Abraham lincoln education biography

Abraham Lincoln was born in 1809 to an illiterate father and a mother who only had basic reading skills. Lincoln himself did not receive extensive formal education. According to the sixteenth president of the United States, he only attended school every now and then.

In 1858, he even described his formal education as “flawed.”

When he was nominated for the presidency of the United States in 1860, he felt sad about his meager formal schooling. He attended school only occasionally, so his formal education amounted to only a year.

Lincoln did not go to college either.

Abraham lincoln education history

He was self-educated and sustained his appetite for independent learning all his life. Lincoln’s stepmother, Sarah, described him as a boy who was always reading something and had a fascination with learning. Even as an adult, Lincoln continued to read to improve himself as a person, studying books on English grammar and immersing himself in the Greek mathematician Euclid when he served in Congress.