in the best establishment for the purpose that the neighborhood afforded.
It was what was called, in popular parlance, an "old field school-house;"
humble enough in its pretensions, and kept by one of his father's tenants
named Hobby, who moreover was sexton of the parish. The instruction doled
out by him must have been of the simplest kind, reading, writing, and
ciphering, perhaps; but George had the benefit of mental and moral culture
at home, from an excellent father.

Several traditional anecdotes have been given to the world, somewhat prolix
and trite, but illustrative of the familiar and practical manner in which
Augustine Washington, in the daily intercourse of domestic life, impressed
the ductile mind of his child with high maxims of religion and virtue, and
imbued him with a spirit of justice and generosity, and above all a
scrupulous love of truth.

When George was about seven or eight years old his brother Lawrence
returned from England, a well-educated and accomplished youth. There was a
difference of fourteen years in their ages, which may have been one cause
of the strong attachment which took place between them. Lawrence looked
down with a protecting eye upon the boy whose dawning intelligence and
perfect rectitude won his regard; while George looked up to his manly and
cultivated brother as a model in mind and manners. We call particular
attention to this brotherly interchange of affection, from the influence it
had on all the future career of the subject of this memoir.

Lawrence Washington had something of the old military spirit of the family,
and circumstances soon called it into action. Spanish depredations on
British commerce had recently provoked reprisals. Admiral Vernon,
commander-in-chief in the West Indies, had accordingly captured Porto
Bello, on the Isthmus of Darien. The Spaniards were preparing to revenge