There is practically no reference to the matter of schools or schooling in the Journal. There is every reason for the belief that he was self-educated. He may have had a brief experience at schools of a rather primary character. At all events he must have had a considerable acquaintance with mathematics, and evidently he at an early age contracted the reading habit. Books were few, and of periodical literature there was none. Friendly literature itself was confined to Sewell's History, probably Ellwood's edition of George Fox's Journal, while he may have had access to some of the controversial pamphlets of the seventeenth century period. The Journals of various "ancient" Friends were to be had, but how rich the mine of this literature which he explored we shall never know. Evidently from his youth he was a careful and intelligent reader of the Bible, and regarding its passages, its ethics and its theology, he became his own interpreter. CHAPTER II. His Young Manhood. At the age of seventeen Elias became an apprentice, and set about learning the carpenter's trade. His mechanical experience during this period receives practically no attention in the Journal. We know, however, that in those days none of the trades were divided into sectional parts as now. In short, he learned a whole trade, and not part of one. It was the day of hand-made doors, and not a few carpenters took the timber standing in the forest, and superintended or personally carried on all of the processes of transforming it into lumber and from it producing the finished product. The carpenter of a century and a half ago had to be able to wield the broad-ax, and literally know how to "hew to the line." It is not known exactly how long this apprenticeship lasted, but probably about four years. As a matter of course, there was much moving from neighborhood to neighborhood, as the building necessities demanded the presence of the carpenters. The life was more or less irregular, and Elias says that he received neither serious advice nor restraint at the hands of his "master." He was brought in contact with frivolously minded young people, and was unduly carried away with the love of amusement. During this period he learned to dance, and enjoyed the experience. But he considered dancing a most mischievous pastime, and evil to a marked degree. For this indulgence he repeatedly upbraided himself in the Journal. In his opinion, dancing was "an unnatural and unchristian practice," never receiving the approval "of the divine light in the secret of the heart."