so? "Oh, that's easy enough," said young Bates, the master. "You'll only
have to work out of hours as a carpenter, take odd jobs in your
vacations, live plainly, and there you are." In England there are few
schools where such a plan would be practicable; but in rough-and-ready
America, where self-help is no disgrace, there are many, and they are
all well attended. In the neighbouring town of Chester, a petty Baptist
sect had started a young school which they named Geauga Seminary (there
are no plain schools in America--they are all "academies" or
"institutes"); and to this simple place young Garfield went, to learn
and work as best he might for his own advancement. A very strange figure
he must then have cut, indeed; for a person who saw him at the time
described him as wearing a pair of trousers he had long outworn, rough
cow-hide boots, a waistcoat much too short for him, and a thread-bare
coat, with sleeves that only reached a little below the elbows. Of such
stuff as that, with a stout heart and an eager brain, the budding
presidents of the United States are sometimes made.

James soon found himself humble lodgings at an old woman's in Chester,
and he also found himself a stray place at a carpenter's shop in the
town, where he was able to do three hours' work out of school time every
day, besides giving up the whole of his Saturday holiday to regular
labour. It was hard work, this schooling and carpentering side by side;
but James throve upon it; and at the end of the first term he was not
only able to pay all his bill for board and lodging, but also to carry
home a few dollars in his pocket by way of savings.

James stopped three years at the "seminary" at Chester; and in the
holidays he employed himself by teaching in the little township schools
among the country districts. There is generally an opening for young
students to earn a little at such times by instructing younger boys than