That Lincoln was a skilled lawyer is well known. It is not, however, generally known that he learned law himself, never having studied with anyone, or having attended any law school. He was preËminently a self-educated man. He borrowed law books of his friend Stuart, of Springfield, Ill., took them home (twenty miles away) and studied them hard. He walked all the way to Springfield and back, and usually read while walking. He often read aloud during these trips. Twenty years afterward, while he was a great lawyer and statesman, he gave this advice to a young man who asked him “how he could become a great lawyer.” “Get books, and read and study them carefully. Begin with Blackstone’s ‘Commentaries,’ and after reading carefully through, say twice, take up Chitty’s ‘Pleadings,’ Greenleaf’s ‘Evidence,’ and Story’s ‘Equity,’ in succession. Work, work, work is the main thing.”