nly trying to see clearly some
object beyond vision, and in memory of the time he wrote in his will,
"To each I leave one of my spy-glasses which constituted part of my
equipage during the late war."

Of Washington's first school there is no record or tradition other than
that gathered by Parson Weems. He says: "The first place of education to
which George was ever sent was a little old field school kept by one of
his father's tenants, named Hobby, an honest, poor old man, who acted
in the double capacity of sexton and schoolmaster. Of his skill as a
gravedigger tradition is silent; but for a teacher of youth his
qualifications were certainly of the humbler sort, making what is
generally called an A, B, C schoolmaster. While at school under Mr.
Hobby he used to divide his playmates into parties and armies. One of
them was called the French and the other American. A big boy named
William Bustle commanded the former; George commanded the latter, and
every day with cornstalks for muskets and calabashes [gourds] for drums,
the two armies would turn out and march and fight."

* * * * *

WASHINGTON'S TRAINING

BY CHARLES WENTWORTH UPHAM

Among the mountain passes of the Blue Ridge and the Alleghanies, a youth
is seen employed in the manly and invigorating occupation of a surveyor,
and awakening the admiration of the backwoodsmen and savage chieftains
by the strength and endurance of his frame and the resolution and energy
of his character. In his stature and conformation he is a noble specimen
of a man. In the various exercises of muscular power, on foot, or in the
saddle, he excels all competitors. His admirable physical traits are in
perfect accordance with the properties of his mind and heart; and over
all, crowning all, is a beautiful, and, in one so strong, a strange
dignity of manner, and of mien--a calm seriousness, a sublime
self-control, which at once compels the veneration, attracts the
confidence, and secures the favor of all who behold him. That youth is
the Leader whom Heaven is preparing to conduct America through her
approaching trial.

As we see him voluntarily relinquishing the enjoyments, luxuries, and
ease of the opulent refinement in which he was born and bred, and
choosing the perils and hardships of the wilderness; as we follow him
fording swollen streams, climbing rugged mountains, breasting the forest
storms, wading through snowdrifts, sleeping in the open air, li