By that time he had more books and better
teachers, but he had to walk four or five miles to reach them. We
know that he learned to write, and was provided with pen, ink,
and a copy-book, and a very small supply of writing-paper, for
copies have been printed of several scraps on which he carefully
wrote down tables of long measure, land measure, and dry measure,
as well as examples in multiplication and compound division, from
his arithmetic. He was never able to go to school again after
this time, and though the instruction he received from his five
teachers--two in Kentucky and three in Indiana--extended over a
period of nine years, it must be remembered that it made up in
all less than one twelve-month; "that the aggregate of all his
schooling did not amount to one year." The fact that he received
this instruction, as he himself said, "by littles," was doubtless
an advantage. A lazy or indifferent boy would of course have
forgotten what was taught him at one time before he had
opportunity at another; but Abraham was neither indifferent nor
lazy, and these widely separated fragments of instruction were
precious steps to self-help. He pursued his studies with very
unusual purpose and determination not only to understand them at
the moment, but to fix them firmly in his mind. His early
companions all agree that he employed every spare moment in
keeping on with some one of his studies.
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