By the fall of 1851, Garfield had transformed from a rough canal man into a passionate and determined student. After studying at local schools, he was accepted to a small preparatory school in northern Ohio called the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute. The school’s entire campus consisted of a wide cornfield and, on the crest of a hill, a modest three-story redbrick building with a white bell tower. “It was without a dollar of endowment, without a powerful friend anywhere,” Garfield would later write, but to him, it was a chance to become an educated man. Unable to afford tuition, he
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