Page:Famous Living Americans, with Portraits.djvu/132

 CHAMP CLARK 113 of men and of angels and have not charity, I am as sound- ing brass or a tinkling cymbal. ' ' Before he was fifteen Clark was teaching a country school in order to get funds for college, and at sixteen had in his school grown men who had been in both armies and had come home with a desire to learn the three B 's. Birch, stout birch, well-wielded birch, was the prime requisite there. One youth was separated (to use the polite term devised by the Civil Service Conmdssion) from the school for indulging in the playful diversion of throwing a handful of Enfield rifle cart- ridges into the stove that heated the one room of the school- house. In six weeks Clark had whipped that school from ninety down to two, for every time a student got a trouncing for his misdeeds he would promptly quit school. But peace reigned — of the sort that reigned in Warsaw on a celebrated occasion. But such experiences served a double purpose — they de- veloped stem traits of self-reliance and made the pot boil dur- ing the years at Kentucky University, which he entered at the age of seventeen. Teaching school, working as a hired hand on a farm, clerking in a country store and parting his hair in the middle to attract trade, he managed to make buckle and tongue meet. He spent three years in Kentucky University and was about to be graduated with honor when an unfor- tunate circumstance occurred. Young Clark became engaged in a college fighi The president of the faculty was absent. The remainder of the faculty took action and, by a majority of one vote, expelled Clark. He packed up his few belongings and left. A day or two later the president returned, prompt- ly rescinded the faculty's action and urged Clark's return. But he was gone and gone to stay ; he refused to come back. From Lexington, the seat of the University, he walked home, a distance of sixty miles, carrying on his back all his earthly possessions, including a dozen volumes which he had bought with the last money he had. He still treasures these old friends of the days of his greatest poverty. That fall found him at Bethany, West Virginia, attending