not dwell, for the sequel suggests its own 
 sad and impressive lessons more forcibly 
 than any words of mine can express them. 
 I can only repeat the thoughts that came 
 welling up from my heart when, as his re- 
 mains lay in state in our ]*'orest City of 
 Cleveland, we all stood, overwhelmed and 
 appalled, in the presence of the Nation's 
 
48 GARFIELD, 
 
 *" I look back upon Garfield's wonderful 
 life ; I reflect upon its humble beginnings, 
 its heroic struggles, its sublime achieve- 
 ments, its brave, tender, self-denying devo- 
 tion, its magnificent culmination, and its 
 sad and tragic ending, and it seems as if 
 some grand orb, long coursing through the 
 heavens, had suddenly fallen from the 
 zenith into the depths of immensity; but 
 what a track of brightness it has left be- 
 hind ! My mind goes back over the long 
 and eventful period of his service as our 
 Representative in Congress, and I remem- 
 ber with what eager interest and just pride 
 men of both parties among his old constit- 
 uents received the news of his election to 
 the Senate, and finally of his nomination 
 at Chicago ; I recall the incidents of that 
 ever-memorable campaign which followed, 
 in which he, as its central figure, bore him- 
 
 * Remarks at the Opera House, Chardon, Ohio, Sunday 
 evening, September 25, 1881. 
 
THE IDEAL MAN, 
 
 49 
 
 self so grandl}', speaking often, yet saying- 
 nothing his most critical friends could wish 
 unsaid, but much that will command the 
 lasting admiration of the world ; I think of 
 that most beautiful and impressive scene, 
 at the last reception given him on his way 
 home from Chicago, and which touched 
 him more deeply than any other incident 
 of that triumphal journey, when he was 
 escorted through our streets, amid the 
 ringing of bells, the firing of cannon, and 
 the glad acclaim of the people, and the 
 children of our public schools turned out to 
 shower his pathway with flowers ; I think, 
 too, of his modest, feeling, rather sad words 
 
 on that occasion, his assurances to near 
 friends that the honors and trials of the 
 Presidency were by him unsought, as they 
 would involve the sacrifice of his home life 
 for a term of years, after which, though 
 still in the strength of a vigorous and use- 
 ful manhood, he would be compelled, in 
 
50 GARFIELD, 
 
 deference to usage, to retire from public 
 life, or, to use his own expression, 'be shut 
 up like a leaf in a book,' and his sincere 
 and earnest assertion that he cared more to 
 have the old Nineteenth District stand by 
 him than to gain the election ; I hear his 
 voice, I see his grand, manly, generous, 
 kindly face looking full upon me ; I feel the 
 strong, magnetic pressure of his hand, and 
 then I think of him as the innocent, patient, 
 heroic victim of the darkest of crimes, and 
 it quite unmans me. 
 
 "There was something unspeakably pa- 
 thetic in those last days of the stricken 
 President, when, from his cottage window 
 by the sea, he looked sadly but hopefully 
 out, and watched the ships as they passed 
 upon the waters. Withdrawn, as sooner 
 or later all must be, from the busy world, 
 and powerless as a child, this patient, suf- 
 fering ruler of fifty millions of people felt 
 in the vastness and grandeur of the ocean 
 
THE IDEAL MAN. 5 I 
 
 a sympathy with his own great hfe, whose 
 tide was fast ebbing out into the unknow^n 
 depths of the infinite and eternal. As he 
 began his career with a strange longing for 
 the sea, it was fitting, if his ardent longing 
 for his Mentor home could not be gratified, 
 that he should be permitted thus to die in 
 sight of its waves, and within the sound of 
 its voice, which well might give one deep, 
 sympathizing moan as his great soul went 
 home to God!" 
 
 To Garfield, education was a growth, the 
 endless unfolding of God-given powers; 
 war, a conflict of great and enduring forces ; 
 politics, the noble science of government ; 
 religion, a life ; the end of all sacrifice and 
 endeavor, individual and national character. 
 He lived an ideal life, and, with all the 
 world watching in prayer at his bedside, 
 breathlessly listening to catch the last pulsa- 
 tion of that heart which never beat but in 
 sympathy with all that is lo yal and good 
 
52 GARFIELD, 
 
 and true, he died an ideal death. Though 
 foully stricken from the height of his earthly 
 career, he has left his country and the world 
 the rich legacy of a peerless, ideal fame, to 
 which the honors of the Presidency could 
 but give an added lustre, and which time 
 cannot dim. 
 
 On the Saturday preceding the final ob- 
 sequies, and while those precious remains 
 were being borne from Washington to Cleve- 
 land, I, in company with a devoted and 
 life-long friend of the dead President, drove 
 to Mentor, being actuated by a desire to 
 visit once more the home where he had 
 welcomed us in life, though the light of his. 
 presence had gone out forever. The pict- 
 ures on the walls, the historic office, 
 the library where we had met one year 
 before, and in fact almost everything else^ 
 remained unchanged ; but, oh ! what a void, 
 that could never be filled! On the sadly- 
 memorable Monday following, in company 
 
THE IDEAL MAN. 55 
 
 with the same friend, after Hstening to the 
 services in the Park at Cleveland, I left in 
 advance of the funeral cortege, and, securing 
 an entrance inside the lines of sentinels that 
 guarded both sides of the street, walked sor- 
 rowfully up Superior street to Erie, thence to 
 Euclid Avenue, and thence on and on until 
 we reached Lake View Cemetery, — that 
 beautiful, ideal burial ground of his choice,— 
 where, standing in the rain by the side of 
 the public vault, I saw all that was mortal of 
 Garfield laid to rest. It was, indeed, a 
 magnificent pageant, such as I may never 
 ao-ain behold ; but, to me, it was all unreal, 
 for I could not feel that Garfield was there. 
 That great soul, which made him the ideal 
 man he was, had returned to God who gave. 
 

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