For Nine Pupils
First Pupil.—To the historian few characters appear so little to have shared the common frailties and imperfections of human nature as that of Washington.
William Smyth.
Second Pupil.—No matter what may have been the immediate birthplace of such a man as Washington! No clime can claim, no country can appropriate him; the boon of Providence to the human race, his fame is eternity, his residence creation.
Charles Phillips.
Third Pupil.—As a ruler of mankind, he may be proposed as a model. Deeply impressed with the original rights of human nature, he never forgot that the end, and meaning, and aim of all just government was the happiness of the people.
William Smyth.
Fourth Pupil.—As a general, he marshaled the peasant into a veteran, and supplied by discipline the absence of experience. As a statesman, he enlarged the policy of the cabinet into the most comprehensive system of general advantage; and such was the wisdom of his views and the philosophy of his counsels that to the soldier and the statesman he almost added the character of the sage.
Charles Phillips.
Fifth Pupil.—Immortal man! He took from the battle its crime, and from the conquest its chains; he left the victorious the glory of his self-denial, and turned upon the vanquished only the retribution of his mercy. Happy, proud America! The lightnings of heaven yielded to your philosophy! The temptations of earth could not seduce your patriotism!