Abraham Lincoln had less schooling than all but a couple of other presidents, and more wisdom than every one of them. In this original, insightful book, Michael Gerhardt, a professor of jurisprudence at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, explains how this came to be. He focuses on five men he calls Lincoln’s mentors, but the book is really an account of how Lincoln educated himself. Crucially, it does not stop at the inauguration; more than any other president, Lincoln grew in office. Until the very end of his life, his self-education never ceased.
Lincoln’s thirst for knowledge surfaced early. He borrowed any book he could lay hands on, and the more he read, the more he wanted to read. Like the archetype of the self-educated American, Benjamin Franklin, Lincoln benefited from not knowing what a person was supposed to learn. Consequently he, like Franklin, assumed he ought to learn everything.
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