Abraham Lincoln's Schooling

      Abraham Lincoln wrote in his school tablet when he was a little boy in Indiana, "Abraham Lincoln, his hand and pen, he will be good, but God knows when." He enjoyed school, but he only had about one year of formal schooling in his lifetime. He said his schooling was "by littles" which means he learned a little here and a little there. He mostly was self-taught. Here is a summary of his schooling.
     His first teacher was his mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln. Even though she could not read, she knew the Bible and she would recite Bible passages and also poems she had memorized to Abraham and his sister, Sarah.
     In the fall of 1815 and again in 1816, while living in Kentucky, Abraham and his sister Sarah attended what was known as an ABC School, also called a "Blab School". This log cabin school did not have books for every student, so the students would recite their lessons out loud at the same time while the teacher walked around and listened. The teacher of this school was Zachariah Riney. slate for writing and one of young Abraham's favorite books.

slate for writing and one of young Abraham's favorite books.

     When the Lincoln's moved to Indiana he again only attended school a short time, and when he was not in school he would be helping his father with the chores. However, he loved reading and writing, and every chance he got when he was not working he would practice writing his letters. One of the ways he would practice is to write on hickory bark. When the bark would get full of writing and he ran out of room on it he would just take a drawknife and shave off the writing and start all over again.
     In 1818 Abraham's mother, Nancy, died of milk sickness. In 1819 his father married Sarah Bush Johnston. She was kind and loving to Abraham and his sister. She encouraged Abraham to keep reading and studying. She even gave him three books to read.
     Abraham was only able to attend school a few short times after this between 1820 to 1824. The total time of his schooling was between one year and eighteen months. He mostly would borrow books from other people if he wanted to keep learning. Two of the first books he borrowed were Robinson Crusoe and Arabian Nights. When he was 18 years old he borrowed the book The Life of George Washington from a neighbor named Josiah Crawford. He took it up to his loft to read and after he fell asleep it rained. The roof and ceiling leaked and the book was ruined by rain water. He felt badly about that. He took the book back and apologized. He offered to work off the price of the book since he did not have money to pay to replace it. Josiah let him work it off . It took Abraham three days of hard labor but it paid off. Not only did he work off the payment for the book, but he got to keep the book!
     Whenever he could he would stop his chores to read.

Abraham Lincoln reads by the firelight. Eastman Johnson 1869

He would read in between chores and he even read by the firelight at night. His father would sometimes scold him when he found him reading instead of doing chores. That did not stop Abraham from wanting to learn. He taught himself on a variety of subjects such as literature, mathematics, and current events.
As he got older he read anything he could find to read. One of his favorite things to read was a newspaper. Eventually he even read Shakespeare. As a teenager he became fascinated with the laws of the land and studied law books and eventually, after moving to Illinois, he became a lawyer.

When he was an adult, one interesting way he remembered things he needed to do was to keep notes and letters in his stovepipe hat! He would keep them there so he would not forget them.

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