The life of Abraham Lincoln

A passage from the book... The question will naturally be raised, Why should there be another Life of Lincoln? This may be met by a counter question, Will there ever be a time in the near future when there will _not_ be another Life of Lincoln? There is always a new class of students and a new enrolment of citizens. Every year many thousands of young people pass from the Grammar to the High School grade of our public schools. Other thousands are growing up into manhood and womanhood. These are of a different constituency from their fathers and grandfathers who remember the civil war and were perhaps in it."To the younger generation," writes Carl Schurz, "Abraham Lincoln has already become a half mythical figure, which, in the haze of historic distance, grows to more and more heroic proportions, but also loses in distinctness of outline and figure." The last clause of this remark is painfully true. To the majority of people now living, his outline and figure are dim and vague. There are to-day professors and presidents of colleges, legislators of prominence, lawyers and judges