When you speak of God or His attributes, let it be seriously, in reverence and honor, and obey your natural parents. Let your recreation be manful, not sinful. Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience. Chapter II The Surveyor After the plan of allowing him to enter the English service as a naval cadet had been abandoned, George continued his attendance at school with the intention of preparing himself to become a surveyor. Until the completion of his fifteenth year he applied himself to these studies, principally geometry and trigonometry. During his last Summer at school he made surveys of the fields and meadows belonging to the schoolhouse, and also of the neighboring plantations. This business, which was only practice for him, he carried on as conscientiously as though he were obliged to take an oath as to its accuracy. Every detail pertaining to it, such as drawings, calculations, and references, were carefully put on paper. There was not an inserted word nor a blot to be seen. If he did make a mistake, he would erase it so cleverly that it could be discovered only on the closest inspection. One could see that it was a law of his being to do everything with the greatest neatness. But he was just as particular with regard to order and oversight. Irving says of him: “Nothing was left half done, or done in a hurried and slovenly manner. The habit of mind thus cultivated continued throughout life; so that, however complicated his tasks and overwhelming his cares, in the arduous and hazardous situations in which he was often placed, he found time to do everything and to do it well. He had acquired the magic of method, which of itself works wonders.” His education was very limited outside of mathematics. Probably he did not learn even the simplest rules of grammar in school. We may infer this from his notebooks of that period, in which grammatical mistakes often occur. But even in grammar he made himself a master, when once he had fixed his attention upon it. Careful consideration and comparisons, with attentive reading of masterpieces of literature, was a training which enabled him later to express himself in pure and correct language, both in speaking and writing, and the reader will see from examples which we shall give that Washington became a master of style. But study alone could not have made purity, sincerity, and directness the most prominent characteristics of his writings. His literary style was the mirror of his character.