Books were scarce in the Western Reserve during his youth, but he read every book he could borrow in the neighborhood where he lived.

This scarcity gave him the early habit of studying everything he read, so that when he got through with a book, he knew everything in it.

The habit continued through life.

Even after reading the daily papers--which he never neglected--he could give all the important information they contained.

He made himself an excellent English scholar, and before he was twenty years of age was a constant contributor to Western newspapers, and was also, from that time until he was fifty years old, an able debater in the societies for this purpose, which were common in the West at that time.