NORMAL - Despite the enormity of importance Abraham Lincoln holds in U.S. history, Americans shouldn't idolize him, said a presidential scholar who visits the Twin Cities on Tuesday.

"The last thing we want to do is put him up on some marble pedestals," said Richard Norton Smith, the first director of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum and Library in Springfield.

Instead, Smith argues, Americans should continue getting to know Lincoln. That's what he'll talk about at 2 p.m. Tuesday at Illinois State University.

"Every generation rediscovers Lincoln for itself," said Smith, scholar in residence at George Mason University in Washington, D.C. But the important part is digging through myths, legends and criticisms of the man so that a rediscovery is seen through the realities of his time, not ours.

Now is the perfect time to reiterate this message, said Smith, noting the 2009 bicentennial of Lincoln's birth.

Born in a Kentucky cabin and self-taught along Illinois' Sangamon River, Lincoln grew to become a political genius who strengthened the federal government and managed to create "imperishable prose."

What makes him so powerful to the American psyche is how we connect with him from so many directions, said Smith.

"From third-graders learning about Lincoln as a family man with children, or that he helped end slavery - to immigrants and people all over the world inspired by his humble beginnings, all the way to the president in the Oval Office,"so many people identify with Lincoln, Smith said.

President Bush commented last week that he could relate to Lincoln as a wartime president facing unpopularity but sticking to his principles.

"The tests he faced were greater than any other, and he faced enormous criticism ? It's not surprising that Lincoln is Bush's presidential hero. He's easily the one from whom all presidents can learn the most."

Besides his work opening the Lincoln site, the presidential scholar also has directed official libraries and museums for four other U.S. presidents - Herbert Hoover, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford.

The historian is writing a biography of U.S. philanthropic giant Nelson A. Rockefeller. Other work has focused on Hoover, George Washington, Thomas E. Dewey and Col. Robert R. McCormick.

Smith also appears regularly on C-SPAN and "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer."

His ISU appearance is as the 2007 Bryant Jackson Lecturer, an annual speech honoring library research that is named for an ISU librarian. Tuesday's event is co-sponsored by the Sage Trust.

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Lincoln scholar

Who: Richard Norton Smith, presidential scholar

What: "Our Lincoln," the topic of the 2007 Bryant Jackson Lectureship, co-sponsored by Illinois State University's Milner Library and the Sage Trust

When: 2 p.m. Tuesday, reception follows

Where: Circus Room, Bone Student Center, ISU

Information: For more details, call Toni Tucker, (309) 438-7402