# Which president of the USA was illiterate? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 1, 2002, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-president-of-the-usa-was-illiterate/130412 "2002-10-01T15:42:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Janx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Janx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Janx)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2002, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-president-of-the-usa-was-illiterate/130412/1 "2002-10-01T15:42:53Z")
(Enough with the Bush jokes already):rolleyes: A co-worker here insists she herd on the radio that either Lincoln or Roosevelt was illiterate, no WAY. More propaganda from the Brazilian media machine set up to discredit the Gringos says I, but you know me.😃 I believe Lincoln was a lawyer, One Roosevelt was (more/less) responsible for the Panama canal, the other for “The new deal”. How could you pull these things off with out the benefit of Wreadin’, Writin’ and Writhmatik? I’m not saying we NEVER had an illiterate President, I just don’t know which one, does anyone else? ---
**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2002, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-president-of-the-usa-was-illiterate/130412/2 "2002-10-01T15:48:20Z")
Jackson probably had very little formal education, but then again neither did Abraham Lincoln. Zachary Taylor may not have had much formal schooling, and I don’t think that Andrew Johnson went very far in his formal education either. I suspect they could all read, write, and do math to a greater or lesser degree. ---
**Author:** ![evilhanz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba8739/32.png) [@evilhanz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/evilhanz)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2002, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-president-of-the-usa-was-illiterate/130412/3 "2002-10-01T15:51:11Z")
Illiterate as in “can’t read”? Not one of our Presidents falls in this category. Functionally illiterate as in “less than five years of formal schooling”? Then there have been several, Lincoln among them. ---
**Author:** ![evilhanz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba8739/32.png) [@evilhanz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/evilhanz)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2002, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-president-of-the-usa-was-illiterate/130412/4 "2002-10-01T15:53:02Z")
Oh, but let me add that functional illiteracy is a modern term (post 1940) that has little relevance when applied to 19th century America. ---
**Author:** ![Padeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@Padeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Padeye)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2002, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-president-of-the-usa-was-illiterate/130412/5 "2002-10-01T15:53:49Z")
The US has had some dullard presidents but Lincoln and the Roosevelts are some of the less likely candidates. ---
**Author:** ![zev\_steinhardt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/97f17d/32.png) [@zev\_steinhardt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zev_steinhardt)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2002, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-president-of-the-usa-was-illiterate/130412/6 "2002-10-01T15:54:07Z")
Weren’t they all illiterate before they learned how to read? 😃 Seriously, however, all of our Presidents could read and write. It is true, as others have pointed out, that some had little formal schooling, but all could read and write. **plnnr** , Lincoln was a lawyer. One would imagine that he had to have some colligate or higher level learning to become a lawyer, even back in the 1830s. Zev Steinhardt ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2002, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-president-of-the-usa-was-illiterate/130412/7 "2002-10-01T15:57:53Z")
I believe A. Johnson was illiterate until the age of 16. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2002, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-president-of-the-usa-was-illiterate/130412/8 "2002-10-01T16:23:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by zev\_steinhardt \* > \*\* > **plnnr** , Lincoln was a lawyer. One would imagine that he had to have some colligate or higher level learning to become a lawyer, even back in the 1830s. \*\* Back in the 1830s, there weren’t law schools or licensing boards like there are today. Back then, to become a lawyer, you’d clerk for a lawyer for a few years, and study the law on your own. Then, when you thought you were ready, you’d go up in front of a panel of lawyers who would grill you on your legal knowledge. If they thought you knew enough, they’d declare you a lawyer. The system was called “reading the law” and was common into the 20th century. There are still a few states that let you “read the law” in lieu of taking a bar exam, but I’m pretty sure they require you to graduate law school first. Lincoln didn’t have much formal schooling, but his stepmother taught him how to read and write, and he was largely self-taught after that, and managed to become very well educated, especially in history, rhetoric, and literature. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2002, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-president-of-the-usa-was-illiterate/130412/9 "2002-10-01T16:38:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by dantheman \* > \*\*I believe A. Johnson was illiterate until the age of 16. \*\* I have heard that he was basically taught to read by his wife after they married. One way or another, I think Andrew Johnson was probably the president who learned to read latest in life. However, he was certainly literate by the time he entered politics. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2002, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-president-of-the-usa-was-illiterate/130412/10 "2002-10-01T16:38:54Z")
