Dear Young People,
Presidents Day is coming around again, so it’s a good time to take up my pen and scratch out a letter to you. It’s been a long time since I was president, but I never want to lose touch with this great country, especially our younger generations.
I’m always interested to see what students are learning in school. Maybe that’s because I didn’t get much schooling on the frontier, where I grew up.
My father sent me to school by littles — a little here and a little there between plantings and plowings. Those littles added up to less than a year in school my whole life, and that took place in little log schoolhouses in Kentucky and Indiana.
But I loved learning and reading. We had few books in our cabin — Aesop’s Fables, The Pilgrim’s Progress, and of course the Bible. I would walk miles to borrow a book. My best friend was anyone who could get me a book.
When I was a young man living on the Illinois prairie, I realized I would never be a good speaker or writer if I didn’t know more grammar. I walked 6 miles to get hold of a grammar book, took it home, and studied it front to back until I knew my rules about nouns and verbs.
A short time later, I made up my mind to become a lawyer. There was no law school, but I got hold of some books. In my spare time, I sat on logs and split-rail fences studying hard until I learned enough to become a lawyer.
Even then, I didn’t want to stop learning. I studied geometry books while my horse, Old Bob, pulled my buggy across the prairies on legal business. I’ve always liked math because it sharpens the mind.
When I became president, all that learning paid off. And I had a lot more to learn, fast, when the country plunged into civil war.
Being president did not leave much time for books. I mostly read newspapers and reports about the war, though I always made time for the Bible.
As president, I learned much by listening to others with experience and knowledge. Learning from people is just as good as learning from books, maybe better. If anyone can show me the right path, I’ll follow it.
Learn all you can, any way you can, while you can. That’s how to take advantage of all the opportunities this country offers. Learning and studying helped a poor boy like me go from a log cabin all the way to the White House.
With study and work, you have a chance to do amazing things with your life. That’s why this country has long been the wonder and admiration of the world. Here in America, we want everyone to have a chance to live to their fullest potential.
That reminds me of one other thing I want to tell you. I hope that your teachers and schoolbooks are explaining what a grand country you live in.
It’s by no means a perfect country, of course. Like all nations, the United States has sometimes done wrong, even great wrong. And like other countries, we have problems that need fixing.
We Americans are pretty good at calling attention to our problems and mistakes. It helps us make the country a better place. But we should never forget all the good this country has done.
Ours is the first nation in history created out of the belief that people should be free. Over time, America has brought freedom to untold millions, here and abroad. Our soldiers have liberated millions from tyranny.
No other country in the world has welcomed so many people from so many different shores. No other country has done a better job, over time, of establishing equal rights for its citizens.
American businesses give people a chance to make good lives for themselves and their families. They have helped lift millions out of poverty. Young people around the world would jump at the chance to trade places with you and be here in America, where you can put your talents to work and achieve remarkable things.
I hope your schoolwork is helping you learn to love this country, because it deserves and needs your love. We should all be grateful to live here.
After all, learning to be grateful is one of the most important lessons in life.
— A. Lincoln
(John Cribb is the author of “The Rail Splitter: A Novel of Abraham Lincoln.” This article was made available via RealClearWire.)
