E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Charlene Taylor, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) in commemoration of Washington's Birthday, February 22, 2005 Our American Holidays WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY Its History, Observance, Spirit, and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse, with a Selection from Washington's Speeches and Writings Edited by ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUFFLER New York Dodd, Mead and Company PREFACE The popular idea of Washington has recently begun to veer away from the vision of an eighteenth century demigod in a wig,--an old-fashioned statue in dusky bronze, stern and forbidding. We are swinging around toward the idea of a loveable, fallible, very human personality with humor, a hot temper, and a genuine love of pleasure. Accordingly, in gathering material for this book the editor has passed by those earlier writers who are mainly responsible for this distorted view; and he has aimed to gather here the essays, orations poems, stories, and exercises which best exhibit the modern conception of Washington; together with a selection from his own writings and the finest of the elder tributes to the memory of our greatest National Hero. NOTE The Editor and Publishers wish to acknowledge their indebtedness to Houghton, Mifflin & Company; Doubleday, Page & Company; J.B. Lippincott & Co.; Mr. David McKay, John Macy, and others who have very kindly granted permission to reprint selections from works bearing their copyright. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION I THE DAY WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY _Oliver Wendell Holmes_ WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY _Margaret E. Sangster_ THE BIRTHDAY OF WASHINGTON _Anonymous_ WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY _George Howland_ WASHINGTON AND OUR SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES _Charles W. Eliot_ CROWN OUR WASHINGTON _Hezekiah Butterworth_ WASHINGTON-MONTH _Will Carleton_ II EARLY YEARS A GLIMPSE OF WASHINGTON'S BIRTHPLACE _Grace B. Johnson_ SOMETHING OF GEORGE WASHINGTON'S BOYHOOD _Anonymous_ WASHINGTON'S TRAINING _Charles Wentworth Upham_ WASHINGTON AS HE LOOKED III THE GENERAL WASHINGTON IS APPOINTED COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF _Sydney George Fisher_ WASHINGTON AT TRENTON _Richard Watson Gilder_ GEORGE WASHINGTON VALLEY FORGE _Henry Armitt Brown_ WASHINGTON AT VALLEY FORGE _Canon R.G. Sutherland_ A FRENCHMAN'S ESTIMATE OF WASHINGTON IN 1781 _Claude C. Robin_ IV THE PRESIDENT WASHINGTON AND THE CONSTITUTION _John M. Harlan_ WASHINGTON'S ADMINISTRATION _Edward S. Ellis_ WASHINGTON _Mary Wingate_ WASHINGTON'S INAUGURATION _Edward Everett Hale_ WASHINGTONIANA LESSONS FROM THE WASHINGTON CENTENNIAL _George A. Gordon_ PRESIDENT WASHINGTON'S RECEPTIONS _William Sullivan_ THE FOREIGN POLICY OF WASHINGTON _Charles James Fox_ V LAST DAYS GEORGE WASHINGTON _Hamilton Wright Mabie_ WASHINGTON'S LAST DAYS _Elisabeth Eggleston Seelye_ THE MOUNT VERNON TRIBUTE THE WORDS OF WASHINGTON _Daniel Webster_ VI TRIBUTES