Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. III.djvu/240

 198 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS elected members of the Phi Beta Kappa society, the condition of admission being high scholarship. He was graduated at eighteen years of age, in the class of 1848. While at college he decided to become a lawyer, and after graduation attended for several months a law school at Ballston Spa, returned to Lansingburg, where his father then resided, and continued his legal studies. During this period he fitted boys for college, and in 1851 he was principal of an academy at North Pownal, Vt. In 1854, James A. Garfield, then a student in Williams college, taught penmanship in this academy during his winter vacation. In 1853, Arthur, having accumulated a small sum of money, decided to go to New York city. He there entered the law office of Erastus D. Culver as a student, was admitted to the bar during the same year, and at once became a member of the firm of Culver, Parker & Arthur. Mr. Culver had been an anti-slavery member of congress from Washington County when Dr. Arthur was pastor of the Baptist church in Greenwich in that county. Dr. Arthur had also enjoyed the friendship of Gerrit Smith, who had often been his guest and spoken from his pulpit. Together they had taken part in the meeting convened at Utica, October 21, 1835, to form a New York anti-slavery society. This meeting was broken up by a committee of pro-slavery citizens; but the members repaired to