Hiram Still Hiram

To the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute at Hiram, Ohio, went in 1851 a young man, log-cabin-born, who had been a canal-boat driver, farmer, carpenter. The Institute was new, had been founded the year before by the Church of the Disciples of Christ. James Abram Garfield studied there three years and then, ambitious, went on to Williams College. In 1856 he returned to the little village which (so the story . went) had been chosen by the Disciples of Christ because its doctor had a dilapidated buggy, a bony nag-his poverty suggesting that Hiram was healthy. Young Garfield taught Ancient Languages & Literatures for a year, then (in 1857) became second president of the Institute. One of his students. Lucretia Rudolph, had caught his fancy; he married her in 1858. The Institute's cumbersome name was changed to Hiram College. Garfield was president until 1863, but long before he resigned he was busy being State Senator (1859), going off to war (1861), getting elected to Congress (1862).

Hiram College celebrated last Week the 100th anniversary of the birth of its second president, the 20th President of the U. S. Hiram has today 364 students, 27 professors, one of the youngest presidents in the U. S.-Kenneth Irving Brown, 35. Its alumni include Poet Nicholas Vachel Lindsay (ex-1901), Overseer Wilbur Glenn Voliva of Zion City, Ill., Board Chairman James Anson Campbell of Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co., Cleveland Banker George York. On its quiet campus, one of whose buildings is the College's original Main Hall, the celebration took place last week with fitting eclat.

Present were three of President Garfield's children: Harry Augustus, president of Williams College; Abram, Cleveland architect; Mrs. Joseph Stanley-Brown. A Grand Old Man, always a useful adjunct to celebrations, was also on hand: venerated Lawyer Andrew Squire of Cleveland, student under President Garfield, who told how he alone of his class was too young (11) to serve in the Civil War when Lieut. Colonel Garfield was mustering a regiment. Two Hiram coeds, dressed in hoopskirts, helped plant an evergreen tree on the campus. "Taps" sounded as a flag was run up the flagstaff-the flag which covered President Garfield's casket after his assassination in 1881.

Of his father, President Garfield of Williams said: "He was by nature a teacher. He loved to be with young people, to try out their minds. . . . My memory furnishes me with no record of dull moments. Occasionally our fractious group had to be temporarily broken up. the offending members being retired to the corners of the room, facing the angle. . . ."

Prior to the Garfield anniversary, alumni enthusiasm included, besides a plan to publish a lot of Garfieldiana, an idea that the college's name might be changed to Garfield College. But Hiram likes Hiram. Almost unanimously the Board of Trustees voted last fortnight to stay Hiram.

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