‘Now he belongs to the ages’

Sometime in 1907, the Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy was teaching in a remote village. His subject was great leaders.

He spoke of Caesar, of Attila the Hun and Napoleon Bonaparte.

When his talk ended, someone in the back raised a hand.

“Tell us,” he said, “something about Abraham Lincoln.”

Tolstoy was shocked that someone in such a rural setting would be familiar with the late American president. But he told what he knew.

When he finished, the man asked, “Do you have a picture?”

Tolstoy answered that he knew someone in another village who had a photograph of Lincoln. They rode together to see it.

When Tolstoy brought the picture outside, the man wept.

“He must have known great sadness.”

Sadness is a theme that runs throughout the life of our 16th president, amateur Lincoln historian Larry May told the North Knox Rotary Club last week.

Lincoln’s mother, Nancy, died when the boy was 9 after drinking contaminated milk. His brother and sister both died before Lincoln reached his 20th birthday.

His first love, Ann Rutledge, passed away, bringing on one of two serious bouts with depression (or “melancholia,” as it was then known) that Lincoln would suffer throughout his life. Two of his sons would also perish.

And he would preside over a civil war that would result in 620,000 American deaths.

But Lincoln overcame all of this, including humble origins and a lack of formal education, to become the greatest president of all time.

Nothing came easy to the lawyer from Springfield, Ill. May says that throughout Lincoln’s career, newspapers of the period were brutal about his tall, thin physical appearance.

“His own general, George McClellan, called him the ‘original orangutan.’ And he was an odd-looking man.”

Biographer David Herbert Donald says that Lincoln couldn’t be elected today.

“Because,” May says, “he was not a good impromptu speaker at all. And because he was considered to be very ugly.”

Lincoln himself made fun of his appearance. He was once walking down the sidewalk when a man came up to him and pointed a gun to his head.

“What are you doing, sir?” Lincoln asked.

“Sir, I was told if I ever encountered anyone who was uglier than me, I was to shoot him on the spot.”

“Then shoot, sir,” Lincoln responded, “because if I am uglier than you, I do not wish to live.”

When Lincoln went to New York to deliver a speech at Cooper Union in February 1860, the speech’s organizer said that his heart dropped in his boots at Lincoln’s appearance.

But all this changed when Lincoln opened his mouth. His entire visage altered, and listeners became mesmerized by his oratory.

“By the end of the speech, people were throwing their hats in the air,” May said.

The New York Tribune went a step further, saying afterwards that Lincoln “was the greatest man since St. Paul.”

Before the speech, Lincoln stopped at Mathew Brady’s studio to have his portrait taken.

Brady, who was legally blind, photographed Lincoln standing up and had him place his arm on a pile of books.

“That speech and Mathew Brady,” Lincoln later said, “won me the presidency.”

Lincoln saw the country through the worst war in its history, introduced the legislation that, with the eventual ratification of the 13th Amendment, would free the slaves and, at Gettysburg in November 1863, delivered the most eloquent speech in the history of the presidency.

He would also become the final casualty of the war, gunned down by assassin John Wilkes Booth days after the war’s end.

As Lincoln’s soul slipped the bonds of earth that Saturday morning in April 1865, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton gave this remarkable American life a fitting epitaph.

“Now he belongs to the ages.”


Duff calls public schools the ‘silver bullet’

OK, let’s get one thing straight. Mark Duff pulls no punches when it comes to public education.

The Halls High School principal says he’s a believer – and he calls our public school system the “silver bullet.”

“It’s the one thing that allows you to rise above whatever state you’re born into. I will be forever proud of that.”

But Duff told the Halls Business and Professional Association last week that the system has room for improvement.

“It’s not completely relevant. We’re still working under a model based on the pre-1900 industrial age.”

Duff says that there are two measuring sticks of student performance in Knox County – the ACT and the Gateway Exams.

“Knox County Schools are above the state average on the ACT, in math, reading, science and the overall composite. Halls High School is fourth in the county in ACT composite and slightly below average by one-tenth of a point.”

He says that Halls High School classes rank at or near the top in several Gateway Exam categories.

“We’re doing a good job of getting these kids ready for college,” he says.

But there’s room for improvement. Duff wants a graduation target rate of 90 percent.

“We’re going to need some years (to get there).”

He says that Halls High is lacking in diversity and that the curriculum needs to be more rigorous.

“Our senior class thinks they are on holiday after they finish their junior year. We’re going to change that. But the issue is teachers. We have to have teachers (in order to offer) extra sessions of math and science.”

Duff says that the school is bursting at the seams and that the current eighth grade class at Halls Middle is its largest ever.

“I got my oil changed the other day and looked over at the building. It’s ugly and it’s beautiful and I love it. Physically, the building is sound.”

But with a growing student body, it remains to be seen how long the current school building will be large enough.

Duff claims modesty, says he’s still a rookie principal.

“I know not of which I speak,” he says.

Take it from a former student. Nothing is further from the truth.


Call Jake Mabe at 922-4136 or e-mail JakeMabe1@aol.com. Visit his daily blog at http://jakemabe.blogspot.com/