a deep impression on the tall, coarse-haired youth who grew to manhood in the hills and forests of this frontier region. When he neared the fame of later years he invariably located his best stories in the Hoosier State, and whenever he was heard to say, "That reminds me of an incident which happened when I lived in Indiana," his listeners would move their chairs closer together anxiously awaiting an interesting recital, bristling with wit and the expected "nib," or moral, which was so poignant it pierced the skin, or otherwise so effective it stung like the cracker of a whiplash.

Though brief, Lincoln's school training really began in Indiana. True he was among the pupils at the schools in Kentucky taught by Zachariah Riney and Caleb Hazel, but his attendance was so short and irregular he hardly progressed beyond the alphabet- in fact, it may be truthfully said that he went largely as the companion of his only sister Sarah, who was two years his senior. The array of textbooks at his command was necessarily limited. We know he studied Webster's and, a part of the time, Dillworth's Speller, Pike's Arithmetic, and Murray's English Reader. Of the last-named book he was especially fond. Herndon told me that Lincoln once declared to him that "Murray's English Reader was the greatest and most useful book that could be put in the hands of a child at school."

He had neither grammar nor geography. The arithmetic he did not own, but he borrowed the book of a neighbor and laboriously copied a large part of it on sheets of paper about nine by twelve inches in size which he fastened together with twine sewed through the edge. His step

PAGE FROM LINCOLN'S HAND-MADE ARITHMETIC, USED BY HIM WHILE A SCHOOLBOY IN GENTRYVILLE, INDIANA, SHOWING DOGGEREL IN CORNER

SCHOOLING IN INDIANA

23

mother who, in 1865, was living at Charleston, Illinois, still had a portion of this hand-made book which she gave to Herndon. The latter turned several pages over to me, one of which contains the table of Long Measure with its quaint and primitive divisions of measurement:

"Three barley-corns make one inch,

Four inches one hand,” etc.

It was in one of the lower corners of this sheet that young Abe had scrawled the four memorable lines of schoolboy doggerel:

"Abraham Lincoln,

His hand and pen,
He will be good,

But God knows when."

In some unaccountable way the young student secured a copy of Barclay's Dictionary which he doubtless frequently consulted, for when Herndon visited the stepmother the latter still had the volume with young Abe's name, in his own hand, written on the fly-leaf. At two places in the neighborhood where he lived in Indiana, the stepmother ́told Herndon, the boy was given access to books of a more literary character and he was occasionally permitted to take a volume home with him to read. This was at Josiah Crawford's and David Turnham's. From the first he obtained "The Kentucky Preceptor," out of which he learned the various poems and declamations he memorized and occasionally recited at school. At Turnham's there were two books to which he was especially attached and he read and re-read them. They were "Sinbad the Sailor" and "Scott's Lessons." These and the Revised Statutes of Indiana, which Turnham used in connection with the office of township constable, and which volume

the latter turned over to Herndon in 1865, will indicate the probable scope of Lincoln's scholastic ventures up to this time.

With these primitive and unpretentious literary appliances Lincoln slowly acquired the rudiments of his education. All his school-days added together did not equal a year, and he not only was not privileged to attend a high or advanced school, but, until he was old enough to go to Congress, had never seen the inside of a college, academy, or high-school building. As Herndon very pertinently observed, it awakens the tenderest emotions to recall the story of this obscure but ambitious boy battling year after year against his evil star, wasting his ingenuity upon makeshifts and devices in a struggle to secure a training which to-day is not only easily within reach of the poorest and most indifferent lad in the land, but, under our generous educational system, is furnished to all without stint or reluctance.

The commonly accepted notion that Lincoln, especially during his sojourn in Indiana, was what would be called an intensive or industrious young man lacks more or less support. The truth is he had no fondness for the severe labor of the backwoods and no scruples against avoiding it whenever possible. Equally erroneous is the prevalent belief that he spent a large proportion of his time as a hired hand working for others. Service of that kind had no charms for him, and while it is true he occasionally labored for wages the instances were rare and invariably of brief duration. He was not much given to fishing, hunting, or sports generally, but much preferred reading and like. diversions. He was an eager listener to debates and other