HC: Abraham Lincoln

Greatness in life is not a function of  the spoon you are born with, as the saying goes ‘born with a silver spoon’, Abraham Lincoln was born with ‘a wooden spoon’ but made that silver spoon during his life time.

 Abraham Lincoln  (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the United States through its greatest constitutional, military, and moral crises—the American Civil War—preserving the Union, abolishing slavery, strengthening the national government and modernizing the economy. Reared in a poor family on the western frontier, Lincoln was self-educated, and became a country lawyer, a Whig Party leader, Illinois state legislator during the 1830s, and a one-term member of the United States House of Representatives during the 1840s.

Abraham Lincoln was born February 12, 1809, the second child of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Lincoln, in a one-room log cabin on the Sinking Spring Farm in Hardin County, Kentucky

Young Lincoln's formal education consisted approximately of a year's worth of classes from several itinerant teachers, he was mostly self-educated and was an avid reader and often sought access to any new books in the village. He read and reread the King James Bible, Aesop's Fables, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, and Franklin's Autobiography

He was a man who taught himself law,  by reading Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England  and other law books.

Of his learning method, Lincoln stated: "I studied with nobody"

He  believed in reading, such that during the civil war he borrowed and studied Henry Halleck's book, Elements of Military Art and Science from the Library of Congress.

Abraham Lincoln is rated to be one of the greatest leader in America history because he stood by what he believed till his assassination in 1865.

What captured my attention most was his ability to Read and Reread until something drops into his spirit. He strongly believed in the power of walking the road other successful men and women did by studying their stories through written materials.

You can read more on Abraham Lincoln, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln#Family_and_childhood