Kirkham's Grammar: The Book That Shaped Lincoln's Prose

Do you sometimes wonder why so many of our 19th century leaders who grew up as farmhands or farriers in rural stretches of the South or Midwest needed no speech writers?

They spoke extemporaneously and wrote with a fluency and grammatical accuracy which put today's members of Congress, the majority of them law graduates, to utter shame. Most of the old timers began with this book and that's why they outclass today's lightweights.

Kirkham's Grammar is a comprehensive, 228-page compendium of the rules of English grammar by Samuel Kirkham. It was published in the first decades of the 19th century "for the use of schools and private learners."

Kirkham's Grammar was ordinarily, after the Bible, the first book in the collection of every frontier library. Lincoln's law partner, William Herndon, wrote of the future president's early days in New Salem: "Acting on the advice of Mentor Graham he hunted up one Vance who was the reputed owner of Kirkham 's Grammar and, after a walk of several miles, returned to the store with the coveted volume under his arm. With zealous perseverance he at once applied himself to the book. Sometimes he would stretch out at full length on the counter, his head propped up on a stack of calico prints, studying it.

Now you can have the same book in your library. And, since Kirkham's rules still apply today, you might like to buy copies for your children - or your own member of Congress.