Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 August 1875 — How Andrew Johnson Learned to Read. [ARTICLE]

How Andrew Johnson Learned to Read.

A sketch of the late ex-President J ohnson in the Memphis Appeal gives us the following account of his early life: He never attended school a day in his life. While learning his trade, however, he resolved to make an effort to educate himself. His anxiety to be able to read was particularly exhibited by an incident worthy of mention. 1 A gentleman of Raleigh was in the hamt of going into the tailor shop and reading while the apprentice and journeymen were at work. He was an excellent reader, and his favorite book was a volume of speeches, princi pal ly of British statesmen. Johnson became interested, and his first ambition was to equal him as a reader and become familiar with those speeches. He took up the alphabet without an instructor; but by applying to the journeyman with whom he worked he obtained a little assistance. Having acquired a knowledge of the letters he applied for a loan of the be ok which he had so often heard read. The owner made him a present ot it, and gave him some instructions on the use of letters in the formation of words. Thus his first exercises in spelling were in that book. By perseverance he soon learned to read, and the hours which he devoted to his education w’ere at night alter he was through his daily labor upon the shop board. He now applied himself to books from two to three hours of the night, after workihg from ten to twelve hours at his trade. —A railing accusation is brought against poultry-dealers that they with long pliers, break the breast-bone of an old hen about one and a halt inches from the point where nature would make it prominent, and when the sagacious housekeeper feels for the same she murmurs “young,” and j pays the price of the chicken without a grumble. —A New Jersey poultryman has sold a lot 0f258 capons, averaging ten and a half pounds each, for thirty-eight cents a pound. The total sum of over f 1,000 for the lot is., a handsome remuneration for the small trouble in’ rearih’g this small quantity of fowls.