Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 February 1910 — Lincoln at the Telescope. [ARTICLE]

Lincoln at the Telescope.

This little anecdote will help one'to understand how Abraham Lincoln managed to get an education. He never enjoyed the advantages of schools, but he knew how to turn to his advantage the opportunities that offered for learning, and in truth was always a pupil. The story is told in “An Astronomer’s Wife,” by Mrs. Asaph Hall, whose husband was the government astronomer at the Washington Observatory. Mrs. Hall took her little boy to one of Lincoln’s receptions, and one night Lincoln and Secretary Stanton made a visit to the Naval Observatory, where Mr. Hall showed them some objects through his telescope- At the Harvard Observatory the Prince of Wales had once appeared, but on that occasion the young astronomer was made to feel Jess than nobody. Now the great War President, who signed his commission in the United States navy, talked with him face to face. One night goon afterward, when alone in the observing tower, he heard a knock at the trapdoor. He leisurely completed his observation, then went to lift the door, when up through the door the tall President raised his head. Lincoln had come unattended through the dark streets to Inquire why the moon had appeared inverted in the telescope. Surveyor’s instruments, which he had once used, show objects in their true position.