It is the general opinion that William Henry Harrison was rich, but the opinion is not founded in fact. With great care for his personal honor he seems, throughout his life, to have scrupulously avoided speculation. The salaries he received were not commensurable with the dignities he came to. The demands upon him from his family and his associations generally made it impossible for him to accumulate money. At the time of his election to the Presidency he was poor; his entire property consisted of the farm at North Bend. When out of office he was occupied exclusively as a farmer, and must be thought of, not as a gentleman addicted to broadcloth clothes of the latest style, nor as a martial figure going about uniformed and sworded and in a cocked hat. In that respect his habits were unlike Washington's. The plantation at North Bend had not in any degree the baronial likeness of the plantation at Mount Vernon on the banks of the Potomac. The western proprietor had not a retinue of slaves subject to his call. He never travelled to and from the city in state, a liveried rider upon the near horse and a footman perched upon the carriage of state. He was a farmer in fact who took part in his own plowing, planting and reaping; altogether the most unaristocratic of men, his children were reared accordingly.

The third son was John Scott Harrison, in whom the greater interest now centres because

There is nothing more surprising in the lives of Americans than the similarity of their childhood and youth. Their sports are the same; they go through the same trains of petty adventure; at length a period arrives at which they are sent to school; there a new-comer very nearly takes up a book left behind by a predecessor, is subjected to the same recitation, and whirled with astonishing rapidity along a course of study which, after all, is little more than a deeply worn rut. This may perhaps be a necessity; it certainly. is monotonous. There are even teachers of experience and excellent judgment who have been heard to express a wish that they might live to see the results of experiments in education out of the common. There is no hack so worn and weary as a master or mistress of a public school, unless it be a college professor. That a lad ever rises above the dead level is attributable purely to a superiority of intellect. In the light of this remark and its context, together with his admitted success in life, it is worth while to make a study of the youth and school-days of the Republican candidate for the Presidency.

Extending southward from the old Harrison homestead at North Bend there is a tongue of land, quite five miles in length; its lower extremity touches the Indiana boundary line; the north side is swept by the Miami river; upon the south side the Ohio rolls its placid stream.

On this promontory, or backbone, as some might be pleased to call it, is what was the farm of John Scott Harrison. It answered to cultivation generously; corn grew there in abundance. The wheat was good. It furnished the family all the staples of life. Seldom, if ever, had they to go out to market. From it the cellar was well supplied. The cattle and horses that ranged it were always fat and sleek. The proprietor was, in fact, a good farmer. He might have been nothing else out of the ordinary, but that he was in fair degree. He gave himself to the occupation patiently and successfully, at least so far as the blessing of plenty to eat and wear is concerned. The poverty that overtook him in his later days was a consequence of his generosity and a judgment too easily cheated by people who wormed their way into his confidence. He put on no style. If his disposition had tended that way, he had not the means to indulge it. One thing he was determined upon: whatever else happened; he would educate his children. His residence fronted the Ohio river: between the river and the door was a small, plain, old-fashioned log-school-house. On account of the distance to any other schools, it was impossible that his boys could attend them. Very early in the life of Benjamin he was in the habit of employing private teachers. Their salaries were light, as they were called upon only to impart the simplest elementary instruction. His