Our American Holidays: Lincolns Birthday | Page 3

offered here.
The standard biography of Lincoln is the monumental one in ten large
volumes by Nicolay and Hay, the President's private secretaries. This
contains considerable material not found elsewhere, but since its
publication in 1890 much new matter has been unearthed, especially by
the enterprise of Miss Ida Tarbell, whose "Life" in two volumes
contains the essentials of the larger official work, is well balanced, and
written in a simple, vigorous style perfectly adapted to the subject. If
only one biography of Lincoln is to be read, Miss Tarbell's will, on the
whole, be found most satisfactory.
The older Lives, written by Lincoln's friends and associates, such as
Lamon and Herndon, make up in vividness and the intimate personal
touch what they necessarily lack in perspective. Arnold's Life deals
chiefly with the executive and legislative history of Lincoln's
administration. The Life by the novelist J. G. Holland deals popularly
with his hero's personality. The memoirs by Barrett, Abbott, Howells,
Bartlett, Hanaford and Power were written in the main for political
purposes.
Among the later works there stand out Morse's scholarly and serious
account (in the American Statesmen series) of Lincoln's public policy;
the vivid portrayal of Lincoln's adroitness as a politician by Col.
McClure in Abraham Lincoln and Men of War Times; Whitney's Life
on the Circuit with Lincoln, with its fund of entertaining anecdotes;
Abraham Lincoln, an Essay by Carl Schurz; James Morgan's "short and
simple annals" of Abraham Lincoln The Boy and the Man; Frederick

Trevor Hill's brilliant account of Lincoln the Lawyer, the result of
much recent research; the study of his personal magnetism in Alonzo
Rothschild's Lincoln, Master of Men; and The True Abraham Lincoln
by Curtis--a collection of sketches portraying Lincoln's character from
several interesting points of view. Abraham Lincoln The Man of the
People by Norman Hapgood is one of most recent and least
conventional accounts. It is short, vigorous, vivid, and intensely
American.
Among the many popular Lives for young people are: Abraham
Lincoln, the Pioneer Boy, by W. M. Thayer; Abraham Lincoln, The
Backwoods Boy, by Horatio Alger, Jr.; Abraham Lincoln, by Charles
Carleton Coffin; The True Story of Abraham Lincoln The American,
by E. S. Brooks; The Boy Lincoln, by W. O. Stoddard; and--most
important of all--Nicolay's Boy's Life of Abraham Lincoln.
R. H. S.

I
A BIRDSEYE VIEW OF LINCOLN
ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY
The following autobiography was written by Mr. Lincoln's own hand at
the request of J. W. Fell of Springfield, Ill., December 20, 1859. In the
note which accompanied it the writer says: "Herewith is a little sketch,
as you requested. There is not much of it, for the reason, I suppose, that
there is not much of me."
"I was born February 12, 1809, in Hardin Co., Ky. My parents were
both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families--second families,
perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a
family of the name of Hanks, some of whom now reside in Adams Co.,
and others in Mason Co., Ill. My paternal grandfather, Abraham
Lincoln, emigrated from Rockingham Co., Va., to Kentucky, about
1781 or 1782, where, a year or two later, he was killed by Indians, not

in battle, but by stealth, when he was laboring to open a farm in the
forest. His ancestors, who were Quakers, went to Virginia from Berks
Co., Pa. An effort to identify them with the New England family of the
same name ended in nothing more definite than a similarity of
Christian names in both families, such as Enoch, Levi, Mordecai,
Solomon, Abraham, and the like.
"My father, at the death of his father, was but six years of age, and
grew up literally without any education. He removed from Kentucky to
what is now Spencer Co., Ind., 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.
"I was raised to farm work, at which I continued till I was twenty-two.
At twenty-one