that the mother's part in his education was the major part. She was a beautiful and good woman; he was her oldest child; she was yet young when left alone to care for the family and great estates. Many must have been the consultations which she and her son had over their affairs. The management of their property, domestics and their families; the care and education of the children, their discipline, health, manners and morals, all came often before the young mother and her thoughtful and considerate son. This education with and by his mother was more to him in making him the wise, great and good man he was, than all he got from schools and books. This is one of those marked instances of what a good mother can do for her children when left to her sole care. Every country and age abounds with such cases. HIS YOUTH. Lawrence Washington, living on his estate, which he called Mount Vernon, in close proximity to his father-in-law, William Fairfax, invited George to his home on leaving his school. George had now become a youth. Though only sixteen, he was tall, sedate, courteous in manners, more a man than a boy. William Fairfax was a brother of Lord Fairfax, and had come to Virginia to look after the immense estates of his brother. Lord Fairfax had received grants of the land between the Rappahannock and Potomac rivers, and tiring of society at home on account of social disappointment, he came to Virginia and established his brother on his estate. Their elegant English home, near Mount Vernon, now became the frequent resort of George Washington. His frankness and modesty, and thoughtful, manly bearing won the cordial regard of all the family. The eldest son had just married and brought his wife and her sister home, adding much to the interest and sociality of the family. This educated circle of fine-bred people, old and young, and all older than he, did much to refine his manners and give him the appearance of being older than he was. Lord Fairfax was a great rider and fox hunter, and kept horses and hounds for this old English sport. He found his match in young Washington, and in their frequent rides on the chase learned the young man's worth and attainments; and engaged him to survey his grant of lands. This exactly suited young Washington, as he had educated himself for it, loved the wild woods of the mountain and valley, and had in his heart an unspoken reason for craving just such an adventurous excursion away from society into the wilds of the forest. HIS HEART SORROW. We have not been accustomed to think of George Washington as a lovesick swain, or ever having had those sorrowful experiences of the heart which unrequited love produces and which always bring bitter disappointment and often disasters. But it seems clear that when he went from school to Mount Vernon, he carried a poor aching heart smitten with an affection not reciprocated, or which, for some reason, he did not announce to its object. Who the young miss was who so filled his great heart with tenderness and pain is not known. He speaks of her in a letter to his "Dear Friend Robin," as "your Lowland Beauty." To different friends he wrote of his love sorrows. In his journal he wrote of it, and like other love-afflicted mortals, attempted to soothe his sorrows with poetic effusions. In these he speaks of his "poor, restless heart, wounded by cupid's dart, bleeding for one who remains pitiless of his griefs and woes." Some of his verses indicate that he never spoke his love to the ears that should have heard it, prevented, it may have been, by bashfulness: "Ah, woe is me, that I should love and conceal; This experience, perhaps, should be set down as a part of his youthful education. It was not a loss. It softened his nature and manners. It revealed to himself the depth of his heart capacity. It awakened in him that deep respect for woman which he always felt, and might have been the secret of his studied courtesy of manner and gentleness of spirit toward all women. It is more than likely it was the experience of the tender passion that led him to write in his journal, "Rules for behavior in company and conversation." One of his lady friends in his youth, late in her life said of him: "He was a very bashful young man; I often wished that he would talk more." He also compiled in his journal a code of "morals and manners," that he might be guided by them in his conduct and intercourse in society. He was self-directing and self-educating, and so methodical that he set down in his journal his plans for selfimprovement. His bashfulness, doubtless, made him feel that he must have rules of conduct, and enforce them upon himself. At this time he had had much experience of life; he had lost his father; had aided his mother in their extensive domestic and business affairs; had studied most of the time for four years; had listened much to his mother's reading and instruction; had associated intimately with his educated brother Lawrence, who was both father and brother to him and deeply loved him; had had his heart smitten with a great love; had had much intercourse with the eccentric, but strong Lord Fairfax, and with William Fairfax and his intelligent and refined