Abraham Lincoln is the most famous instance of the claim that Americans often make that in their country a man may rise from the lowest to the highest position in their land, "from log-cabin to White House"- for that is exactly what Lincoln did.

Abraham Lincoln was born in 1809, in a small farm in Kentucky, but while Abraham Lincoln was quite young, the family moved into the wild forest land of Indiana. Here, his home was what called a "half-faced camp", that is, a rough shelter of logs and boughs, enclosed on three sides and with the fourth side protected only by a roaring wood-fire. Though Abraham Lincoln was young he was big and strong. At eight years of age an axe was put into Abraham hands and he worked with the rest of his family at their main task - clearing the land of trees. Of education he had hardly any. There was no public education in Indiana. A few teachers got a living from the small fees that they charged, and Abraham Lincoln went to one or two of these from time to time and learned to read and write and do simple arithmetic. "All told," he once said, "I attend school less than one year".