The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-02-27
GEORGE WASHINGTON WAS NOT A
 CHILD OF ARISTOCRAT|C BIRTH
 AS MANY ENORMOUSLY BELIEVE
Instead of Being the Youth of Fortune So Often Portray
 cd He Was Son of Poor Widow-Wth Little ~ Schooling Went to Work at IA Years.

educated and unread, she could no train his young mind. As he rose il the world, her soul did not soar afte him out of the narrow life which sh,
 always led. where she enjoyed he
 pipe in her rather untidy cottage.
 George was good boy" she al
 ways insisted. But the man. she dit
 not know.
 | After the death of his father, hi
 half brother, Lawrence, took a pater 1 nal interest in him and he was no
 much with his mother. Somewha
 like poor relation, he lived in tn.
 better homes of his more favored ell der brothers. But these having cl1il
 dren of their own to bring up, he lief 1 school at IA and went to work. Here the story of the young Georg'
 Washington really opens. Amos
 nothing is known of his boyhood be ] fore this period, and Parson Weem!
 and other early biographers had to fil
 in the blank pages as best they coult
 with the little ,hatchet, the dollal
 thrown across the Rappahannock ant
 the various things that ought to have ] happened in the youth of such a hero l A member of a party of distinguish | ed Frenchmen, who were once taker
 by the Secretary of State, William M
 Evarts, to the site of Washington's
 early home, wondered if even the 1 youthful George could have thrown { ] dollar across river so wide. "As [stand here. looking at that farawaJ l shore" he said, "it seems incredible Mir Cacratarvo ag
 ''But, you know Evarts argued i've are told that dollar went far 1 ther in those days than to-day" An other wit clinched the argument with the remark that "a man who could throw sovereign across the Atlantic would think nothing of throwing g dollar across a mere river!"
 Just where Washington went to school and who his teachers were nc one knows, though some have guessed He did not start until he was 8 and il is certain that he had very little schooling anywhere before he enter ed the great school of life, where he remained a willing learner always. Even when chief in the Revolution, he was not above ta- king lessons from those under him By the superior force of his charac- ter, he commanded men far better educated, far more travelled than him. by his conversation and corresponds ence with these subordinates.
 As his English improved, he grew ashamed of his former mistakes, La- borious1y going over his early papers, he carefully corrected them, as if pre- pairing to pass an examination of his- tory without too low a mark.
 Ciphering seemed to have come to him by naturea but not reading and writing In manhood, his spelling still was bad and his grammar worse. If he could not tell lie, neither could he ever spell the word. Throughout life, he wrote "lye" and slyar;" ''oyF' for "oil,'' ''blew'' for s'blue,'' and per sisted in few more like mistakes in his spelling of simple words. Gener- ally fox was not caught by him, but was "catched."
 Penmanship was among his good points. The album of fame cherish es few autographs better than Wash ington's, and his earliest, written when he was only 13, is as good and bold as his best.
 Tn his boyhood he was so much in sterested in an English book entitled "The Young Mans Companion" that he copied many of it's useful lessons in blankbook of his own. which he also decorated with boyish drawings of men and birds.
 From that printed book he wrote out at length it's Rules of Civility and Behavior" which may well have formed thep attern of his conduct through life, so closely did he follow them. By these rules he was told how to walk, stand, sit and eat prop erly; how to cough, sneeze, and yawn in company and how to care flor his hands and nails. not to mention the higher principles of behavior, all of which he copied and kept for his guid- ance.
 Like his people before him and like so many youngsters, the 14-year -old boy, when starting out in life, yearn- ed to go to sea. Many writers, fam cying him to have been fine young gentleman, have assumed that he thought of being nothing less than a midshipman in the Kings Navy. More likely his spirit of adventure craved only place before the mast in mere cargo boat.
 At any rate, this was the under standing of his mothers brother in England. The anxious mother hav- ing asked his advice, Uncle Joseph wrote back that George would better be tinker's apprentice. If he be- came a sailor, the press gang surely would seize upon him, the uncle ar- gued, and drag him aboard Naval vessel, where he would have no in- fluence to advance him from the fore castle, but would be "cut and slashed and used like negro or dog.''
 That candid picture of seafaring life made the mother still more stub born in her objections to her sons ambition. Thanks to her, he turned his back on the ocean, with it's for eign shores beyond, and turned his face landward, toward his own coun- try.
 Since he was to cruise over the land rather than over the water. he be- came surveyor. With Lawrence's aid, he received instruction at Mt. Vernon in the simple rules of survey ing, and at 16 he was ready to ac- cept a commission from a neighbor who owned thousands of acres of will derness out in the Valley of Virginia.
 This was Lord Fairfax, who had come to Virginia to nurse a wounded heart. All because a maid had pre- ferred a Duke to an Earl, he left his English manor and his seat among