It was hard to find a good teacher, and good schools were rare on the frontier. Everyone who could read and write was asked to be a teacher. To repay the teachers, families gave a teacher as much extra food as they could spare, such as deer meat, ham, corn, animal skins, or produce because money was often unavailable. Lincoln's teachers were Andrew Crawford, Azel W. Dorsey, and a man known as Sweeney. There was no fixed school year, because students went to school whenever there was a teacher to teach them. Teachers used a whip to keep the students in order. If students misbehaved, they had to wear a dunce cap and sit in the corner for the day. Abe thought school was simple. He did his work at night because of chores during the afternoon, and he sat in front of the fireplace, where he would get his only light. He did his arithmetic on a fire shovel because paper was hard to get.
Abe first went to school in the winter of 1815-1816 when he was six years old. He was happy to walk the four long miles to school and always arrived at school early. School opened in the winter because there were not many chores to be done around the house. The school was a one-room log cabin with one teacher and students of all ages and sizes. There were small children and large husky farm boys. It was called blab school, because the teacher made the Students read out loud, so they would not mispronounce words. Students also recited their lessons out loud to the teacher and the rest of the class. Abraham went to school when he was 6, 7, 11, 13, and 15 years old. All the time he went to school did not add up to a year. Abe did, though, remember much in between his schooling. At age 21 he could read, write, do arithmetic, and cipher to the rule of three, which was as much as most teachers in Indiana could do.
