t cities and established many
political reforms which were the beginning of the modern Russian
nation. He had trained an efficient army and was the father of the
Russian navy. While possessed of many faults and of a savage, ruthless
nature, the elements of greatness and of heroism were strong within
him.

CHAPTER XVIII

GEORGE WASHINGTON

Ever since the Declaration of Independence George Washington has been
the greatest figure in the history of the United States of America, and
it is certain that he will continue to be so for hundreds of years to
come. In all history there is no parallel to the dignity, the majesty,
the mightiness of his achievement, and no other man who has built a
monument of greatness so enduring as his.

He was born in Virginia in 1732, on the 22d of February. His father was
Augustine Washington and his mother was a second wife named Mary Ball.
The Washingtons were prominent and influential people in Virginia and
had lived there for many years.

In spite of this not a great deal is known about Augustine Washington,
although it is certain that he was an upright and honorable gentleman,
but George's mother was famous for her good sense as well as her
beauty. Her family was a large one; there had been children by the
first wife also, and as Augustine Washington died when George was a
little boy, she was forced to rear this family without a husband's
help.

Perhaps the responsibility that fell on George after his father's death
may have helped to develop his character. At all events there are many
stories about his boyhood in which he seems far older than his years.
Letters and history both tell us of his thoughtfulness, his methodical
habits and his great physical strength. Before he was in his teens he
had become the acknowledged leader of the boys in his neighborhood, and
he was fond of engaging with them in various athletic games. He also
formed a military company of the little negroes on the family estate,
and drilled them keenly, actually making something like a military show
with the barefooted, ragged pickaninnies, with their rolling eyes and
woolly heads. Like all other young Virginians he was accustomed to
riding from his infancy, and before he was ten years old there were few
horses that he could not bridle and master.

But we cannot go into stories of George's boyhood, of the time when he
cut down the cherry tree and faced his father's wrath rather than tell
a lie, or the t