III. SOME SIGNS ALONG THE EARLY WAY
The Lincoln boy impressed all who knew him as being different from other boys, though they did not know just how. We now know that the difference consisted in his having a purpose to have a mind rather than to have a good time. And yet, Lincoln loved joyful sports and he was a favorite in all the social gatherings of the community. But his mind was not composed of sport experience, nor his interest in life inspired by sport success. The world-mind of books contained more value and richer promise than the turmoil of happenings among companions, or than those who were juggling interests in the hope of events.
Lincoln’s books were very limited in number but exceedingly wide in their humanity. Weems’ “Life of Washington” seems to have given him his ideal of American character and statesmanship, while the “Statutes of Indiana” aroused his interest in civil law and the American government.
When addressing the senate of the state of New Jersey, in 1861, Lincoln said, “May I be pardoned if, on this occasion, I mention that away back in my childhood, the earliest days of my being able to read, I got hold of a small book, such a one as few of the younger members have ever seen, ‘Weems’ Life of Washington.’ I remember all the accounts there given of the battlefields and struggles for the liberties of the country, and none fixed themselves upon my imagination so deeply as the struggle here at Trenton, New Jersey. The crossing of the river, the contest with the Hessians, the great hardships endured at that time, all fixed themselves in my mind more than any single revolutionary event; and you all know, for you have all been boys, how these early impressions last longer than others. I recollect thinking then, boy even though I was, that there must have been something more than common that these men struggled for. I am exceedingly anxious that that thing shall be perpetuated in accordance with the original idea for which that struggle was made.”
Lincoln told one of his friends that he read through every book he had ever heard of in his surroundings for a distance of fifty miles. The industry with which he sought to learn and his unceasing endeavor to build up his mind were marks of the genius that possessed him, the spirit that made him one of the strongest men of a world-wide work.
In the whole country round there was only one newspaper subscriber, and that was in Gentryville, Indiana, for a weekly paper from Louisville. Lincoln walked to town every week to see that paper and discuss the news. By the time he had become a man, in Menard County, Illinois, his neighbors went to him in order to know things, and he was a good custodian of the knowledge he had gained. His opinions coincided with common sense. So, common sense made him President of the United States, saved a United Nation, and gave Lincoln a never-dying place in the love and honor of mankind.
Lincoln walked six miles to borrow a grammar, and he studied it till he mastered the principles of the English language. Many another boy has thought that he had few troubles more unbearable than the study of composition, but many another boy has not been prepared to speak the world-stirring speech, such as was spoken by Lincoln at the dedication of the battlefield of Gettysburg.