I don’t think that counts as functional illiteracy. In practising law, Lincoln would most certainly have to know how to read and write. Plus, he wrote his own speeches. _Wrote_ them. That would make him literate. ---
**Author:** ![slipster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@slipster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slipster)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2002, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-president-of-the-usa-was-illiterate/130412/11 "2002-10-01T16:55:55Z")
Be assured that all U.S. Presidents were thoroughly literate, although some were far better read than others. Jimmy Carter and Harry Truman, to name two, were said to have read jaw-droppingly astounding numbers of books; Carter has claimed to have to have completed a book a day every day of his life since childhood, and Truman was said to have read the entire collection of the library in Independence, Mo. (a fairly large town) before he ever thought of taking up politics. Truman, by the way, was the last president not to have attended college. Until the 1950s, the number of practicing attorneys in the U.S. who had not graduated an accredited law school outnumbered the ones who had. Such attorneys, however, nevertheless had to go through an examination and licensure process. There was a time in the long ago when solicitors in England were licensed based on their attendance at certain taverns lawyers frequented; it was presumed that they had participated in the discussions of the law which took place there over dinner. This may seem less strange when one considers that the word “common” in the term “common law” is used in the sense of “general”, or “by consensus”; the English Common Law began with annual conventions in Westminster in the 11th Century in which Norman lords and their deputies discussed how they had handled cases in the past year. Currently all states have a bar exam. California (and perhaps some others) permit one to sit for the exam without having graduated from an accredited law school; there are a variety of small independent law schools in the state which effectively try to teach the exam. This helps account for why California traditionally has the highest failure rate on the bar exam of every state. Wisconsin is, I believe, unique in allowing licensure without taking an exam; if one grafduates an accredited law school in the state, that is sufficient. To get back to the subject of presidents: the Roosevelts were lawyers, and Ivy League graduates to boot. Theodore Roosevelt wrote a book on white tailed deer while he was president, and is said to have phenomenal powers of comprehen- sion, being able to scan and understand whole pages at a time when he wished. While he was president he toured St. Louis University. Students at the time underwent an oral graduation exam in Latin. A legend which has passed into the folklore of the university tells of how he stuck his head through a door while a graduating student was being grilled. A professor asked him if he would like to participate in the questioning, and Roosevelt responded in Latin; his answer translated loosely as “not me, babe”. Abraham Lincoln had very little formal education but was an extremely literate man who modeled his speaking style on the plays of Shakespeare, the poetry of Robert Burns and the King James Bible. When, early in his political career, a publicist wrote that he was the sort of intellectual who liked to read Plutarch’s Lives for pleasure, he bought a copy and began studying up. Possibly your informant was thinking of Andrew Johnson and Andrew Jackson. Andrew Johnson had only a very limited command of reading and writing until after he married and his wife, a former school teacher, tutored him. Andrew Jackson had the same experience, and never did get a really good grasp of spelling; it is said that the expression “O.K.” derives from his way of spelling “all correct”, a notation he sometimes made on drafts of documents prepared for his review. Both were self-made men who exhibited moments of brilliance in their careers. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2002, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-president-of-the-usa-was-illiterate/130412/12 "2002-10-01T17:00:10Z")
Lincoln didn’t have much formal education, but his speeches and writings demonstrate that he was intimately familiar with the Bible, with classical literature, and with the thoughts of the Founding Fathers. Illiterate, he was not. As for Theodore Roosevelt, he wasn’t illiterate, but he was a VERY poor student in his youth, and samples of his childhood efforts at writing show that he was a terrible speller. Indeed, I’ve seen suggestions from some historians that he may have been dyslexic. But despite his problems as a youth, he was not illiterate, and he did manage to complete his studies at HArvard successfully. One President who WAS illiterate for much of his life was Millard Fillmore, who didn’t learn to read until his adulthood, with the help of his wife. Of course, considering what a bigot and (literal) Know-Nothing Fillmore was, I’m not sure that giving him an education and a future was a good thing. As long as he was an illiterate factory worker, he couldn’t do much harm. As a literate President, he was more dangerous. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2002, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-president-of-the-usa-was-illiterate/130412/13 "2002-10-01T18:43:39Z")
