from the
house. The path to it passed through a broken place in a large log that
lay across this path. In this I would never walk, nor would I pass
through the gap, but would always climb over that big log.

These school days were only during winter, after the crop was all
gathered in and before spring work began. After I got large enough to
help in winter work, my attendance was only "semi-occasional." After a
while a better school-house was built, a mile further away, and it was
every way more comfortable, save that we had still the backless slab
seats. Here I went at odd times in winter for several years. I had
acquired a great fondness for reading, devouring everything in the way
of books I could lay my hands upon. Especially I had a great passion
for history, biography, geography, natural philosophy, and the like,
and I let nothing escape me that the country afforded. I had no money
to buy books, and had to depend on borrowing them. I soon went through
arithmetic, grammar, and the history of the United States. This was
more than my paterfamilias recognized as essential to a practical
education, and hence he was not disposed to let me go to school as much
as the other children, who gave themselves no concern about books out
of school. The idea of one's going through grammar, philosophy, or more
than half the arithmetic, "unless he was going to teach," he regarded
as a waste of time. His conception of life and mine were so different
that there was frequently more or less friction. It was decidedly
unpleasant from youth to manhood to be discouraged and opposed in my
one absorbing passion for obtaining an education. My mother sympathized
with me, but could not help me. The first dollar I ever made I spent
for a book, and for this purpose I saved my hard-earned pennies.
Midnight often found me poring over this book by the light of kindling
prepared for the purpose. This was opposed; and thus the struggle went
on during my minority.

I can not forbear, before closing this short chapter upon my school
life, to allude to the great improvement in the matter of common
schools since I was a boy. My native State, though sadly behind many of
her younger sisters, has made some progress in this direction, and I
can but hope this is only an earnest of what is to come. In a few
favored localities, chiefly the cities, there is ample provision made
for the education of the children of the people, but in the country
districts much r