TAUGHT BY EXAMPLE. “ ‘97

at a school where writing, reading, arithmetic,
and a little geometry were taught.

Now I will tell how it was that George
Washington made such good uge of these
slender advantages. In the first place, he
had a good mother, who, like almost all
good mothers, frequently counselled and ad-
vised her son to make the best use of his time
at school; to pay attention to his lessons;
to learn them well; and thus, not only to
store his mind with knowledge, but to get
into the habit of studying thoroughly, and
of improving his mind. In the second place,
Washington had the good sense, the virtue,
and the wisdom to attend to his mother in these
things. These are the two great reasons why
a common-school education bore such fruits
as it did in him, and they are the two chief
reasons why he becartie so eminent.

This shows that the “advantages a child
possesses are of less consequence than the
way in which he improves them. A boy
may be sent to a high-school, and go to
college, and have a good natural capacity,
and yet turn out to be a useless, weak, and
ignorant man. Merely a high-school, ora

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