Hayes Administration - Education

Education

Hayes's mother first taught him the fundamentals of reading and writing. He also received some early education at a private elementary school and some private tutoring by a local lawyer. He attended preparatory school beginning at age 15; his uncle Sardis Birchard paid for his schooling. Hayes started college at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, when he was 16. In 1842 he graduated first in his class. After graduation he spent a year reading law in a law office, but his uncle wanted Hayes to attend the Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, because of the strength of its law faculty and especially because Justice Joseph Story of the U.S. Supreme Court and Simon Greenleaf, one of the nation's leading treatise writers, taught there. In August 1843 Hayes entered the Harvard Law School where he studied with both distinguished law professors. He graduated in January 1845 with a bachelor of laws.