Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Washington's Farewell Address; Webster's First Bunker Hill Oration; Lincoln's Gettysburg Address
Augustine's house on the old Wakefield plantation, since that was close to a good school. Returning to his mother's home, he attended a school kept by the Rev. James Marye. The copy books he worked on have been preserved. In them are found copied in a large, round hand over a hundred maxims or rules that no doubt made a strong impression on the high spirited Virginian boy, - rules of which this is a good speci men, Think before you speak; pronounce not imperfectly nor bring out your words too hastily, but orderly and distinctly. In these early school days Washington learned the rudiments of surveying. In some of his youthful papers there are neat notes of surveys and accurate geometrical figures done with the utmost care. The end of Washington's school-days left him, if a good cipherer, ' a bad speller, and a still worse gram marian (p. L. Ford's Tile True George Washington).
Though living at his mother's home, Washington often visited at his brother Lawrence's plantation, Mount Vernon, where he mingled with people much older than himself. Big for his age, an expert horseman, he was a good companion for William Fairfax and Lord Fairfax, the largest property owners in Vir ginia. From his acquaintance with Lord Fairfax came his first real work.
In 1748, just a month after he was sixteen, Washington was chosen by Lord Fairfax to travel beyond the Blue Ridge and find out what he could about the bounds of the Fairfax estates. William Fairfax's son, George William, who was six years older than Washington, was nominally the leader in the expedition, but to Washington was assigned the actual work of surveying. The trip was not child's play, by any means, for the two friends were obliged to travel several hundred miles altogether, going and coming, and to rough it all the time. Washington ac quitted himself so well in the expedition that on his return he was appointed a public surveyor by the governor of Virginia. The three years that he spent in this work hardened his frame.
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