CHAPTER XIV.
AT HIRAM INSTITUTE.
Hiram, the seat of the Eclectic Institute, was not a place of any pretension.

It was scarcely a village, but rather a hamlet.

Yet the advantages which the infant institution offered drew together a considerable number of pupils of both sexes, sons and daughters of the Western Reserve farmers, inspired with a genuine love of learning, and too sensible to waste their time on mere amusement.
This is the account given of it by President B.A.Hinsdale, who for fifteen years has ably presided over its affairs: "The institute building, a plain but substantially built brick structure, was put on the top of a windy hill, in the middle of a cornfield.

One of the cannon that General Scott's soldiers dragged to the City of Mexico in 1847, planted on the roof of the new structure, would not have commanded a score of farm houses.
"Here the school opened at the time Garfield was closing his studies at Chester.

It had been in operation two terms when he offered himself for enrollment.