Historians express no doubt that Abraham Lincoln had a gift for language. Even today his words continue to resonate not only with the American people, but throughout the world. What puzzles us today is how he came to have that gift, given the self-admitted fact that he had only a total of one year of formal education. He said that he received his education by “littles”—“a little bit here and a little bit there.”
Our 16th President remains perhaps the best example of self-education, not only in the United States, but, arguably, in the world. His reading habits were prodigious and covered a wide range of writers and topics: the Bible, Shakespeare. Pilgrim’s Progress, and Aesop’s Fables. In addition, he basically taught himself the law. He loved most poetry, especially Robert Burns, and perhaps some of his sense of cadence came from this source.
It is ironic that one of the least educated of our presidents was the most eloquent. Rather than an indictment of the concept of formal education, this fact simply emphasizes the extraordinarily complex character of Abraham Lincoln, this reader of Shakespeare, this lover of Robert Burns, this man who quoted Scripture with ease. Our individual and collective memories of the gangly young frontiersman struggling to read borrowed books by candlelight will be cherished, as Lincoln once said, “to the latest generation”, and we will continue to honor the manner in which he led the nation through its greatest crisis.
Sara Gabbard, Editor, Lincoln Lore
