The Wonderful Story of Lincoln

Excerpt: We cannot think with a true vision, in estimating the meaning of colonial and revolutionary days, if we allow the glamor of fame and the idolatry of colonial patriotism to obscure our view of those times. There were heroes immortal with what we know as “the spirit of ’76,” but, grading from them were the good, bad and indifferent, that often seemed overwhelming in numbers. George Washington is known chiefly through the rather stilted style of writing that then prevailed, and the puritanic expressions that were used in describing commendable conduct. Even Washington’s writings were edited so as not to offend sensitive ears, and so as not to give an impression to the reader different from the idealized orthodox character of that severe pioneer civilization. The people were free in everything but social expression. That was sternly required to conform to a rigid puritanic or cavalier standard. Washington, more than any other great man, seems to have composed his early life from what some well-meaning reformers have termed “copy-book morality;” that is, proverbial morality or personal rules of conduct. Washington in his boyhood wrote out many moral sentences as reminders for his own guidance. He was a persistent searcher after the right way toward the right life. Washington’s mother is described as being stern in business and moral discipline, even as having a violent temper and being capable of very severe measures to accomplish needed results. It seems that Washington, seeing this method in both father and mother, reinforced, as it were, by the military bearing of his much-admired elder half-brother, took that form of life as his earliest ideal. He was as tireless in perfecting models of business and life as Lincoln was in mastering the unconventional meaning of human beings. Washington at the ages of eleven and twelve delighted to copy various book-keeping forms and mercantile documents. His school books at that age are still preserved and they are models of accuracy and neatness. Besides that, he loved to discipline himself. He was always subjecting himself, either mentally or physically, to some kind of orderly training.