To us of the Central West, the memory of Washington and his dearest ambitions must be precious beyond that of any other American, whether statesman, general, or seer. Under strange providential guidance the mind and heart of that first American was turned toward the territories lying between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi, and it is to be doubted if any other portion of his country received so much of his attention and study as this. Washington was the original expansionist--not for expansion's sake, truly, but for country's sake and duty's. If Washington was the father of his country, he was in a stronger and more genuine sense the father of the West. It was begotten of him. Others might have led the Revolutionary armies through the valleys as deep and dark as those through which Washington passed, and have eventually fought England to a similar standstill as did Washington; at least Gates, Greene, and Putnam would never have surrendered up the cause of the colonies. But of the West, who knew it as Washington did? Who saw its possibilities, realized the advantages which would accrue to the colonies from its possession, understood the part it might play in the commercial development of the seaboard states? Who else had traversed Nemacolin's little path before 1753? If ever a finger was lifted by order of Providence it was the finger which fired the first gun of the French and Indian war in that Alleghany vale. And yet today what would the Washington of 1754 be called--fighting redskins and foreigners with splendid relish in a far distant portion of the country to gain possession of an almost pathless wilderness? Washington had, first, an extraordinary knowledge of the West which he championed. Into Lord Fairfax's wild acres he went in his teens to earn an honest dubloon a day. Each step of the young Washington in those early years was fraught with the weight of destiny itself, and never has human life showed more plainly the very hand of God directing, preparing, guiding. These years were of incalculable value to the young surveyor, bringing to his cheeks the brown of the forest leaves, to his limbs the strength of the mountain rivers, and to his heart withal the sweetness of the songs of mountain birds--for all the University of Nature which he attended in the Alleghany mountains saw to it that her pupil was built up in a most holy strength, as he had in him the most holy faith--strength of limb, of mind, as well as soul.