strate" meant, but that it was impossible for him to understand. "Why," said he, "you might as well try to define blue to a blind man as to make me understand the meaning of 'demonstrate'."

But somehow, he said, he got the idea that "demonstrate" had something to do with geometry, and that if he wanted to understand the idea of proof in the sense in which it was used in the law, he had to know proof as it existed in geometry. Then he stopped the study of law, after he had been in Congress, after he had practised law for a dozen years or more. He stopped it and went home; he got a copy of Euclid's Geometry; he didn't stop until he had learned to demonstrate at sight every one of the propositions in six books of Euclid. Then said Lincoln: "I had learned a little of what 'demonstrate' meant a little of what logical proof meant." "And then," he added, "I went back and took up once again the practice of law."

But he was not satisfied even with that, because a few years later, when he was called in conference in the famous American Reaper case, in Cincinnati, he met Edwin M. Stanton, who after looking him over absolutely refused to let him plead in that case, just spurned and ignored him. Lincoln felt that Stanton had a power which he did not possess; it was a great source of pain to him, great chagrin, that he should be thus treated, but he did not harbor a grievance, he did not treasure resentment against Stanton. He said to his best friend: "I am going home to study law." He said: "These trained men from the East have studied law all their lives, they have a knowledge of the law and a power in the use of the law that I have not. Already they are beginning to come west. They are in Ohio at this time, and pretty soon they will be in Illinois, and I am going home to study law, and when they get to Illinois, I will be ready for them."

He was ever a student, this man Lincoln; never content, never satisfied with his accomplishments, never believing that he had fully mastered the thing with which he was

dealing. The power that he brought to bear in the study of his law cases made him largely successful.

That same power Lincoln applied also to his study of political questions; he applied it to his dealing with the slavery question. He saw deeper into that question than did the other men of his generation. Things which they did not see-the vague and evasive phases of the slavery question with which he dealt in the Lincoln and Douglas debates, and in the Cooper Union speech, and many other of his speeches-Lincoln made transparently clear so that the man on the street could understand and see the force of the thing he was saying. That was true because Lincoln had himself mastered the subject with which he was dealing. He had seen the relationship of all these questions, their ramifications and their qualifications.

In 1860, when Lincoln was asked about his power of statement, he said he remembered as a boy in his father's home being troubled by his inability to understand the conversation of the people whom he heard talking, and that many a time it had been his practice to go to his room after hearing a conversation during the evening, and to spend a part of the night in attempting to think through, to comprehend, and to state in his own language what these people had been talking about. He said he did not know that anything had ever made him angry in his life except his inability to understand what other people were saying: but that used to make him frantic; he lost his temper when he could not understand; and he said after hearing a conversation of that sort he was not satisfied until he had worked the thing over in his own thought, and expressed it in language which he believed would make it so plain that every boy he knew could understand. It was that growth, that self-discipline, that unfolding of his power, that was one of the great elements in the education of Abraham Lincoln.

The men who accompanied Lincoln in the famous journey from Springfield to Washing

ton when he went to be inaugurated, found as he went from city to city, as he passed through state after state, and approached the National Capital, that there was a growth in his conception of what the duties to which he was going were; of the responsibilities which rested upon him; of the power which he must bring to bear to meet those responsibilities and to discharge these duties. Certainly that power of Abraham Lincoln which grew with his years is to be traced in his state papers-the letters which he wrote, the speeches which he made, and the papers which he produced during the Civil War.

We pay our tribute of homage to the first inaugural address—a great paper, a masterful analysis. To show how great Lincoln was we have but to compare some parts of that address as they were proposed by William H. Seward, with the revision that Lincoln made of these; how obviously he improved in facility of expression, in clearness of statement, upon the thing which Seward had written. The first inaugural was indeed, a great paper, and we admire it, but, compare with the first inaugural the second, which was like an inspired passage from the Old Testament; the second inaugural was the consecration of a life to a holy cause; a generously frank spirit was brought to all of the issues that were involved in the crisis; an appeal was made to those on the other side. A deep feeling made this an infinitely greater document than was the first inaugural. In the difference between these two addresses you find an illustration of the way Abraham Lincoln had grown.

