Page:Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln, v1.djvu/61

Rh "There were some schools, so-called, but no qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond readin, writin, and cipherin' to the rule of three. If a straggler supposed to understand Latin happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education. Of course, when I came of age, I did not know much."

At the time when Thomas Lincoln settled in Indiana, the county was named Perry, and its county-seat was known as Troy, on the Ohio River, but the country settled so rapidly that a new county was formed called Spencer, the county-seat of which was Rockport. A few years after the advent of the Lincolns, a little trading-post was established within less than two miles of their home, which, taking its name from its principal settler, was denominated Gentryville. Corydon, the county-seat of Harrison County, was then also the State capital, it having been so selected when the State was admitted into the Union. There was but one county between Harrison and Perry counties.

Although Thomas Lincoln had changed his residence from a camp to a cabin, it was not an extremely radical change from discomfort to comfort, for the cabin had neither a door nor windows; egress and ingress were had through an opening which was designed ultimately to accommodate a door. The house was likewise innocent of a floor, save the bare and naked earth. These omissions appeared all the more signifi- cant and objectionable from the better order of things in that line, inherent in the surroundings of other settlers, who were rapidly settling in the