In ancient times thoughtful people compared great and good souls to the stars. They rise in the spiritual firmament with a pure radiance and, ever anew breaking through the mists and clouds which obscure them, remain visible to later generations. Thus they become guiding stars for struggling human beings here below. The particular star which the reader who has the wisdom and the inclination to perfect himself is invited to study in these pages arose in the forests of Virginia on the twenty-second of February, 1732. It was there that little George first opened his eyes and looked out upon a world in which he was to play so great a part. There his negro mammy sat with him on the bench before the door, throwing crumbs to the turkeys and pigeons to amuse him, and there, under the rustling trees, he whittled his first horse out of hazelwood. George’s father, Augustine Washington, was a planter of English extraction. His first ancestor had emigrated from England when North America was still the undisputed property of the Indians. The territory which later became the United States is almost as large as the continent of Europe. Two hundred years ago the whole country was a trackless forest, broken only by enormous morasses, cane-brakes, and savannas or grassy prairies. In the prosperous plantation house on the east bank of the Rappahannock in which George was born, piety, industry, and probity had made their habitation. That was the first blessing with which heaven dowered the boy. Of course, living in a pure and healthy moral atmosphere is not in itself all that is required to guide a youth into paths of rectitude; the will to do the right and the continual struggle to attain it can alone accomplish the greater part. Reprobates have sometimes come out of the best environments. The voice of conscience is awakened very early in the human breast and we soon know right from wrong. However, it is a great boon and a wonderful help to be surrounded by people who are examples of virtue in word and deed, and he who strays into the paths of sin in spite of such surroundings is doubly to be censured.