VOL. XIX FEBRUARY, 1888 No. 2 TH GEORGE WASHINGTON HE near approach of the one hundredth anniversary of the inauguration of the first President of the United States, the most sublime event in human history, has already quickened the American pulse and roused an earnest inquiry as to whether new and useful lessons may not still be learned from a critical study of the career of the man who was reputed the first soldier of his time, and who was elected ruler of a nation without a dissenting vote. The present generation has been more or less for some years under the despotism of a fashion which aimed to foster self-esteem in small minds. through the demolition of heroic ideals. But fashions change—and this one in particular has gone by. We are not as a people hero-worshipers— our dangers in that direction are few; at the same time, we are richly endowed with appreciative intelligence as to what our country is and hopes to be, and through what instrumentalities it originally started on the high road to its present rank among nations. The annual celebration of Washington's birthday on the 22d of February, and the imperishable interest attending every fresh discovery of Washington's unpublished correspondence or rare portraits, reveals a national sentiment worthy of our race. The leader of our armies in a cause that seemed at many periods during the progress of the Revolution a forlorn hope, and the guide of our bewildered legislators when independence was finally achieved, will never fail to hold the highest place in the American heart; and his fame is secure to the ends of the earth so long as his own written words exist. It has been truly said that his letters illustrate as nothing else can the solid and enduring charm of a great, complete, well-rounded and self-poised character. In the general sweep of events Washington became a pioneer through the force of circumstances; he embarked with lofty heroism in a new and vast political experiment; he created precedents, he controlled men. There was no miracle in his birth and growth and fitness for high positions The habit of deifying him has been a mistake as pernicious as that of try VOL. XIX.-No. 2.-7 ing to belittle him. The average schoolboy of to-day glories in the fact that the hatchet story has been pronounced a myth. Childhood has a natural aversion to models of goodness; and childhood reaches from the cradle to old age. A bright little girl of five years on one occasion was taught a few of George Washington's rules of deportment, which were jotted into one of his early note-books. Two of these made a great impression upon her mind-the impropriety of leaning on the table at meals, and of interrupting conversation. She was watchful for any transgression of these rules on the part of the older members of her family, and when she caught a culprit would shout to the top of her little voice, “George Washington!" One morning the tiny maiden was lifted into her highchair at the breakfast table in bad humor, and resting her chubby arms on the festive board covered her pouting face with her baby hands. In an instant a chorus of merry voices screamed aloud, "George Washington!" The child did not seem to relish being caught in her own trap. She neither smiled nor took her arms from the table, but looking up with a curious expression on her somber face, said, in an even voice, "I guess I'll let George Washington slide." It is not easy to do justice to such a many-sided character as that of Washington in an ordinary biography. The man is too large for the biography. But truth in fractions will never be amiss. Short studies may be of surpassing value if fiction is denied an entrance gate. We can well dispense with the hatchet story when there is so much worth knowing without it in the boyhood and youth of Washington. He was reared in a home where the absence of moral and religious training would have been esteemed a disgrace, and when he stepped into public notice he was untrammeled by troublesome and deteriorating habits. His breeding was that of a gentleman. Industry was one of his cardinal virtues, and it formed one of the chief elements in his subsequent fortunes. The gravities and responsibilities of life took possession of him early. In field sports, in skilled horsemanship, in surveying with its attendant fatigue, exposure and expedients, in the use of the rifle, and in the care of a rural domain, all the manly qualities, both physical and mental, were pretty evenly developed. He had the best training possible for military life in a new country, and it is refreshing to notice that he was never afflicted with waste moments. The wonder often expressed by the pleasure-loving class of American citizens, how the "Father of our Country" could have lived so long and seen so much that was funny, and never laughed, finds but a faint response in actual history. Washington, as is well known, had a human side from first to last, and although much anx |