A severe and mysterious sickness broke out in the little Kentucky settlement where the Lincolns lived when Abe was about seven. Nancy Hanks Lincoln, the mother of young Abraham Lincoln died. Meanwhile, Sarah Bush Johnston had married about the time Lincoln’s father married Nancy Hanks. Her husband had died too. She was left with three children. Lincoln’s father went back to his home and married the widow Sarah.
The household goods that she brought with her to the Lincoln home filled a four-horse wagon. Her own three children were well clothed and cared for. She was able to bring little Abraham and his eleven year old sister Sarah comforts they had never known.
The new stepmother quickly became very fond of Abraham. She encouraged him in every way to study and improve himself. Mr. Lincoln once wrote, “It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up.”
The family moved to Indiana. For two years Lincoln went without schooling of any sort. The school he attended shortly after Sarah came was very simple. The Pigeon Creek settlement had only eight or ten very poor families. They lived deep in the forest. Even if they had the money, it would have been impossible to buy books, slates, pens, ink, or paper.
In Lincoln’s seventeenth year he had more books and better teachers, but he had to walk four or five miles to reach them. We know that he learned to write, and was given pen, ink, a copybook, and a very small supply of writing paper. The instruction he received from his five teachers—two in Kentucky and three in Indiana—stretched over nine years. All together his schooling did not amount to one year.
The fact that he received this instruction, as he himself said, “by littles,” was an advantage. A lazy or not caring boy would have forgotten what was taught him at school. Abraham was neither indifferent or not caring. Every moment of instruction was a precious step to self-help. He worked on his studies with very unusual purpose and determination. He wanted to understand them at the moment. He also wanted to fix them firmly in his mind. His early companions all agree that he employed every spare moment to his studies. His stepmother tells us that “When he came across a passage that struck him, he would write it down on boards if he had no paper. He would keep it there until he did get paper. Then he would rewrite it, look at it, and repeat it. He had a copybook, a kind of scrapbook, in which he put down all things, and thus saved them.” He spent long evenings writing sums on the fire-shovel. Abraham worked his sums by the flickering firelight, making his figures with a piece of charcoal. When the shovel was all covered, he used a drawing-knife to shave it clean again.
He borrowed every book in the neighborhood. The list is a short one: Robinson Crusoe, Aesop’s Fables, Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Weems’s Life of Washington, and A History of the United States. When everything else had been read, he began on the Revised Statutes of Indiana, which he visited a neighbor in order to read.
He was a social, sunny-tempered lad, as fond of jokes and fun as he was kindly and industrious. His stepmother said of him: “I can say, what scarcely one mother in a thousand can say, Abe never gave me a cross word or look, and never refused . . . to do anything I asked him. . . I must say . . that Abe was the best boy I ever saw or expect to see.”
He was not only a tall, strong country boy: he soon grew to be a tall, strong, sinewy man. He soon reached the unusual height of six feet four inches. His long arms gave him power as an axman. He usually beat his friends in races and mind puzzles. He could out-run, out-lift, out-wrestle his friends, that he could chop faster, split more rails in a day, carry a heavier log at a “raising,” or beat the neighborhood champion in any frontier athletics made him proud; but stronger than that was his hunger for learning. He felt that using the mind rather than muscle was the key to success. He wished not only to wrestle with the best of them, but also to be able to talk like the preacher, spell and cipher like the schoolmaster, argue like the lawyer, and write like the editor.
Because of his reading and his excellent memory, he soon became the best storyteller among his companions. The training from his studies made his naturally bright mind grow. His wit might be mischievous, but it was never malicious, and his nonsense was never intended to wound. He took no pleasure in hunting. Almost every youth of the backwoods early became an excellent shot and sportsman. The woods still swarmed with game, and every cabin depended largely upon this for its supply of food. But to his strength was added a gentleness, which made him shrink from killing or inflicting pain. The time the other boys spent lying in ambush, he preferred to spend in reading or improving his mind.
