{"id":280,"date":"2013-05-14T10:40:20","date_gmt":"2013-05-14T14:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fwbhistory.com\/?p=280"},"modified":"2013-07-01T10:59:36","modified_gmt":"2013-07-01T14:59:36","slug":"the-president-studied-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fwbhistory.com\/?p=280","title":{"rendered":"The President Studied Here"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Perhaps the most famous graduate of any Free Will Baptist institution is the 20<sup>th<\/sup> President of the United States. James A. Garfield graduated from the two-year Geauga Seminary (<a href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=Z302AQAAMAAJ&amp;pg=PA35&amp;lpg=PA35&amp;dq=Geauga+Seminary+history&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=RFoVrjog1l&amp;sig=dLPHKhe1ocOkGgPb0ynzCMrEFo4&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=Hja3Uf_LL_O24AOouYCoBQ&amp;ved=0CE0Q6AEwBQ#v=onepage&amp;q=%22Geauga%20Seminary%22&amp;f=false\">Geauga History<\/a>) in Chester, Ohio, after attending 1849-1850.<\/p>\n<p>Geauga Seminary was started as a Free Will Baptist academy in 1842. Located 10 miles from the Garfield home, the seminary welcomed the 17-year-old James. He arrived on campus with $17 and the determination to get an education. The seminary had eight faculty members, a student body of 252, and a library of 150 volumes.<\/p>\n<p>Garfield was converted in 1850 while attending the seminary, <!--more-->under the guidance of a Disciples minister, who also baptized him. Garfield was indebted to Geauga not only for an excellent two-year education, but also for his wife, Lucretia Randolph, who also attended the school.<\/p>\n<p>Apparently, Mr. Garfield was quite poor while attending Geauga and did \u201canything and everything to earn money for his schooling.\u201d He rented a room near the school, cooked his own meals, and chopped wood to help financially. His personal journal, dated March 31, 1849, records, \u201cI have $1.48 left\u2026my bed broke down last week, and I bought 75 feel of flax cord, and I guess it will hold me now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Garfield was known as an avid debater during his student days. The future President defended as his first thesis, \u201cThat Christians have no right to participate in human government.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>About the Writer:<\/strong> Jack Williams is a member of the Free Will Baptist Historical Commission<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Perhaps the most famous graduate of any Free Will Baptist institution is the 20th President of the United States. James A. Garfield graduated from the two-year Geauga Seminary (Geauga History) in Chester, Ohio, after attending 1849-1850. Geauga Seminary was started as a Free Will Baptist academy in 1842. Located 10 miles from the Garfield home, the seminary welcomed the 17-year-old James. He arrived on campus with $17 and the determination to get an education. The seminary had eight faculty members, a student body of 252, and a library of 150 volumes. Garfield was converted in 1850 while attending the seminary,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fwbhistory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fwbhistory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fwbhistory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fwbhistory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fwbhistory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=280"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fwbhistory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":348,"href":"https:\/\/fwbhistory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions\/348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fwbhistory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fwbhistory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fwbhistory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}