So closed a career which, in spite of some defects, was beautiful and noble. Great hopes had been formed regarding his Presidency, and yet, on looking back over his life, I have a strong feeling that his assassination was a service rendered to his reputation. I know from those who had full information that during his campaign for the Presidency he had been forced to make concessions and pledges which would have brought great trouble upon him had he lived through his official term. Gifted and good as he was, advantage had been taken of his kindly qualities, and he would have had to pay the penalty. It costs me a pang to confess my opinion that the administration of Mr. Arthur, a man infinitely his inferior in nearly all the qualities which men most justly admire, was far better than the administration which Mr Garfield would have been allowed to give to the country. Upon my return to the university I was asked by my fellow-citizens of Ithaca in general, as also by the university faculty and students, to give the public address at the celebration of President Garfield's funeral. This I did and never with a deeper feeling of loss. One thing in the various tributes to him had struck me painfully: Throughout the whole country his career was constantly referred to in funeral addresses as showing how a young American under all the disadvantages of poverty could rise to the highest possible position. I have always thought that such statements, as they are usually presented, are injurious to the character and lowering to the aspirations of young men. I took pains, therefore, to show that while Garfield had risen under the most discouraging circumstances from complete poverty, his rise was due to something other than mere talent and exertion --that it was the result of talent and exertion originating in noble instincts and directed to worthy ends. Garfield's life proves this abundantly, and whatever may have been his temporary weakness under the fearful pressure brought upon him toward the end of his career, these instincts and purposes remained his main guiding influences from first to last. CHAPTER XII ARTHUR, CLEVELAND, AND BLAINE--1881-1884 The successor of Garfield, President Arthur, I had met frequently in my old days at Albany. He was able, and there never was the slightest spot upon his integrity; but in those early days nobody dreamed that he was to attain any high distinction. He was at that time charged with the main military duties under the governor; later he became collector of the port of New York, and in both positions showed himself honest and capable. He was lively, jocose, easy-going, with little appearance of devotion to work, dashing off whatever he had to do with ease and accuracy. At various dinner-parties and social gatherings, and indeed at sundry State conventions, where I met him, he seemed, more than anything else, a bon vivant, facile and good-natured.