After leaving the presidency, when our difficulties with France seemed to be thickening, and the sky looked very dark, he wrote to a friend saying that he firmly believed that all would come out well, and then added: "To me this is so demonstrable, that not a particle of doubt could dwell on my mind relative thereto, if our citizens would advocate their own cause, instead of that of any other nation under the sun; that is, if, instead of being Frenchmen or Englishmen in politics they would be Americans, indignant at every attempt of either or any other powers to establish an influence in our councils or presume to sow the seeds of discord or disunion among us.

A few days later he wrote to Thomas Pinckney: "It remains to be seen whether our country will stand upon independent ground, or be directed in its political concerns by any other nation. A little time will show who are its true friends, or, what is synonymous, who are true Americans."

But this eager desire for a true Americanism did not stop at our foreign policy, or our domestic politics. He wished it to enter into every part of the life and thought of the people, and when it was proposed to bring over the entire staff of a Genevan university to take charge of a national university here, he threw his influence against it, expressing grave doubts as to the advantage of importing an entire "seminary of foreigners," for the purpose of American education. The letter on this subject, which was addressed to John Adams, then continued:

"My opinion with respect to emigration is that except of useful mechanics, and some particular descriptions of men or professions, there is no need of encouragement; while the policy or advantage of its taking place in a body (I mean the settling of them in a body) may be much questioned; for by so doing they retain the language, habits, and principles, good or bad, which they bring with them. Whereas by an intermixture with our people, they or their descendants get assimilated to our customs, measures, and laws; in a word, soon become one people."

He had this thought so constantly in his mind that it found expression in his will, in the clause bequeathing certain property for the foundation of a university in the District of Columbia. "I proceed," he said, "after this recital for the more correct understanding of the case, to declare that it has always been a source of serious regret with me to see the youth of these United States sent to foreign countries for the purposes of education, often before their minds were formed, or they had imbibed any adequate ideas of the happiness of their own; contracting too frequently not only habits of dissipation and extravagance, but principles unfriendly to republican government and to the true and genuine liberties of mankind, which thereafter are rarely overcome; for these reasons it has been my ardent wish to see a plan devised on a liberal scale, which would have a tendency to spread systematic ideas through all parts of this

rising empire, thereby to do away with local attachments and state prejudices, as far as the nature of things would or indeed ought to admit, from our national councils."

Were these the words of an English country gentleman, who chanced to be born in one of England's colonies? Persons of the English country gentleman pattern at that time were for the most part loyalists; excellent people, very likely, but not of the Washington type. Their hopes and ideals, their policies and their beliefs were in the mother country, not here. The faith, the hope, the thought, of Washington were all in the United States. His one purpose was to make America independent in thought and action, and he strove day and night to build up a nation. He labored unceasingly to lay the foundations of the great empire which, with almost prophetic vision, he saw beyond the mountains, by opening the way for the western movement. His foreign policy was a declaration to the world of a new national existence, and he strained every nerve to lift our politics from the colonial condition of foreign issues. He wished all immigration to be absorbed and moulded here, so that we might be one people, one in speech and in political faith. His last words, given to the world after the grave had closed over him, were a solemn plea for a home training for the youth of the Republic, so that all men might think as Americans, untainted by foreign ideas, and rise above all local prejudices.

He did not believe that mere material development was the only or the highest goal; for he knew that the true greatness of a nation was moral and intellectual, and his last thoughts were for the up-building of character and intelligence. He was never a braggart, and mere boasting about his country as about himself was utterly repugnant to him. He never hesitated to censure what he believed to be wrong, but he addressed his criticisms to his countrymen in order to lead them to better things, and did not indulge in them in order to express his own discontent, or to amuse or curry favor with foreigners. In a word, he loved his country, and had an abiding faith in its future and in its people, upon whom his most earnest thoughts and loftiest aspirations were centred. No higher, purer, or more thorough Americanism than his could be imagined. It was a conception far in advance of the time, possible only to a powerful mind, capable of lifting itself out of existing conditions and alien influences, so that it might look with undazzled gaze upon the distant future. The first American in the broad national sense, there has never been a man more thoroughly and truly American than Washington. It will be a sorry day when we consent to take that noble figure from "the forefront of the nation's life," and rank George Washington as anything but an American of Americans, instinct with the ideas, as he was devoted to the fortunes of the New World which gave him birth.

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There is another class of critics who have attacked Washington from another side. These are the gentlemen who find him in the way of their own heroes. Washington was a man of decided opinions about men as well as measures, and he was extremely positive. He had his enemies as well as his friends, his likes and his dislikes, strong and clear, according to his nature. The respect which he commanded in his life has lasted unimpaired since his death, and it is an awkward thing for the biographers of some of his contemporaries to know that Washington opposed, distrusted, or disliked their heroes. Therefore, in one way or another they have gone round a stumbling-block which they could not remove. The commonest method is to eliminate Washington by representing him vaguely as the great man with whom every one agreed, who belonged to no party, and favored all; then he is pushed quietly aside. Evils and wrong-doing existed under his administration from the opposition point of view, but they were the work of his ministers and of wicked advisers. The king could do no wrong, and this pleasant theory, which is untrue in fact, amounts to saying that Washington had no opinions, but was simply a grand and imposing figure-head. The only ground for it which is even suggested is that he sought advice, that he used other men's ideas, and that he made up his mind slowly. All this is true, and these very qualities help to show his greatness, for only small minds mistake their relations with the

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