r. Hobby will do the best he knows how for George or any other boy,"
continued Mrs. Washington. "He is a good man, and looks after the morals
of his scholars; and that is a good deal in educating children."

"Of course it is; it is everything," replied Mr. Washington. "In that
respect, Hobby has the confidence of all who know him. He does the very
best he can, and the most cultivated people can do no better than that."

George was soon on the very best terms with his teacher. The attraction
was mutual. Hobby saw a bright, studious, obedient boy in George, and
George saw a kind, loving and faithful teacher in Hobby. In these
circumstances commendable progress was immediate in George's career.

One of his biographers says of him in Hobby's school:

"The rapid progress George made in his studies was owing, not so much to
his uncommon aptitude at learning, as to the diligence and industry with
which he applied himself to them. When other boys were staring out of
the window, watching the birds and squirrels sporting among the
tree-tops; or sitting idly with their hands in their pockets, opening
and shutting their jack-knives, or counting their marbles, or munching
apples or corn-dodgers behind their books, or, naughtier still, shooting
paper bullets at Hobby's wooden leg; our George was studying with all
his might, closing his ears to the buzz of the school-room; nor would he
once raise his eyes from his book till every word of his lesson was
ready to drop from his tongue's end of its own accord. So well did he
apply himself, and so attentive was he to everything taught him, that,
by the time he was ten years old, he had learned all that the good old
grave-digger knew himself; and it was this worthy man's boast, in after
years, that he had laid the foundation of Washington's future greatness.
But what Hobby could not teach him at school, George learned at home
from his father and mother, who were well educated for those days; and
many a long winter evening did these good parents spend in telling
their children interesting and instructive stories of olden times, of
far-off countries and strange people, which George would write down in
his copy book in his neatest, roundest hand, and remember ever
afterwards."

What this biographer claims was not all the instruction which George
received at home. His instruction at Hobby's school was supplemented by
lessons in reading, penmanship and arithmetic by his father, who was
much