Intellectually he was far better equipped than he believed himself to
be, better than he has ordinarily been credited with being. True,
he had had no conventional college training, but he had by his own
efforts attained the chief result of all preparatory study, the
ability to take hold of a subject and assimilate it. The fact that in
six weeks he had acquired enough of the science of surveying to enable
him to serve as deputy surveyor shows how well-trained his mind was.
The power to grasp a large subject quickly and fully is never an
accident. The nights Lincoln spent in Gentryville lying on the floor
in front of the fire figuring on the fire-shovel, the hours he passed
in poring over the Statutes of Indiana, the days he wrestled with
Kirkham's Grammar, alone made the mastery of Flint and Gibson
possible. His struggle with Flint and Gibson made easier the volumes
he borrowed from Major Stuart's law library.
[Illustration: GRAVE OF ANN RUTLEDGE IN OAKLAND CEMETERY.
From a photograph made for McCLURE'S MAGAZINE by C.S. McCullough,
Petersburg, Illinois, in September, 1895.
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