“much of his life” is overstating it a bit. Fillmore learned to read during his apprenticeship. From one bio: > [@](#): > > Born in the Finger Lakes country of New York in 1800, Fillmore as a youth endured the privations of frontier life. He worked on his father’s farm, and at 15 was apprenticed to a cloth dresser. He attended one-room schools, and fell in love with the redheaded teacher, Abigail Powers, who later became his wife. Other sources claim he was taught to read by a fellow apprentice. Everybody seems to agree that he learned to read during his apprenticeship, somewhere between the ages of 15 and 18. ---
**Author:** ![Milton\_De\_La\_Warre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e480ec/32.png) [@Milton\_De\_La\_Warre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Milton_De_La_Warre)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2002, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-president-of-the-usa-was-illiterate/130412/14 "2002-10-01T18:55:45Z")
I have to agree that it’s propaganda. Although I suppose like the rest of us, ALL of the Presidents were born illiterate and didn’t learn to read and write until “years” later. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2002, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-president-of-the-usa-was-illiterate/130412/15 "2002-10-01T19:03:22Z")
> [@](#): > > Andrew Jackson had the same experience, and never did get a really good grasp of spelling; it is said that the expression “O.K.” derives from his way of spelling “all correct”, a notation he sometimes made on drafts of documents prepared for his review. It may be “said”, but [it ain’t so](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_250.html). ---
**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2002, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-president-of-the-usa-was-illiterate/130412/16 "2002-10-01T19:19:52Z")
Martin Van Buren, Millard Fillmore, Abraham Lincoln, and Grover Cleveland all practiced law without having attended college or law school. I believe William and Mary and Harvard are the schools that have educated the most Presidents. ---
**Author:** ![barbitu8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@barbitu8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barbitu8)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2002, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-president-of-the-usa-was-illiterate/130412/17 "2002-10-01T20:05:27Z")
“Functionally illiterate” means just that: illiterate in function (or practice), which means the person can read a few simple words but cannot read well enough for any meaningful reading; a 3d grade or less reading ability. It has nothing to do with formal education. The “common law” began under the reign of Henry Plantagent (Henry II - 1154-89). Prior to him, there were feudal courts and trial by ordeal (or combat). Henry II transformed the Curia Regis into a regular court of trained officals and lawyers. He set up a special court, the King’s Bench (which was, of course, the Queen’s Bench when England was ruled by a queen), and he sent out traveling judges, Justices in Eyre, who carried a “common law” into every Shire Court of the country. ---
**Author:** ![Virtuosity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/35a633/32.png) [@Virtuosity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Virtuosity)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2002, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-president-of-the-usa-was-illiterate/130412/18 "2002-10-01T20:06:14Z")
George Washington was called “illiterate”, John Adams called him “too illiterate, too unlearned, too unread for his station and reputation.” Jefferson, his fellow Virginian, declared he liked to spend time “chiefly in action, reading little.” George could read of course quite well in fact but did not spend a whole lot of time at it. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2002, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-president-of-the-usa-was-illiterate/130412/19 "2002-10-01T20:30:28Z")
Lyndon Johnson and Gerald Ford were dyslexic, but hardly illiterate. There may have been other dyslexic Presidents. ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2002, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-president-of-the-usa-was-illiterate/130412/20 "2002-10-02T00:03:40Z")
_Originally posted by Captain Amazing_ [QUOTE] Back in the 1830s, there weren’t law schools or licensing boards like there are today. Back then, to become a lawyer, you’d clerk for a lawyer for a few years, and study the law on your own. Then, when you thought you were ready, you’d go up in front of a panel of lawyers who would grill you on your legal knowledge. If they thought you knew enough, they’d declare you a lawyer. The system was called “reading the law” and was common into the 20th century. There are still a few states that let you “read the law” in lieu of taking a bar exam, but I’m pretty sure they require you to graduate law school first. \* In any case, _I_ don’t believe Lincoln was illiterate as a lawyer; he grew up reading the Bible, Ben Franklin’s _Autobiography,_ and Shakespeare…learned them almost by heart. 🙂 Once, as a circuit-riding lawyer, Abe acted as defense counselor for a murder suspect. Durinmg the trial a witness for the prosecution said, during direct questioning, “I seen him [the defendant] do it by the light of the moon.” Lincoln extracted an _Old Farmer’s Almanac_ from his pocket, and turned to the date of the murder. NO MOON. Case dismissed. 🙂 [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-president-of-the-usa-was-illiterate/130412.md?page=2)