This university was in financial straits all this time with an incomplete corps of professors, for the reason the legislature had manipulated the land endowments (46,000 acres) from time to time until little or nothing was received, where large incomes should have been realized. And the good intent of land grants for educational purposes in Ohio proved a signal failure in common schools, academies, and colleges. After ineffectual efforts of mongrel state universities to supply the pressing wants of rising generations, sectarian institutions multiplied rapidly, and the state soon became honored with numerous chartered seats of learning representing all religions from Roman Catholic (down, or up, which ever it may seem) to the Free Will Baptist. Of these, Oberlin has taken the lead. It was chartered, in 1834, under the direction of the Congregational Church, with a theological seminary attached as part of the institution. Both sexes and all colors have been admitted to its classes. During the struggle in Ohio to establish a satisfactory system of education, the good people of Kentucky claimed to be greatly in advance in regard to facilities, and sold large numbers of scholarships to those who desired to embrace better opportunities to obtain an education, before it was discovered that young men from a free state, or states, attending those seats of learning had little or no spare time for mental culture, after giving the physical enough attention to keep all its members intact; as free-state students were obliged to fight or “eat dirt.” [Illustration: School-house of 1851, in which President Garfield taught.] The writer still holds the larger end of an uncanceled scholarship in one of the then leading, but now defunct, college institutions. As late as 1837, there was no public school system operating in Ohio. But the year following a law was passed for the purpose of adopting a system on a uniform footing. Still it required that teachers should be qualified _only_ in reading, writing and arithmetic. Amendments and improvements, however, went on, and in 1847 the “State Teachers’ Association” was organized, and deserves great credit for the good work done and still doing in obtaining beneficial legislation and raising the standard of teachers and the curriculum of “High Schools.” And at the present time Ohio compares favorably with other states in regard to her system for general and liberal education, regardless of color or previous condition.