A fascinating look in the video above at the earliest writing we have from Abraham Lincoln, his “sum book”. The tenacity with which Lincoln pursued education and self-improvement as a child and young adult is awe inspiring, especially in our age of free public education for all, and the knowledge that many students fail to make much use of this opportunity. Lincoln’s thirst for knowledge remained with him all his life. In his eulogy for Henry Clay in 1852 he stated, Mr. Clay’s lack of a more perfect early education, however it may be regretted generally, teaches at least one profitable lesson; it teaches that in this country, one can scarcely be so poor, but that, if he will, he can acquire sufficient education to get through the world respectably. I suspect that Lincoln thought that quote applied to him, just as much as it did to Henry Clay.
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Almost Chosen People- Lawrence Charles McClarey: Requiescat In Pace
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from loc.gov
Throughout his life, Abraham Lincoln was an avid reader of poetry. As a teenager, however, Lincoln also began to cultivate an interest in writing poetry. Lincoln’s oldest surviving verses, written when he was between fifteen and seventeen years old, are brief squibs that appear in his arithmetic book.
Abraham Lincoln
his hand and pen
he will be good but
god knows When [1]
True Whimsy. Lincoln wrote poems throughout his life, most of it pretty bad:
Gen. Lees invasion of the North written by himself—
In eighteen sixty three, with pomp,
and mighty swell,
Me and Jeff’s Confederacy, went
forth to sack Phil-del,
The Yankees the got arter us, and
giv us particular hell,
And we skedaddled back again,
And didn’t sack Phil-del.
Linclon was a master at prose; when it came to poetry he stank!
Oh, c’mon, that is hardly a serious effort. And plenty of Bob Horton’s war songs have lyrics of this kind.
The more pretentious of his efforts Fabio were little better. Poetry is admittedly a matter of taste, but there is a good reason why Lincoln’s poetic efforts are blessedly obscure.
I’ll take your word for it. Anyway, his contemporary Charles Dickens was just as bad.
I’ve never beem much of a fan of Boz, Fabio, except for A Tale of Two Cities and A Christmas Carol. On the other hand I can read Lincoln’s prose and never cease to be enthralled, often finding points that I have not seen in a speech I have read many times. Lincoln could pack more meaning into fewer words than almost any other writer of the English language.