Suggestive programs for special day exercises/Lincoln Day/Education a Growth
EDUCATION A GROWTH
Mr. Lincoln himself told the following story of his life.—“When I was about eighteen years old I went into an office to study law. After a while I saw that a lawyer’s business was largely to prove things, and I said to myself, “Lincoln, when is a thing proved?” That was a poser. I could not answer that question. What constitutes a proof? Not evidence, that was not to the point. There may be evidence enough, but wherein consists the proof? I was reminded of the story of the German who was tried for some crime, and they brought half-a-dozen respectable men who swore that they saw the prisoner commit the crime. “Vel, vot of dot?” said the Teuton; “six men schvears dot dey sees me do the pishness, I prings more as two tozen good men, who schvears dey did not see me do it.” So, wherein is the proof? I fairly groaned over the question and finally said to myself, “Ah, Lincoln, you can’t tell.” Then I thought, what use is it for me to be in a law office, if I can’t tell when a thing is proved? So I gave it up and went back home over in Kentucky. Soon after I returned to the old log cabin, I fell in with a copy of Euclid. I had not the slightest notion what Euclid was, and I thought I would find out. I found out; but it was no easy job. I looked into the book and I found it was all about lines, angles, surfaces, and solids; but I could not understand it at all. I therefore began very deliberately at the beginning. I learned the definitions and axioms, I demonstrated the first proposition; I said that is simple enough. I went on to the next, and before spring I had gone through that old Euclid and could demonstrate every proposition in it. I knew it from beginning to end; you could not stick me on the hardest of them. One day in the spring, when I had got through with it, I said to myself, “Ah, do you know now when a thing is proved?”; and I answered out loud, “Yes, sir, I do, and you may go back to the law shop.” In a few weeks I went, and to this circumstance I owe all the logical acumen that I possess. I dug it out of that old geometry, often by the light of pine knots; but I got it, and I think that nothing but geometry will teach a man the power of abstract reasoning.”