Footprints of Famous Men
Designed as Incitements to Intellectual Industry
9781465637161
211 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
It has been remarked that, in general, persons attain with credit, and fill with dignity, the positions which might have been anticipated from their juvenile indications. Some, indeed, afterward display talents of which, in their first stages, they gave no sign, and others put forth a blossom not destined to bring forth the promised fruits: but most frequently the man is such as might have been predicted from the characteristics exhibited in early years. Washington can hardly be regarded as an exception to the general rule; though it is unnecessary to add, that he more than realized any hopes that could reasonably have been entertained from his puerile performances. The seminary at which he received his very scanty education was by no means of the highest class. The pupils were not even initiated into the rudiments of classical learning. Enough was taught the urchins to fit them for conducting the practical business of a planter—at that time the pursuit of nearly all gentlemen whose progenitors had left the comfort and security of merry England to encounter the toils and hardship of a colonial life. The teachers seem to have acted rigidly on the precept of a Spartan king, that the boy should be instructed in the arts likely to be useful to the man. If, on leaving school, the hopeful youths could read with decent correctness, write a tolerable hand, and keep accounts intelligibly, what more was wanting to capacitate them for growing tobacco and shipping it, to be disposed of by the commercial magnates who, arrayed in scarlet cloaks and flowing periwigs, paced, with haughty step and unvailed pride, the arched Exchange of Glasgow? Young men destined for learned professions were, it is true, generally sent to be educated in England; for others a private tutor was sometimes engaged; but in most cases the juvenile Virginians shouldered their satchels, and, picking up the wild grapes in their path, marched to the nearest hamlet to make the best of such tuition as it boasted of. Such, at all events, was the fortune of Washington. Under these disadvantageous circumstances, he pursued his simple studies with unusual vigor and exemplary diligence. At the age of thirteen, he strangely occupied much of his attention with the dry forms used in mercantile transactions. He practiced his skill in the writing of bonds, indentures, bills of exchange, and other deeds, compiled for his own use and guidance a code of rules for behavior in company and conversation, and transcribed such pieces of poetry as touched and charmed his fancy. From a boy, he was peculiarly careful to polish his manners, to cherish the heart’s best affections, to do to others as he would be done to, and to exercise such a habitual control over himself, that he might restrain his constitutional ardor and hold his natural susceptibility in check. His early compositions were not, from the imperfect nature of his education, distinguished by grammatical correctness; but, by reading and perseverance, he gradually overcame these defects, and learned to express himself with force, clearness, and propriety. He had a decided turn for mathematical studies; and the last years of his school career were devoted to the mysteries of geometry, trigonometry, and surveying. For the last he felt a singular partiality; and he gratified the taste by measuring the neighboring fields and plantations, entering all the details and particulars in his note-books. This was done with systematic precision; he used his pen with the most scrupulous care, and acquired habits which were of inestimable value when he ascended to posts of peril and responsibility.
