The other, from the address "America," of the Irish orator Phillips; having exalted Washington as general, statesman, and conqueror, he continues: "If he had paused there, history might have doubted what station to assign him; whether at the head of her citizens, or her soldiers, her heroes, or her patriots. But the last glorious act crowns his career, and banishes the hesitation. Who, like Washington, after having emancipated a hemisphere, resigned its crown, and preferred the retirement of domestic life to the adoration of a land he might be almost said to have created? Happy, proud America! The lightnings of heaven yielded to your philosophy! The temptations of earth could not seduce your patriotism!" A candid review of the more popular school histories will bring out the fact that the man Washington is almost forgotten, in so far as the general and the statesman do not portray him. In one, "Young Folks' History of the United States" (to name the production of an author whom criticism cannot injure), there seems to be but one line, of five words, which describes the character of Washington. Could we not forego, for once, what the Indian chieftain said of the "charmed life" Washington bore at Braddock's defeat, to make room for one little reason why Washington was "completer in nature" and of "a nobler human type" than any and all of the heroes of romance? Mr. Otis Kendall Stuart has written a most interesting account of "The Popular Opinion of Washington" as ascertained by inquiry among persons of all ages, occupations, and conditions. He found that Washington was held to be a "broad," "brave," "thinking," "practical," man; an aristocrat, so far as the dignity of his position demanded, but willing to "work with his hands," and with a credit that was "A1!" And "when he did a thing, he did it;" and, if to the question, "Was he a great general and statesman?" there was some hesitation, to the question, "Was he a great man?" the answer was an unhesitating "Yes." One may hold that such opinions as these have been gained from our school histories, but I think they are not so much from the histories, as from the popular legends of Washington, which, true and false, will never be forgotten by the common people until they cease to represent the _man_--not the patient, brave, and wary general, or the calm, far-seeing statesman, but that "simple, stainless, and robust character," as President Eliot has so aptly described it, "which served with dazzling success the precious cause of human progress through liberty, and so stands, like the sunlit peak of Matterhorn, unmatched in all the world." The real essence of that "simple, stainless, and robust character" is nowhere so clearly seen as on these Alleghany trails. In the West with Washington we may still "see it all--see the whole man."