Samuel D. Bates was a young man, not many years older than James A. Garfield. He was a good scholar, and had been attending a place called “Geauga Seminary,” which had grown up in the adjoining county. This winter he had taken the school on the Garfield farm, expecting to save some money and return to Geauga. With his head full of these ideas, he met Garfield, and soon had the latter interested in his plans. When the time came for the next term to begin, James was well again, and his mother and Bates proposed that he should go also. He thought the subject over carefully, but was still uncertain what to do. He was not sure of his capacity to turn an education to account, and did not wish to spoil a good carpenter for the sake of a bad professor or preacher. Before making a final decision, he therefore did a characteristically sensible thing. Dr. J. P. Robison was a physician of Bedford, a man well known for good judgment and skill in his profession. One day he was visited by an awkward country lad, who asked a private conversation with him, and, that favor being granted, said to him: “My name is James Garfield. My home is at Orange. Hitherto I have acquired only the rudiments of an education, and but a scanty knowledge of books. But, at this time, I have taken up the notion of getting an education, and, before beginning, I want to know what I have to count on. You are a physician, and know men well. Examine me, and say plainly whether you think I will be able to succeed.” This frank speech was rewarded by as fair an answer. The physician sounded him well, as to both body and mind, and ended with an opinion which summed up in about this fashion: “You are well fitted to follow your ambition as far as you are pleased to go. Your brain is large and good; your physique is adapted to hard work. Go ahead, and you are sure to succeed.” This settled the question at once and forever. Garfield the student, the thinker, the teacher, the preacher, and the statesman, are all included in this new direction, and time alone is wanting to reveal them to himself and to the world. Geauga Seminary was situated at a place called Chester, in Geauga County. The faculty consisted of three men and as many women. They were: Daniel Branch and wife, Mr. and Mrs. Coffin, Mr. Bigelow, and Miss Abigail Curtis. In the second year of Garfield’s attendance, Mr. and Mrs. Branch retired, and were succeeded by Mr. Fowler and Mr. Beach. The students were about one hundred in number, and of both sexes. There was a library of one hundred and fifty volumes, and a literary society, which offered a chance for practice in writing and speaking. Knowing these facts, and that the seminary offered the advantages common to many such institutions, we know the circumstances under which Garfield began that course of studies which, in seven years, graduated him with honor from an Eastern college.