"Abraham Lincoln
his hand and pen
he will be good but
[God] knows When"These are the words Lincoln wrote in his schoolbook when he was a young boy. In his autobiography, Lincoln estimated that his time in school totaled one year. His teachers in the pioneer schools in Indiana didn't have any arithmetic textbooks, so Lincoln found some paper, which was hard to come by, tied it together, and created his own "sum book."
Even though Lincoln had very little formal education, he loved to read, and neighbors remembered how he would walk for miles to borrow a book. Some of his favorite books included Life and Memorable Actions of George Washington, Robinson Crusoe, Pilgrim's Progress, and Aesop's Fables. How far would you go to borrow a book?