The next day at noon a cart-load of good things arrived with those specified; and children and parents enjoyed the feast, after which there was an old-fashioned spelling-match, and all went home to remember with pleasure the Christmas of 1817. And at this writing (1895) only one of that jolly crowd is known to be living, and from whom the above reminiscences have been obtained. The country was so thinly settled it was often difficult to make up a school (fifteen), owing to distance from the school cabin, and it was the common practice for those most interested, usually two or three neighbors, to “sign” for their own children and enough more out of the range to make up the required number. And often, in order to secure them, agreeing to pay the tuition and to board them during attendance. And so far as the advantages of these schools were to be obtained, the boys and girls shared alike. But if unable to afford the expense for both, the boys generally got the schooling. [Illustration: Ohio School-house from 1796 to 1840.] The school-house was usually located in the woods. The building was of round logs, and presented the appearance of very little comfort, either without or within. The floor was of mother earth; the ceiling above, the underside of the roof; a number of rude benches; a few puncheon shelves, and a huge fire-place, constituted the necessary arrangement of the interior. It was known as the school-house, although used as a place to hold elections, lectures, debating societies, and singing-schools. But notwithstanding the loss of an endowment much needed in primitive times, and the restriction of subscription schools from existing poverty, and that the log-cabin school-houses stood empty for long periods, there was no effeminacy in the desire for knowledge, for where there is a will there is a way, and volumes might be filled with learned and illustrious names who were once rocked in a “sugar-trough,” and took their first lessons in “_Brush College_.” It was in this environment the scientist, statesman, and divine obtained that self-confidence and industry which leads to high and honored stations and has made the North-west a perpetual eclipsing shadow upon all other parts of the United States. In every department, the chosen citizen of this magnificent empire has shown himself master of the situation. In art, literature, and sciences; in war and times of peace, he has given strength to the Union and credit to a central power that will surround itself with national influences the most impregnable of any government in the world. And under all the disadvantages--the absence of public schools, and the opening up of a new world isolated from civilization, he came forth like a vision of beauty and glory from a chrysalis on which was written the destiny of future greatness.