My father, at the death of his father, was but six years of age, and he grew up literally without education.
He removed from Kentucky to what is now Spencer County, Indiana, in my eighth year. We reached our new home about the time the state came into the union. It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up. There were some schools, so called, but no qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond “readin’, writin’, and cipherin’ ” to the “rule of three.” If a straggler supposed to understand Latin happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education. Of course, when I came of age, I did not know much. Still, somehow I could read, write, and cipher to the rule of three, but that was all. I have not been to school since. The little advance I now have upon this store of education I have picked up from time to time under the pressure of necessity.
From a letter to Jesse W. Fell. Lincoln met Fell, who was at the time working as a lobbyist, during a session of the Illinois state legislature around 1834. In 1858 Fell pointed out that Lincoln’s popularity was rising on the East Coast and requested an extended interview that would present Lincoln to the larger American populace as a potential candidate for president. After resisting Fell’s request for about a year, Lincoln sent this autobiographical sketch, insisting that “if anything be made out of it, I wish it to be modest.”
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