Lincoln on the Frontier – Few things in history are as synonymous with Abraham Lincoln as the humble log cabin. A youth spent working outdoors felling trees and splitting rails endowed Lincoln with a physicality that remained with him long after he had traded the ax and the frontier for the pen and the White House. The most significant lesson that Lincoln learned on the frontier—one that would remain with him throughout his life—was the power of education and knowledge. Though his time in a frontier classroom was short, he augmented his education whenever possible with encouragement from his mother Nancy, and later his stepmother, Sarah, whose profound impact on him became a defining aspect of his lifelong commitment to knowledge and self-improvement.