Millard Fillmore: Life Lessons
Life lessons from the thirteenth president: what a path of work and reading can teach us about opening a door to knowledge, and about facing the whole cost of a compromise. Millard Fillmore became president in July 1850, when Zachary Taylor died, and left office in 1853. The way he learned, the law he signed, and the support he gave to libraries still offer three useful lessons for everyday life. Lesson 1: Keep learning, even without the formal path Fillmore was born in 1800 in a log cabin in Cayuga County, New York. He was apprenticed as a cloth dresser, taught school, and read law. The early path is work and reading, not college. The Fillmore House in East Aurora is the house tied to his name; it is a later adult home, not the birth cabin. The lesson: you do not have to wait for a formal school to begin. Habits of work and reading can still carry you, and later help you open a door for someone else. Lesson 2: Hold both sides of a compromise He was a U.S. representative from Ne...