Great knightly soul who came in time to serve his country’s need,
  To serve her with the timely word and with the valiant deed,
  Along the ages brightening as endless cycles run
  Undimmed and gaining luster in the twentieth century’s sun,
  First in our Hall of Fame we write the name all folk may ken,
  As first in war, and first in peace, first with his countrymen.

* * * * *

ESTIMATES OF WASHINGTON

George Washington, the brave, the wise, the good.  Supreme in war, in council, and in peace.  Washington, valiant, without ambition; discreet, without fear; confident, without presumption.

DR. ANDREW LEE.

* * * * *

More than any other individual, and as much as to one individual was possible, has he contributed to found this, our wide spreading empire, and to give to the Western World independence and freedom.

CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL.

* * * * *

Let him who looks for a monument to Washington look around the United States.  Your freedom, your independence, your national power, your prosperity, and your prodigious growth are a monument to him.

KOSSUTH.

* * * * *

More than all, and above all, Washington was master of himself.  If there be one quality more than another in his character which may exercise a useful control over the men of the present hour, it is the total disregard of self when in the most elevated positions for influence and example.

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS.

* * * * *

WASHINGTON’S RELIGIOUS CHARACTER

BY WILLIAM M’KINLEY

In an Address, February 22, 1898

Though Washington’s exalted character and the most striking acts of his brilliant record are too familiar to be recounted here, yet often as the story is retold, it engages our love and admiration and interest.  We love to record his noble unselfishness, his heroic purposes, the power of his magnificent personality, his glorious achievements for mankind, and his stalwart and unflinching devotion to independence, liberty, and union.  These cannot be too often told or be too familiarly known.

A slaveholder himself, he yet hated slavery, and provided in his will for the emancipation of his slaves.  Not a college graduate, he was always enthusiastically the friend of liberal education....

And how reverent always was this great man, how prompt and generous his recognition of the guiding hand of Divine Providence in establishing and controlling the destinies of the colonies and the Republic....

Washington states the reasons of his belief in language so exalted that it should be graven deep in the mind of every patriot: