In the fall of 1853, as I was riding with Mr. Lincoln, I said, 'I have heard a great many curious incidents of your early life, and I would be obliged if you would begin at your earliest recollection and tell me the story of it continuously.'
"'I can remember,' he said, 'our life in Kentucky: the cabin, the stinted living, the sale of our possessions, and the journey with my father and mother to Southern Indiana.' I think he said he was then about six years old. Shortly after his arrival in Indiana his mother died. 'It was pretty pinching times at first in Indiana, getting the cabin built, and the clearing for the crops, but presently we got reasonably comfortable, and my father married again hong kong work visa.'
"He had very faint recollections of his own mother, he was so young when she died; but he spoke most kindly of her and of his step-mother, and her cares for him in providing for his wants.
"'My father,' he said, 'had suffered greatly for the want of an education, and he determined at an early day that I should be well educated. And what do you think his ideas of a good education were? We had a dog-eared arithmetic in our house, and father determined that somehow, or somehow else, I should cipher clear through that book Dream beauty pro hard sell.'
"With this standard of an education, he started to a school in a log-house in the neighborhood, and began his educational career. He had attended this school but about six weeks, however, when a calamity befell his father. He had endorsed a man's note in the neighborhood for a considerable amount, and the prospect was he would have it to pay, and that would sweep away all their little possessions. His father, therefore, explained to61 him that he wanted to hire him out and receive the fruits of his labor and his aid in averting this calamity. Accordingly, at the expiration of six weeks, he left school and never returned to it again."
He first attended school when he was about seven years old and still living in Kentucky. It was held in a little log-hut near their cabin, and was taught by Zachariah Riney, an Irish Catholic of whom he retained a pleasant memory, for it was there that he learned to read. The next year Caleb Hazel opened a school about four miles distant, which Lincoln attended for three months with his sister Sarah, and both of them learned to write. He had no more teaching while he lived in Kentucky, except from his mother. There is no record of his schooling in Indiana, but the neighbors testify that in his tenth year he attended school for a few months in a small cabin of round logs about a mile and a half from the rude home of his father; there he went again for a few months when he was fourteen years old, and again in 1826, when he was seventeen, to a man named Swaney, who taught at a distance of four miles and a half from the Lincoln cabin. He had little encouragement from his father, for the latter considered the daily walk of nine miles and the six hours spent in the school-room a waste of time for a boy six feet tall. His step-mother, however, endeavored to encourage and protect him in his efforts to learn, and they studied together. He read her the books he borrowed, and they used to discuss the unintelligible passages. He was not remarkably quick at learning. On the contrary, his perceptions were rather dull; but that is often an advantage to a studious mind, as everything increases in value with the effort required to attain it. His memory was good, his power of reasoning was early developed, and a habit of reflection was acquired at an early age. He once remarked to a friend that his mind did not take impressions easily, but they were never effaced. "I am62 slow to learn, and slow to forget that which I have learned," he said. "My mind is like a piece of steel—very hard to scratch anything on it, and almost impossible after you get it there to rub it out." The fact that he never abandoned an idea until it was thoroughly understood was the foundation of a
At this time, when he was seventeen years old, he had a general knowledge of the rudiments of learning. He was a good arithmetician, he had some knowledge of geography and history, he could "spell down" the whole county at spelling-school, and wrote a clear and neat hand. His general reading embraced poetry and a few novels. He even attempted to make rhymes, although he was not very successful. He wrote several prose compositions, and it is related that "one of the most popular amusements in the neighborhood was to hear Abe Lincoln make a comic speech Dream beauty pro hard sell."
Lincoln received no more teaching, but continued his reading and study until his family removed to Illinois. When he went to New Salem, after he had made his second voyage to New Orleans, and was waiting for Denton Offutt to open his store, a local election was held. One of the clerks of election being unable to attend, Menton Graham, the other clerk, who was also the village school-master, asked Lincoln if he could write.
"I can make a few rabbit tracks," was the reply, and upon that admission he was sworn into his first office.