Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1895-02-23
HE HAD HIS FAULTS.
ONE OF THE GREATEST OF MEN,
WASHINGTON WAS QUITE HUMAN.
The Tendency of Modern Historical Inves-
tigation Is Not to Lift Men Upon Cold
and Snowy Pinnacles-His Strong Will,
His Energy and His Perseverance.

His Energy and His Perseverance.
'Copyright, 1895 by American Press Associa
ton
Tho tendency which promoted great
leaders to the honors of the godhead did
not altogether cease with the mythmak-
ing period. Carlyle emphasizes hero
worship as the salt which saves poo1
human nature from dry rot. In Other
words, it upholds concrete ideals as OBJ
ject lessons to fire the imagination, sing
ing the chant:
On one clear harp of many tones
That men may rise on stepping stones
OF their dead selves to higher things.
1t is more than an open question
whether this instinct is not easily car
ried to excess vitiating its own purpose.
The ideaiization of the hero, if it petri-
fies it's object and lifts him above the
blood warmth of the human atmosphere,
makes the pattern man less virile and
vital Such until recent period was
the tone of historic discussion dealing
with George Washington. Chief Justice
Marshall, then Jared Sparks, then Wash
ington Irving, who wrote the standard
lives of our pater patria, followed this
method of conception and planted
marble colossus high up on a pedestal in
the freezing cold. 1t was an impeccable
deity, before which humanity should
bow down and burn perpetual incense,
half sitting itself in the fumes
The more recent tendencies of historic
study, what we may term the realistic
school, take Washington down from his
arctic perch, and without lessening his
genuine greatness make him vastly more
lovable. He is presented to us in flesh
and blood and not in stone. We find
that he was man of very human faults
as well as of virtues; that he could give
way to fits of fiery wrath and could
swear terribly in such moods; that he
was very sensitive alike to applause
and criticism; that he was often hasty,
even harsh, in his judgments, and that
he loved dearly to have his own way
and could enforce it with an imperious
will.
Washington's lack of schooling was
quite as complete as that of Abraham
that magic wand, the pedagogue's birch.
His learning was the fruit of attrition,
contact with men and affairs, and he
was plunged into very whirlpool of it
when scarcely more than lad. He was
only 23 when he saved the beaten rem
nant of Braddock's forces, and this was
by no means his first trust of impor-
tance. With the bluest blood of the col
onies running in his veins he was nat
urally an aristocrat in the conventional
as we'll as the nobler sense of the word.
Noblesse oblige, to live up to the finest
natural as breathing. Probably none
but an aristocrat, one forced by social
position from mere boyhood into a great
number of public responsibilities, would
have had the chance to have so proved
his sterling value. This stamp on the
coin made him by general choice the
picked man of men to lead the Ameri-
cans in the field when the thundercloud
of the Revolution burst All the tradi-
tions of his family and training nodded
him into 4 conservative. By instinct and
preference he was royalist. But when
he reluctantly felt himself lifted ON the
tide Of public sentiment, swelling
through all the colonies, he gave him.
self heart and soul to the work 1t may
be too nice point of speculation, but
one is tempted to believe that had Wash
ington been one whit more of the dema-