How I Became a Lawyer Without a Teacher or School
I was born in 1809 in a log cabin in Kentucky and had less than a year of formal schooling. Books were rare, so I walked miles to borrow them and read by firelight whenever I could. I told myself, “I will prepare and some day my chance will come,” because learning was the only way forward. I read everything I could find, learning arithmetic, grammar, and history before I ever thought of law, and I tried to understand what I read as deeply as possible.
When my mother died, my stepmother, Sarah Bush Lincoln, joined our family. She encouraged my reading, lent me books, and showed patience when others expected me to work the fields. She taught me that education was more than books; it was forming the mind and character. Her guidance gave me the confidence to pursue knowledge on my own and made me value persistence and curiosity.
I taught myself law by studying Blackstone’s Commentaries and other legal manuals. I spent hours in courthouses in Springfield and New Salem, watching lawyers, listening to arguments, and learning from what I observed. I practiced drafting contracts and resolving disputes on my own. “I studied with an unassisted mind, with no teacher, in my leisure time,” I said later. By 1836, my study and observation prepared me to pass the bar and begin practicing law.
Others saw something in me. Walt Whitman described me as “Gentle, plain, just and resolute,” while William Gladstone called me a man of “moral elevation most rare in a statesman.” Those words reflect how persistence, curiosity, and guidance from someone who believes in you can shape a life. “The things I learned were not in the schools. I had to find them myself and keep at it,” I said. From log cabin to law office, self-education, careful observation, and determination made my life possible.
#History #USHistory #America #USA #Lincoln #Motivation #KnowledgeIsPower
