A year later, at the age of twenty-six, he was made president of the institution.

It was not, perhaps, a lofty position, for though Hiram Institute now became Hiram College, it was not a college in the New England sense, but rather a superior academy.
Let us pause a minute and see what changes have taken place in ten years.
At the age of sixteen Jimmy Garfield was glad to get a chance to drive a couple of mules on the tow-path of the Ohio and Pennsylvania Canal.

The ragged, homespun boy had disappeared.

In his place we find James A.
Garfield, A.B., president of a Western college--a man of education and culture.

And how has this change been brought about! By energy, perseverance, and a resolute purpose--a soul that poverty could not daunt, an ambition which shrank from no hardship, and no amount of labor.