Now left without a father, George received his home training from his mother. Fortunate, indeed, was he to have such a mother to teach him; for she was kind, firm, and had a strong practical sense. She loved her son, and he deeply appreciated her fond care of him. Some of George's youthful letters to his mother are full of interest. After the manner of the time he addressed her formally as "Honored Madam," and signed himself "Your dutiful son."
WASHINGTON CROSSING THE ALLEGHANY RIVER
Nor was his mother the only strong and wholesome influence over his home life. His eldest brother, Lawrence, played an important part in shaping his character. According to the custom of those days, Lawrence, as the eldest son of a Virginia planter, would inherit the bulk of his father's estate. He was therefore sent to an excellent school in England, to receive the training which would fit him to be a gentleman and a leader in social life. For learning was not held in such high esteem as ability to look after the business of a large plantation and take a leading part in the public life of the county and the colony.
With such a training Lawrence returned from England, a young man of culture and fine manners and well fitted to be a man of affairs. From this time on George, now only seven or eight years old, looked up to his brother, fourteen years his senior, with cordial admiration. Lawrence became George's model of manhood, and returned his younger brother's devotion with a tender love.
Soon after the death of his father, the boy went to live with his brother Augustine on the Bridge's Creek Plantation, in order to have the advantages of a good school there. Many of his copy-books and books of exercises, containing such legal forms as receipts, bills and deeds, as well as pictures of birds and faces, have been preserved. In these books there are, also, his rules of conduct, maxims which he kept before him as aids to good behavior. The following are a few of them:
The English Colonies and the French Claims in 1754.
"Every action in company ought to be with some sign of respect to those present.