and conscience kept in abeyance by his strong impulses, he would have made a great and brilliant man, but never have become the founder of more than an empire and the beacon light of the world.

At this time only thinly populated and widely separated settlements were scattered through Virginia, so that no colleges or high schools had been founded. Parents, therefore, who wished to give their sons a classical education, were compelled to send them to England. If they could not afford to do this, they had to fall back on a private tutor, or a district school in which only the common rudiments of education were taught. To the latter George was sent, and it was well that it happened so. However valuable a thorough education is, the mission George Washington was to fulfill required that he should be wholly one of the people. He could not have been educated in the universities of Europe, without at the same time coming under influences, the whole tendency of which would be to unfit him for the place assigned him by Heaven. Here, amid our primeval forests, in constant intercourse with the hardy settlers, trained in the rough life of the pioneer, and representing in himself the love of the soil, the fearless independence and self-reliance of the people, he became their true representative and leader.

At thirteen years of age we find him sitting in one of those humble school-houses in a Virginia clearing, which still form one of the most distinctive characteristics of our country. Full of lusty life, his shout rings over the fields as he bounds away from his pursuers, or his laugh mingles with the rollicking group, as they wrestle and leap and toss the bar in boyish rivalry. One of his graver sports was to arrange his playmates in companies, and, placing himself at their head, march and countermarch them or lead them to the charge in mimic battle. Bold and athletic, he soon acquired influence over his companions

by his physical strength, while, by his probity and love of justice, he caused himself to be referred to as arbiter in all their quarrels. His hand dealt swift punishment on acts of meanness and oppression, for he would no more suffer wrong than do it. In school he was as much marked by his application and acquirements, as he was out of doors by his strength and agility. His taste in books was uncommonly grave, and he reveals at this early age the systematic subjection to wholesome rules under which he ever after placed all his conduct. He formed little manuscript books, into which he copied the forms used by men in transacting business, such as bonds, bills of exchange, notes of hand, receipts, etc. Selections of poetry are scattered along, evidently not such as a boy would naturally prefer. They were simply religious maxims, and doubtless had been hoarded from his mother's teachings.

وو

He made also a large collection of rules of behavior, which reveal a remarkably matured mind in one so young. Many of them would not be comprehended by a boy of thirteen, much less have arrested his attention and be set aside as guides to himself: such as "Gaze not on the marks and blemishes of others, and ask not how they came.' "What you may speak in secret to your friend, deliver not before others.' "Let your recreations be manful, not sinful." "When you speak of God, or his attributes, let it be seriously and in reverence." "Honor and obey your natural parents, although they be poor. "Labor to keep alive in your heart that little spark of celestial fire called conscience."

وو

99

It is certainly extraordinary to see a mere child thus reduce his life, as it were, to system, and shape all his conduct to rules of morality. The foundation of a well-balanced and virtuous character, thus early established, could not but result in a noble and complete structure. In his case the tree obeyed the inclination of the twig to

perfection, and he grew up a striking example of the power and benefit of right early training. Virtues planted so deep in the heart are proof against the fiercest storms and severest temptations of life.

He had a decided taste for mathematics, which soon led him from the simple rules of arithmetic, into geometry, trigonometry and surveying; and he spent much of his time in surveying the lots around the school-house.

A fiery nature, that loves excitement and danger, joined to a mathematical taste and science, always gives a strong character, for it shows a union of the imaginative and reflective faculties, of energy and discretion, impulse and great accuracy-a union which in itself is power. Bonaparte exhibited these traits of character in an extraordinary degree, making him both rapid and exact-quick as the lightning's flash and as certain of its mark.

How different are the ways by which Heaven reaches results from those pursued by man! The wisest statesmen of France and England were absorbed in the affairs of this continent, and its fate depended, in their estimation, wholly on the wisdom of their management and the strength of their armies, while around the form of a lad of thirteen, in a Virginia school-house, clustered its entire destinies.

Young Washington was not quite sixteen, when, with his education completed, he left school and launched forth into active life. The treaty of Aix la Chapelle, to the completion of which had been given the thought and effort of the wisest diplomatists in the world, had just closed. Around it had gathered the attention of all Europe, but men were mistaken, the destinies did not hover about that imposing convention, but attended the footsteps of this unknown lad, as he passed through the forests of his native land.

On apparently trivial matters often hinge the greatest