He received a total of about six weeks of formal classroom schooling in the local public schools during his childhood. He was greatly influenced early in his life by his mother's virtues and religious values. Burt's father sent him to the district school for a total of three weeks to begin studies in geometry, surveying, and navigation. He was also home-schooled by Thomas Brown, one of their neighbors, an immigrant who at his homeland of Scotland was a college instructor. Burt was eager to learn so when he was about twelve years of age he constructed a special purpose bench book holder so he could multi-task of being able to read at the same time while performing his required duty of making shingles.