Existing comment:
Self-Education:
The education that Lincoln later described as having been "picked up from time to time under the pressure of necessity" continued at New Salem. Some village residents later remembered that the young man stood out from others because of the time he spent reading. A good deal of it probably arose from his effort, beginning in 1832, to master the rules embodied in Samuel Kirkham's English Grammar, a common text of the period. The process of self-education continued through Lincoln's life. His apparent interest in mathematics led him, in the 1850s, to study and master Euclid's geometry. During the Civil War, the commander-in-chief, whose military experience consisted of brief service int he Black Hawk War, borrowed military texts from the Library of Congress. |