family and visitors; had put in his journal his reflections and plans for selfimprovement, and yet was but just entering his seventeenth year. It is clear, that, though not educated in any college of letters and science, he was educated and profoundly educated, for one of his age, in the school of life. A grand and broad foundation had been laid for the great manhood that was afterward built thereon. HIS SURVEYING EXPEDITION. In the month of March, 1748, Washington, with George William Fairfax, son of William, with whom he had spent a happy winter, started on a surveying expedition to locate the boundaries of Lord Fairfax's grant of Virginia land. It was a rough, hard experience with rivers, forests, mountains, rain, Indians, squatters and mud; but it was satisfactorily completed by the twelfth of April. It gave Washington a clear knowledge of the Shenandoah valley and the mountains, rivers and lands about it, which was of great value to him in after years. Lord Fairfax procured his appointment as public surveyor, and he spent the next two or three years mostly in the survey of Virginia lands. Lord Fairfax took up his residence on the Shenandoah, where Washington often tarried with him for a time on his surveying expeditions, and was largely profited by his great knowledge and extended acquaintance with the world. sun. COMING COMPLICATIONS. The growing colonies were exciting ambitious schemes in the minds of peoples and kings. The great west was full of alluring prospects. Empires of land stretched away toward the setting Something was known of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and the immense territories they drained. Subjects of the French king had seen them and taken possession of them and all their tributaries and lands on them, in the name of their king. The English claimed that through the "Six Nations" they had acquired a right to all this territory. The people of both nations were full of colonization schemes. Virginia and Pennsylvania were interested and excited. It was not far to the head waters of the Ohio's tributaries. Their Indian traders were already trafficking with the Ohio tribes. Settlers were making their way through the passes of the mountains and great interest was felt to push the settlements forward. Among the many enterprising men who were interested in these schemes of wealth and dominion was Lawrence Washington. He desired that Virginia should join with Pennsylvania and make large settlements on the Ohio under the liberal religious policy of Pennsylvania. He said: "It has ever been my opinion, and I hope it ever will be, that restraints on conscience are cruel in regard to those on whom they are imposed, and injurious to the country imposing them." Then he refers to the liberty of conscience enjoyed in Pennsylvania, and the restraint put upon conscience in Virginia by its one English church, and points to the much more rapid growth of Pennsylvania. He would have this liberal policy applied to the western settlements. His enlightened views on this subject were no doubt imparted to his younger brother and helped form his mind for the noble opinions and character which he afterward carried into his great career. On the north, the French were equally active in pushing forward settlements, forts and possession. Both French and English were seeking alliance with the Indians, and the already disturbed borders indicated a coming clash of arms. In both nations, especially in the colonies, preparations were beginning. In Virginia the war spirit was aroused; the province was divided into military districts, each district having an adjutant-general with the rank of major, and pay of one hundred and fifty pounds a year. Lawrence Washington sought for his brother George an appointment to one of these offices. This indicates the maturity of mind he had already reached to have gained such confidence. The appointment was made and preparations were begun for a military campaign into the western wilds. George put himself under the military drill of the best instructors he could get, and Mount Vernon became the scene of military preparations and discipline. LAWRENCE WASHINGTON'S SICKNESS. But these preparations were stayed by the ill health of Lawrence Washington. His constitution had never been the firmest, and now he was threatened with dangerous pulmonary symptoms. By the advice of physicians, it was determined that he should spend the next winter in the West Indies. It was not thought safe for him to go alone, nor did he feel like going without his favorite brother George with him, whose strength and wisdom he had already begun to lean upon. So the preparations for a military campaign were changed to preparations for the journey to the West Indies. The young military leader was changed to a fraternal nurse. On the twenty-eighth of September, 1751, Lawrence and George started on their tour in search of health for the invalid. George kept a journal with his usual exactness. They reached the West Indies on the third of November. Here were new things in the style of life-the people and natural productions—which interested George at once; but they had been there but two weeks when he was |