Book of Virtues -- Examples of people who READ all the time

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 THE BOOK OF VIRTUES

edited by William J. Bennett

[excerpts on importance of developing a habit of READING throughout one’s life]

HONEST ABE

[Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the United States]

Abe loved to lie under a shade tree, or up in the loft of the cabin, and read, cipher, and scribble. At night he sat by the chimney jamb, and ciphered by the light of the fire, on the wooden fire shovel. … His stepmother repeats often that ‘he read every book he could lay his hands on.’ She says, ‘Abe read diligently. He read every book he could lay his hands on, and when he came across a passage that struck him, he would write it down on boards if he had no paper, and keep it there until he did get paper. Then he would rewrite it, look at it, repeat it. He had a copybook, a kind of scrapbook, in which he put down all things, and thus preserved them.’

…[A] reminiscence of John Hanks , who lived with the Lincolns from the time Abe was fourteen to the time he became eighteen years of age: “When Lincoln—Abe—and I returned to the house from work, he would go to the cupboard, snatch a piece of cornbread, take down a book, sit down on a chair, cock his legs up as high as his head, and read. He and I worked barefooted, grubbed it, plowed, mowed, and cradled together, plowed corn, gathered it, and shucked corn. Abraham read constantly when he had opportunity.”

It may well be supposed, however, that the books upon which Abe could lay his hands were few in number. There were no libraries, either public or private, in the neighborhood… (p. 621-2)

THOMAS EDISON

This wonderful portrait by his son Charles lets us glimpse the character of one of America’s greatest minds.

Thomas Edison has sometimes been represented as uneducated. Actually he had only six months of formal schooling. But under his mother’s tutelage in Port Huron, Michigan, he had read such classics as Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire at the age of eight or nine. After becoming a vendor and a newsboy on the Grand Trunk Railroad, he spent whole days in the Detroit Free Library—which he read “from top to bottom.” In our home he always had books and magazines, as well as half a dozen daily newspapers (p. 413).

UP FROM SLAVERY

by Booker T. Washington

From fearing Mrs. Ruffner I soon learned to look upon her as one of my best friends. When she found she could trust me she did so implicitly. During one or two winters that I was with her she gave me an opportunity to go to school for an hour in the day during a portion of the winter months, but most of my studying was done at night, sometimes alone, sometimes under someone whom I could hire to teach me. Mrs. Ruffner always encouraged and sympathized with me in all my efforts to get an education. It was while living with her that I began to get together my first library. I secured a dry goods box, knocked out one side of it, put some shelves in it, and began putting into it every kind of book that I could get my hands upon, and called it my “library.” (p. 406)