Burr and Burton Academy - Burtonian Yearbook (Manchester, VT)

Page 12 text:

THE BUPTONIAN because of the mcreasmg and frxghtenlngly unportant soclal problems now at lssue But lf as phllosophers tell us lt IS tlme for the pendulum to swmg back the arlstocracy of Llncoln s humamty may be thelr theme that quahty of understandmg whxch made h1m stand out above hrs fellow men even as xt compelled thelr reverence and love and made h1m a supreme lf lonely ruler of men s hearts THE PERSOINALITY OF LINCOLN, MAN FOR THE AGES D A R Prxze Essay 1931 by Everxtt Sheldon When the name Lmcoln xs mentloned there comes to ones mmd a plc ture of a kxndly charxtable man and an xmpressxon of greatness and domma tlon The fact of hxs greatness IS qulte generally known But the key to hns greatness wxll never be known definltely Nevertheless xt affords a splendxd chance for study There are varymg opmxons as to the source of Lmcoln s greatness Some of the greatest authorltxes on. Llncoln say xt came from his parents Stlll envlronment must have played some great part m the shapmg of hls character The Lmcoln famlly had never had any especlally outstandmg positron in natlonal affalrs They had always been good common cltlzens They were born ln log cablns wxth the blood of ploneers 111 thexr vems They were restless respectable God fearxng people There had been Lmcolns m the Amerlcan Revolutxon and they were fightmg men but there was a stram of Quaker blood 1n them Thomas L1ncoln father of Abraham was a typical Lmcoln He was hospxtable shxftless restless and unsuccessful working now as a carpenter and now as a farmer He could not read or write before hls marrlage He was always poor and like the rolllng stone wlth gathers no moss However hlS defect of shzftlemess has been much over empha. slzed It IS true that he would rathel have people come ask him to do a. job than go hunt one hlmself he was slow and careless wlth quiet manners and he llked to sxt and have h1s own thoughts But he loved his family and tried to provxde for them and 111 every community where he went he became an actlve church member and earned the reputation of being a solid reliable man Now Tom Lmcoln had all h1s lxfe been acquamted of and on wlth the Bush famxly There were four strong and manly sons and two fearless and mtelllgent daughters and Tom knew the famlly to be sturdy and respectable pxoneers l1ke hxmself He passed by the older daughter and gave hxs attention to the younger Sarah But he was unsuccssful here and not long afterward Sarah Bush was marrled to a man named Danlel Johnson Another woman Tom had hrs eye on was a small rather wistful brunette named Nancy Hanks Tom saw her shrewd dark lonesome and rellgious He knew she could read a llttle ln the few books she could find and that she could make her way through a newspaper The courtshlp progressed and after a whxle they were marrxed wlth tlhe feastxng and galety whxch custom arily attended such affalrs mn those days It turned out that Tom had made a. good cholce She was an ldeal wxfe made a happy home and was very mdustrlous and hard worklng And when she had chxldren she proved her self Just as good a mother People who llved near them found her a. very sympathetxc nelghbor and when anyone was nn trouble of any kind she was always ready to do her utmost to help them It was such missionary work as 8 N - 1 1 . . , . . . 1 1 1 1 1 . . . , , ' 11- 11 - - 1 - -- 1 ' - - 1 . . . . , , D , . , . ' , . 1 1 ' - 1 - 1 1 ' ' - 1 1 1 1 ' ' f - - - 1 1 1 ' 1 1 1' , ' . 1 1 - 1 , . 1 ' 1 , , 1 ' 1 1 1 1 - O . ' 1 , - ' 1 1 ' . , - 1 1 ' 1

