A candid review of the more popular school histories will bring out the fact that the man Washington is almost forgotten, in so far as the General and statesman do not portray him. In one of the best known school histories there seems to be but one line, of five words, which describes the character of Washington. Could we not forego, for once, what the Indian chieftain said of his bearing a charmed life at Braddock’s defeat, to make room for one little reason why Washington was “completer in nature” and of “a nobler human type” than any and all of the heroes of romance?
Mr. Otis Kendall Stuart has written a most interesting account of “The Popular Opinion of Washington” as ascertained by inquiry among persons of all ages, occupations and conditions. He found that Washington was held to be a “broad,” “brave,” “thinking,” “practical,” man; an aristocrat, so far as the dignity of his position demanded, but willing to “work with his hands” and with a credit that was “A 1!” Also, “when he did a thing, he did it,” and, if to the question, “Was he a great general and statesman?” there was some hesitation, to the question, “Was he a great man?” the answer was an unhesitating, “Yes.”
One may hold that such opinions as these have been gained from our school histories, but I think they are not so much from the histories, as from the popular legends of Washington, which, true and false, will never be forgotten by the common people, until they cease to represent,—not the patient, brave and wary general, or the calm, far-seeing statesman, but the man—“simple, stainless, and robust character,” as President Eliot has so beautifully described it, “which served with dazzling success the precious cause of human progress through liberty, and so stands, like the sunlit peak of Matterhorn, unmatched in all the world.”
The real essence of that “simple, stainless, and robust character” is nowhere so clearly seen as in these Allegheny vales where Colonel Washington first touched hands with fortune. Here truly, we may still “see it all—see the whole man.”
THE END.