The societies had a rule that every student should take his stand on the platform and speak for five minutes on any topic suggested at the moment by the audience.

It was a very trying ordeal.

Garfield broke down badly the first two times he tried to speak, but persisted, and was at last, when he went to Williams, one of the best of the five-minute speakers.
When he returned as principal, his readiness was striking and remarkable." Henry James says: "Garfield taught me more than any other man, living or dead, and, proud as I am of his record as a soldier and a statesman, I can hardly forgive him for abandoning the academy and the forum." So President Hinsdale, one of Garfield's pupils, and his successor as president, testifies: "My real acquaintance with Garfield did not begin till the fall of 1856, when he returned from Williams College.

He then found me out, drew near to me, and entered into all my troubles and difficulties pertaining to questions of the future.

In a greater or less degree this was true of his relations to his pupils generally.