[Magdalen] Andrew Jackson joins Frederick Douglass.

[M J _Mike_ Logsdon]

>>>LOL.... really wondering how he graduated from university *and* got a 
master's degree? Perhaps a manservant assisted?<<<

This thread just now reminds me of how I feel about my own college degree (B.A. in English).  I look back at those four years and two things stand out:

1)  I honestly can't believe that a kid with no life outside his home and church for 18 solid years (no summer camp, nothing) managed to "live on his own" on a college campus (grant you it was very small, religious, and obviously not very socially challenging, but still); and,
2)  I honestly feel like I learned very little, in spite of keeping a B+ to A GPA the whole time (had to, to keep my scholarship).

In terms of "book larnin'", what I think I really learned was merely how to learn, once free from the shackles of a school schedule.  Self-taught on virtually every topic that ever came to mean anything to me.

So, to get back to Tramp, he could possibly see himself in that same sort of light (if he was honest about it).  With the only thing of real importance missing (in the current context, that is) being knowing when he doesn't know something.  "I don't recall when Andrew Jackson died, but if he was alive during the time of the Civil War, he might have said, etc." -- would have been way better than what he did say.