it is remembered that he was poor and just out of the junior class, and but eighteen years of age. It may be well supposed that the engagement referred to, while operating as an incentive to work, had also the effect to lengthen each college day, making him impatient for the end which the collegiate calendar set down for the 24th of June, 1852. The graduating class that year consisted of sixteen young men, the names of some of whom have since become of national familiarity. To see yet more clearly the competition which young Harrison found in his classes and literary society, the reader may not be displeased if their names are given entire. The following is the list: John S. Baker, lawyer, Cincinnati, O. John P. Craighead, lawyer, Little Rock, Ark. Isaac S. Lane, lawyer, Memphis, Tenn. Lewis W. Ross, lawyer, Council Bluffs, Ia.* *The following is from Mr. Lewis W. Ross, now of Council Bluffs, Iowa: BENJAMIN HARRISON. Forty years ago the writer met the subject of this paper in Farmer's College, a school of considerable merit, located on one of the hills overlooking the city of Cincinnati. Dr. R. H. Bishop, formerly President of Miami University, was Professor of History and Political Economy. He was an extraordinary teacher. He discipled his students to such an extent as to render it impossible to either forget the man or his instruction. I also met Dr. O. W. Nixon of the Inter-Ocean, Murat Halstead of the Commercial-Gazette, Joseph M. Gregory, a member of the Memphis Bar, and many others who have attained to positions of honor and trust. After two years of study at Farmer's College, a large delegation, including young Harrison and the writer, entered Miami University, located at Milton Sayler, lawyer, Cincinnati, O. Oxford, Ohio. We enrolled in the junior class, with at least half of the sophomore year to make up. This implied that we were required to do two and a half years' work within the space of two years, but it was accomplished, and all graduated-a class of fifteen members, on June 24, 1852. This class varied in worldly wealth and available brains about as other classes have done. David Swing, of Chicago, took second honors, and Milton Saylor, now of New York city, took the first honors. Harrison, in class standing and merit, ranked above the average. Swing was confessedly the best philologist in the class, and during the last year of the course displayed unusual ability. Saylor was gifted in many ways, but lacked application. He has lived the life of a "typical Democrat," serving two terms in Congress. Harrison, as I remember, was an unpretentious but courageous student. He was respectable in languages and the sciences, and excelled in political economy and history, the former being largely due to the foundations laid under the instruction of Dr. Bishop at Farmer's College. Harrison had a good voice and a pure diction. He talked easily and fluently. His manner was indicative of much earnestness of character. He never seemed to regard life as a joke nor the opportunities for advancement as subjects for sport. During the four years that I was with him, he impressed me with the belief that he was ambitious. As a writer and speaker, he always did his best. By this I mean that he, as a rule, made special preparation, giving as much time as possible to the matter in hand. The subject of his graduating address was "The Poor of England," and his treatment of it showed that he had sounded both the depths and the causes of this poverty. He was a protectionist at the age of nineteen. He is protectionist still. His whole career has been illustrative of his desire to save his countrymen from the poverty which oppresses The Poor of England." It is claimed by his enemies that Harrison is cold-hearted, that he cultivates but few friends. This is untrue. When a student he had his likes and dislikes. He was not selfish, yet his love of self made him careful of his time and of his reserve powers. Had he been of the rollicking habit of some of his college acquaintances, he would long since have passed over with them. The sober truth is, that in good sense and manly conduct he was as a student without just reproach. From aught that has come to my notice, in later years, I infer that his entire career has been a living exemplification of the principles which governed his student life. by all sound economy or one which so rudely strikes at the foundation of all social prosperity as the poor laws of Great Britain. Unwise in their conception, unhappy in their consequences, they are the shame and curse of England. Disregarding the finer and fuller provisions of nature for the relief of the destitute and unfortunate, they substitute instead the compulsory provisions of a legalized benevolence. The charitable offering is snatched from the kind hand of the benevolent giver, cast into the swelling poor fund and distributed by the cold hand of a soulless official alike to the vicious and deserving. The donor is deprived of his meed of praise, the recipient is precluded the exercise of gratitude. But not only do such provisions fail to relieve the wants of the poor by sapping the life's blood of individual energy and encouraging indolence and consequent vice; they increased the evil they were intended to alleviate and supersede the more efficacious relief of individual charity. The ever present consciousness that, however great his improvidence and vice, he cannot be brought to ultimate want removes that stimulus to industry and economy which has in the wise providence of God been provided to anticipate the evils of pauperism. The shame which attaches itself to the trembling prayer for individual charities is lost in the demand upon the parish poor fund. . . . . . Can it be possible that this is indeed the true character of those laws which her wisest statesmen have not only sustained but made the subject of boastful reflection upon other lands? As well might the highway robber, after having stripped the defenseless traveller of all that he possessed, return him a scanty covering from the cold, and then boast of kindness, and call upon his shivering victim to acknowledge a debt of gratitude. "Ill fares the land to hastening ills a prey When wealth accumulates and men decay; The extract is honorable to the speaker. Appreciation of the sorrows of the poor is seldom more fervidly expressed. A critic will forgive the redundancy of adjectives, remembering that it is a disease of young students soon cured. He will not fail also to be struck with the direction of the argument, while there can be no doubt of the side taken. Those familiar with him know Ben jamin Harrison, now mature in years, is still bravely on the same side. 5 net an impulse of the young man reverse of awful e as simply to take beauty of Trierto awake her; the the way are only ement more re the first picture in Lite." a radiant sa rippled current ky, is due less truth of the porthe narrow walls Isappointments ed have been mes conscious s of exceeding t of issuance self a man heless he did |