PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1. No. 45, SERIAL No. 45 COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION [Illustration: ALEXANDER HAMILTON, BY JOHN TRUMBULL--METROPOLITAN MUSEUM. N. Y.] _MAKERS OF AMERICAN ART_ _John Trumbull_ FIVE John Trumbull was the youngest of six children of Jonathan Trumbull, who was once governor of Connecticut. To him George Washington gave the name of “Brother Jonathan,” a name that has now become a national personification. Whether the people deliberately adopted this name in order to apply it to our national type is a subject of some discussion; but it is a fact that Washington called Trumbull “Brother Jonathan,” and it is a fact that many affectionately employed the term thereafter as a familiar name for the United States. So its origin in the incident seems probable at least. John Trumbull was born at Lebanon, Connecticut, in 1756. He was a sickly child, with a mind more active than his body, an infant prodigy of learning, who qualified to enter college at twelve. He actually did enter Harvard in the middle of the junior year at the age of fifteen. His delicate health and his extreme youth prevented his making many close college friends. He spent his spare money on French lessons, and his spare time studying pictures in the fine art books that he could find in the college library. When a student he visited Copley, and became imbued with the great painter’s ideas of the dignity of an artist’s life. After graduation in 1773 Trumbull tried to paint with home-made materials. His art studies and experiments were interrupted by the opening of the Revolution. When war with England became imminent Trumbull began training the young men of the school and village, and, after the battle of Lexington, when the first regiment of Connecticut troops was formed, he was made adjutant. Afterward he became second aide-de-camp to General Washington, and when General Gates took command of the northern department he appointed Trumbull adjutant general, with rank of colonel, and in that capacity he took part in the unfortunate expedition to Albany and Ticonderoga. He resigned from the army in 1780 and went to London to study art under Benjamin West. Then came the news of the arrest and execution of Major André, which stirred England, and suggested the arrest of John Trumbull because he had been an officer of similar rank in the American army. He was imprisoned for seven months. In 1784 he was once more studying under West, and when there painted his two great pictures, the “Battle of Bunker Hill,” and the “Death of Montgomery.” In 1785 Trumbull visited Paris, and it was when there that he began his picture which is perhaps the most famous of all his work, the signing of “The Declaration of Independence.”