Every American, old or young, should become familiar with the life of Washington; it will confirm their patriotism and strengthen their loyalty. Such a character will become an inspiration to them, eliciting nobler aims, and impelling to nobler deeds. Washington himself wrote to his step-son, who was in college: "You are now extending into that stage of life when good or bad habits are formed; when the mind will be turned to things useful and praiseworthy or to dissipation and vice. Fix on which ever it may, it will stick by you; for you know it has been said, and truly, 'The way the twig is.