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THE BUPTONIAN It IS a pleasurable experxence to begxn wlth Whltman and go through the poems of the wrxters ment1oned here before endmg wxth Benet The com fort of bemg able to know Abe Lmtoln and so to be truly thankful not only that we had Abraham L1ncoln but thankful for the many great poets who have helped g1ve us thus Joy of knowxng hxm' I partlcularly enjoy Stephen Benet I 11ke h1s cornparatxve slmpllclty and h1s capac1ty for v1v1d descmptxon He takes us w1th L1ncoln through many phases of the war from the po1nt of vxew of Llncolns personal trxals The heros courage mrsgxvxng and desxres emotlonally become ours If God reads The hearts of men as clearly as He must To be Hlmself then He can read ln mme And has for twenty years the old scarred wlsh That the last slave should be forever free Here 1n thls country I do not go back From that scarred wlsh and have not But I put The UDIOH first and last before the slave If freemg slaves w1ll br1ng the Umon back Then I w1l1 free them 1f by freemg some And leavxng some enslaved I help my cause I w1ll do that but should such freedom mean The wreckage of the Unxon that I serve I would not free a slave The tremendous straln the worry and care the severe cntxcism Abraham Lmcoln h1s hand a.nd pen He w1ll be good but God knows when He w1ll be wxse but God knows when It doesn t matter If I had some news News from that fog I ll get the hypo sure Unless I watch myself waxtmg for news I can t afford to get the hypo now Ive got too much to do Thxs does make us reahze the terrmilc struggle and we forget to be a hero worshlpper 1n a popular sense and penetrate the finer keener feelxngs of a human bemg who actually was so great that he has become sacred to the natlon and to those who love hlm Stephen Benet IS a modern poet not only 1S he modern but he IS young Whxle we do not perhaps regard hlm as belongmg to our first group of contemporary poets thls book Jolm Brown s Body clearly marks hlm as brlllxant and promxslng and touched with genlus We have Lmcoln poetry from Walt Whltman to the present day and undoubtedly more w1ll follow The commg generatlon of poets wlll wrlte about L1ncoln because he has an eternal qualxty a. humanxty whrch outlasts h1s tlme What the speclal emphasls of the new poetry w1ll be IS a matter for speculatxon It may be a new rad1ance stressmg the man of the people . 7 . U . v , I Y ' ll , , . 1 i ' 3 . . A I ll What more is needed for the realization of his great causes! U A ' ' Y i ' V , . , . . I ' I I , 1 - . . y 7 . ' ' Tu 1 , , . Y . . . p ,,

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THE BURTONIAN thxs at a tlme when great numbers of people lay sxck and dymg of a dread dlsease whxch swept that localxty that brought on her last sickness and her eally death It was of these parents that Abraham Llncoln was born on the 12th of February 1809 It was not from hls father however that Lmcoln mherxted any of h1s remarkable tralts Hxs physlcal appearance and ablhty were all that he mherlted from hxm The tenderness and reverence of hls spxrxt and the thoughtful sadness of hxs dxsposltlon he no doubt recelved from hrs mother He always loved h1s mother dearly and after her death he cherlshed her memory and always kept her teachlngs 111 heart and actxon Her death xtself whxle It was a terrxble blow to h1m made a great xmpresslon on his ltfe and probably drove home her lessons wlth a truer thrust than a longer hfe would have Another factor m the makmg of the great character was hls wonderful open mmdedness and h1s deslre to learn and to lmprove hlmself Thls glft seems to have been wxth hmm all h1s lxfe As a small boy he showed hxmself eager to learn new thmgs Words llke mdependent and predestmatxon bothered the boy He would ask what they meant and then l1e awake at night a long tlme thmkmg about the meanmg of the meanmg As he grew older h1s mother folmd tune among the tolls and struggles of her busy lxfe to teach hun readmg and wrmng And soon after that he dlscovered the unllmxted value of books as a way of getting the deslred mformatxon He began reading all the books he could find and what nooks he found merely increased hrs longmg for them For a long txme the only ones he had were the Bxble Washmgton These had a profound mfluence on hlm He read them many txmes and seemed to absorb them xnto h1s own hfe He began to g'o to much trouble just to get new books There are many instances of hrs walkmg long dxstances Just to borrow a book and of how he read by Iirelxght far 11110 the nlght He was often heard to remark The things I want to know are in books my best fr1end IS the man who ll get me a book I amt read He loved books he became 1nt1mate wlth them and he seemed to make them tell hlm more than they told other people Probably because he felt the scarcity of them m hxs youth he was later able to love and appreclate them more As a boy he lxved m close communxon wxth nature and had llttle contact wlth hxs fellow bemgs Day after day he went alone lnto the forest and chopped all day wxthout seemg anyone untll he returned home to hrs famlly at nlght All day he heard no ClVlllZ8d sound save that of hls own axe He lxved wxth the sllence of the wxlderness and came to love xt lt became deeply mgramed m hls soul He learned to love the creatures of the wlld and to apprec1ate the beaut1es of nature And xt ns mterestlng to note of thxs great yet szmple man that though he could have done so wlth llttle trouble he would never shoot an ammal for game The elements of h1.s greatness were vlsible even then The boy who was true to duty patlent ln prxvatxon modest 111 spmrit klnd to all distresses and suffermgs he met determlned to use by wrestmg opportunxties from the grudgmg hand of fate was sure to make a man dlstmguxshed among his fellows and noted among the great men of the world He had had his heart set on golng to school at Columbxa he had It all arranged so that he could work hls way But hxs father wanted him to work and Abe with charactemstlc patxence and obedlence obeyed wlthout grumblmg Abes 9 Aesop's Fables, Pilgrim's Progress, Robinson Crusoe, and Weem's Life of