In March, 1831, at the end of a terrible winter, Abraham Lincoln left his father’s cabin to seek his own fortune in the world.
背景與作者介紹
這個故事講述了亞伯拉罕·林肯的早期生活，他是美國第 16 任總統，以其在美國內戰期間的領導地位和廢除奴隸制的努力而聞名。 敘述來自歷史記載和傳記，詳細描述了林肯在邊疆定居點的卑微出身。 林肯的生活故事在無數的傳記、兒童讀物和歷史小說中被反覆講述，強調了他的毅力、自學和道德品格。
亞伯拉罕·林肯的故事不僅僅是一位著名領袖的故事，更是關於在逆境中堅定決心和學習的力量。 許多此類傳記故事的作者旨在通過展示林肯如何克服貧困、失去和有限的教育，成為一個偉人來激勵年輕讀者。
詳細闡釋與意義
這個故事突出了幾個關鍵主題：逆境中的韌性、教育的價值以及品格的重要性。 林肯的母親去世和一位慈愛的繼母的到來表明了家庭支持在個人發展中的關鍵作用。 儘管資源和機會有限，但林肯對知識和自我提升的渴望卻熠熠生輝。
這個故事還揭示了邊疆生活的挑戰——學校稀缺、到老師那裡的距離很長，以及需要在體力勞動和學習之間取得平衡。 林肯在木板上寫字和重新抄寫段落的方法說明了他的創造力和學習決心。 他借閱《魯賓遜漂流記》和《伊索寓言》等書籍表明了他渴望探索不同的想法和故事。
林肯的體力和運動能力與他溫柔的天性和求知慾相平衡，描繪了一個全面發展的人物。 他更喜歡閱讀而不是打獵，這表明他思想縝密，專注於成長而不是僅僅生存。
給學生的教訓和見解
- **毅力和自律：**林肯的故事教導學生努力工作並充分利用每一個學習機會的重要性，即使在環境困難的情況下也是如此。
- **教育的價值：**即使接受的正規教育不到一年，林肯對閱讀和寫作的投入也幫助他取得了成功。 這表明教育不僅僅是花在學校的時間，更是努力和投入的質量。
- **學習中的創造力：**林肯利用現有的任何材料，找到了練習寫作和背誦重要段落的方法。 這鼓勵學生足智多謀和堅持不懈。
- **品格與善良：**林肯對他的繼母和朋友的尊重和友善的行為樹立了良好的禮儀和積極的社會互動的榜樣。
- **力量與溫柔的平衡：**堅強並不意味著嚴厲； 林肯的溫柔與他的體力相結合，教導了同情心和對他人的尊重。
在日常生活中應用
- **在學習中：**學生可以效仿林肯，定期投入時間學習，如果資源有限，可以使用創造性的方法，並尋求課本以外的知識。
- **在社交場合：**林肯的尊重態度提醒學生友善地對待他人並互相合作，這有助於建立牢固的關係。
- **在克服挑戰時：**當面臨困難時，學生可以記住林肯的堅持和樂觀的榜樣，明白挫折是成長的一部分。
- **在個人成長中：**平衡體育活動和智力追求有助於培養全面發展的個性，就像林肯將力量與對閱讀的熱愛結合起來一樣。
從故事中培養積極的特質
- **好奇心：**鼓勵提問和探索新主題。
- **勤奮：**為學習設定目標並定期練習。
- **尊重：**表達對家人、老師和同伴的感激之情。
- **韌性：**學會從失敗或障礙中恢復過來。
- **同情心：**理解他人的感受，避免造成傷害。
亞伯拉罕·林肯的早期生活故事是年輕讀者的強大榜樣。 它表明，偉大始於小的、持續的努力，並且品格和善良與智慧和力量一樣重要。 通過從他的旅程中學習，學生可以找到靈感，以勇氣和愛心追求自己的夢想。