My own observation is that there was a thoroughness in all Lincoln's education. He was never satisfied to stop half way. He believed that he should go to the limit in his reading, go to the limit in his study, that he should master the thing with which he dealt, and never cease in his efforts until that mastery, that achievement had been accomplished.

We are so prone to believe that when we get a little portion of a subject into our systems, when we understand something about

it, when we get a glimmer of what it means, it is ours. We vision vaguely what we are studying, and we say that we understand it, but that we can't explain it. The lesson in the education of Lincoln is that one must go to the bottom, that he must see through, that he must master, that he must comprehend all of the subject with which he is dealing, and that he is not warranted in stopping in the study of any subject until he has effected such a mastery and such a comprehension.

It was the quality just mentioned which made Lincoln so superior to Douglas as a debater. Douglas had a facility, quickness of wit, an adaptability, a repartee, and brightness of mind which made him for the moment effective; but in contrast, Lincoln had a thoroughness and a completeness of mastery of the subject with which they were dealing. The question which he asked Douglas in the Freeport debate showed that Lincoln understood the tendency, and the inevitable outcome of the slavery question, in a way that Douglas did not. Douglas's answer to that question resulted in his temporary success because that answer was given to please the people of Illinois. But Lincoln saw deeper than that; he saw all America, and the answer that Douglas gave made it impossible for him to be the candidate of his whole party in the presidential election two years later; there was a divided democracy because of that answer, and Abraham Lincoln became President of the United States.

Last of all, and in a sense fundamental to all, the education of Abraham Lincoln was effective and powerful, and it accomplished results because of its moral quality. First of all, Lincoln was intellectually honest; he was honest with himself; he never tried to deceive himself; he never assumed to understand or pretended to understand a thing which he did not understand. He began with the resolve that he would be the complete master of the thing with which he was dealing, and he would not undertake to speak on it or write on it, or to lead others in dealing with it, until he was himself the

master of it. That was, I believe, the first great secret of his success.

There were other men in his generation who had as great intellectual power, perhaps, as had Lincoln. Webster was an infinitely greater lawyer. There were other men who had tremendous power, but the one difference between Lincoln and the other men of power of his generation, and the thing that brings him in striking contrast with the men of power in our generation, was that simplicity of his purpose, that intellectual honesty, that love of truth which was basal, which was the undergirding of all that he said, and all that he did.

I remember out in central Illinois, in the Eighth Judicial District, where Lincoln rode the circuit, and where I lived for some years and knew people who knew Lincoln, that I met an old man who said he had attended a country picnic on one occasion where a considerable number of the community had gathered, of which number Lincoln was one. After the custom of the time, they called on different people to speak, and finally someone called "Abe Lincoln," and the cry became general in the audience for "Abe Lincoln." My old friend said: "Lincoln went up to the platform, embarrassed, shuffling along, hesitating, and said, 'Why, I ain't got nothing to say. What do you want me to talk about?' Someone in the audience said, 'Talk about the tariff, Abe, talk about the tariff.' Lincoln pulled himself together, smiled, and said, 'Well, that reminds me, talking about the tariff, of a little experience I had over in New Salem. I was tending store, when a fellow came in and said that he wanted a picayune's worth of crackers. I gave him the crackers, and later he handed them back to me and said, "I don't want these crackers; take them back, and give me a picayune's worth of cider." I took back the crackers and gave him the cider, and then he drank the cider. Soon he started away, so I said, "Here, Bill, pay me for that cider." And he said, "Why, I gave you the crackers for the cider." I said, "Well, pay me for the crackers." But Bill said, "I didn't have

any crackers."" Then, Lincoln concluded, 'I never did figure the darn thing out; whenever I tried to collect for the crackers, Bill insisted he had not had any crackers, and when I tried to collect for the cider he insisted that he gave me the crackers for the cider. I made up my mind, however, that somehow I was out a picayune's worth of cider. That's the way with this tariff. I have never figured the thing out; I don't understand it, but somehow or other I seem to be out the tariff.' Everybody had a good laugh, Lincoln had made a pleasing speech, and had not compromised himself on the tariff."

