In The Boyhood of Lincoln

ops of the timber to change, and to take on new hues in the high sun and lengthening days. The birds were on th

les or terrapins, and these began to

as fuel cost nothing, it was, as we have said, well f

he school, to put coals of fire on the backs of wandering terrapins, and to j

itable, and kind to everyone but the unkind. But his nature made war at once on any one who sought to injure another, and he was especially severe on any one who was so mean and cowardly as to disregard the natur

st battles in life were in defense of the turtles or terrapins. He was a boy of powerful strength, and he u

how many forms life and matter can assume under the mellowing rays of the sun. The clod becomes a flower; the egg a reptile, fish, or bird. The cunning woodchuck, that looks out of his hole on the awakening earth and blue sky, seems almost to have a sense of the miracle that has been wrought. The bo

ith his companions. It was one of his favorite amusements to declaim from a stump. He

one piece in the school Reader in which he must have found a sympathetic chord, and which was pro

enter on my l

th polished manne

g sensibil

ly sets foot

t step may cr

evening in th

has humanity

de, and let th

anions were playing in

ry, and only to mount a stump to be a speaker. Now, Abe, speak for the cause of t

edged wings of his soul, that waited a cause. He would imitate the few preachers and speakers that he had heard-even an old Kentucky

r periods his coon-skin cap. The scholars cheered as he waxed earnes

's another turtle come to school! He

ard the house, his head protruding from

d and dramatic. The boys raised a sh

the turtle by the tail and slung it around his head, as

nce threw a turtle at him, when he was preachin' to his

and his sister the weeping; and he sometimes became so much affected by his own discourses that

again, and at last let go of it in the

shed at the foot of the s

suffering, and his heart yearned over the helpless creature, a

d as the scene exhibited before him. The poor turtle again tried to move away, his head just protruding, looking for some way out of the world that would deny him his right to the sunshine and the streams. The young orator saw it all; his

him talk. He's onl

force of the scene. The boys and girls of Andrew Crawford's school never forgot the p

his leading trait or chara

sped in numbers"; the boy statesmanship of Cromwell; and the early aspiration of nearly every great leader of mankind-all showed the current of the life-stream, and it is the current alone that knows and prophesies the future. When Abraham Lincoln fell, the world uncovered its head. Thrones were sorrowful, and humanity wept. Yet his earliest rostrum wa

read the meaning of the scene. Jasper saw the soul of things, and turned always from the outward expressions of life to the inward motive. He read the true character of the boy in buckskin bre

g what you and I ought fir

at?" asked

ucated? As Pestalozzi used to say, The soul is the true end of all

teach morals as a

t be done at the school age, and I tell you that this is the highest education. A boy who can spell all the words in the spelling-book, and bound all

end of education is to mak

is not to make young people do right, but to train the young heart t

uld you

heart. The head may make friends, but only the heart can hold them. It is the heart-power that serves and rules. The best thing that can be said of any one i

t him on the bank. Jasper watched them. He t

aracter; second, life; third, books. Let education begin in