There are few men, perhaps, who did so many things worthy of emulation, and so few unworthy.

Dangerously near the latter, however, was one act of his youth, when he caught a vicious bull in a pasture, and, having mounted astride the animal's back, with spurs on his heels, rode the furious creature around the field until it finally fell from exhaustion, after seeking refuge in a swamp.
Young Putnam's education, as may have been inferred already, was obtained mostly in the woods and open fields.

While he possessed great mental endowments, as afterward displayed in his career, yet his early education was grossly neglected, in the school and college sense.

Having mastered the rudiments of reading, writing, and arithmetic, he was considered well equipped for his destined calling, which was to be that of a farmer.

Throughout his whole life he suffered from this neglect of early instruction.