In contrast, I remember, out in this same district, hearing a politician, who made a long speech on the tariff, and after he got through, a man came up and thanked him profusely and said, "I am glad I heard you, Mr. Green, because now I understand the tariff." Later Mr. Green said to another gentleman in confidence that he was very glad somebody understood the tariff, because he did not understand it. Lincoln said to the War Governor of Illinois, Richard Oglesby, "Keep close to the people, Dick, keep close to the people; you can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but I tell you, Dick you can't fool all the people all the time." And it was that feeling of trust which the people had in Abraham Lincoln, the fact that he did not try to deceive and mislead them, to misrepresent facts to them, that made him so trusted and so respected.

The one achievement of Lincoln's life which gave him the greatest satisfaction, perhaps, was his election by a vote of his own company in the Black Hawk War to be captain of the company. The feeling of the men with whom he lived on the frontier, that he was the man to be in command, seemed to give him greater pleasure than any other of the honors conferred upon him. In that frontier settlement he was to his neighbors "Honest Abe Lincoln," the man who was the referee in boxing bouts, and wrestling matches; the man who held the stakes in the wagers of the frontier; the

M

AYBE there are halo-hunters in every school system. Maybe there are teachers who enjoy having halos pressed upon them; even great Cæsar was thought wistful when he pushed the crown away. It seems to me that the halo business is a sort of cheap hypocrisy on the part of school officials and politicians who use praise as a substitute for paying educational service what it is worth. As I list my teacher acquaintances I am impressed by the number of those who deserve more than a halo and never think of it, much less mention it.

There is Hannah Wells who died last month. She hadn't money enough to pay for her funeral. For thirty years she has been the most radiant influence in one of the most wretched parts of the town. Shoes, clothes, food, medicines, has she bought for contingents of children in her public school class. All that Mr. Rockefeller and Mr. Carnegie have given, and I honor them for their generosity, is, in proportion to what they had and what they kept, small indeed compared with the proportion of her possessions given by my Saint Hannah of the Wells.

I am thinking, too, of Anne Bradshaw, principal of a public school in an Italian district. If ever there was a mother superior, she is one.

Her teachers come from the most distant corners of the city to that old dingy building of theirs. The streets look as though they never had been cleaned. These girls teach in her school because she has reached in them that heart of service, which, often atrophied, exists in every human breast. To her comes

Every town that

every mother whose girl is going wrong; to her are brought sick babies, and knotty problems of home. There is no extravagance in calling her good Saint Anne. You know this kind. has a school has them. They are cheery, merry, hearty. If you are looking for halos you will find the radiance emanating from these teachers. They are no Main Street dwellers; their pictures are not in the papers, their names do not bedeck the society column nor the records of the divorce courts. They are the quiet, modest builders of America.

Who cares whether the halo be brass or gold as long as the head size fits? No one of us would object to a brass halo; it is much more democratic than gold and infinitely safer to wear. But we do object to being told that we all wear the same size crown, and that one made to fit the smallest individual.

It is no less than amusing to see a writer who has supposedly specialized in psychology indulge in wholesale condemnation of the species because some individuals deserve disdain. One might suppose that a study of the law of individual differences would modify dependence on sweeping generalities. Further, since when have psychologists developed tests which can determine "evidence of potential greatness"? Certainly no adult intelligence test has aspired to this; and until it becomes a scientific reality, one need not be surprised that the teaching profession fails to provide superior scores.

What are the factors that bring out this condemnation? "Assertiveness that never