conceit, his readiness to help others, made him a general favorite. Some
young men, calling themselves religious, assume a sanctimonious manner,
that repels, but James Garfield never was troubled in this way. He
believed that

"Religion never was designed
To make our pleasures less,"

and was always ready to take part in social pleasures, provided they did
not interfere with his work.

And all this while, with all his homely surroundings, he had high
thoughts for company. He wrote to a student, afterward his own successor
to the presidency, words that truly describe his own aspirations and
habits of mind. "Tell me, Burke, do you not feel a spirit stirring
within you that longs _to know, to do, and to dare_, to hold converse
with the great world of thought, and hold before you some high and noble
object to which the vigor of your mind and the strength of your arm may
be given? Do you not have longings like these which you breathe to no
one, and which you feel must be heeded, or you will pass through life
unsatisfied and regretful? I am sure you have them, and they will
forever cling round your heart till you obey their mandate."

The time had come when James was ready to take another step upward. The
district school had been succeeded by Geauga Seminary, that by Hiram
Institute, and now he looked Eastward for still higher educational
privileges. There was a college of his own sect at Bethany, not far
away, but the young man was not so blinded by this consideration as not
to understand that it was not equal to some of the best known colleges
at the East.