Note 7 — Chapter IV · EARLY EDUCATION.—BOOKS ABRAHAM READ.—THE JONES GROCERY STORE.—LIFE ON THE RIVER.

The first authorized sketch of Lincoln’s life was written by the late John L. Scripps of the Chicago “Tribune,” who went to Springfield at Mr. Lincoln’s request, and by him was furnished the data for a campaign biography. In a letter written to Mr. Herndon after the death of Lincoln, which Herndon turned over to me, Scripps relates that in writing his book he stated that Lincoln as a youth read Plutarch’s “Lives.” This he did simply because, as a rule, almost every boy in the West in the early days did read Plutarch. When the advance sheets of the book reached Mr. Lincoln, he sent for the author and said, gravely: “That paragraph wherein you state that I read Plutarch’s ‘Lives’ was not true when you wrote it, for up to that moment in my life I had never seen that early contribution to human history; but I want your book, even if it is nothing more than a campaign sketch, to be faithful to the facts; and in order that that statement might be literally true, I secured the book a few days ago, and have sent for you to tell you I have just read it through.”—Jesse W. Weik.