Washington's Birthday

Washington's Birthday - Its history, observance, spirit, and significance as related in prose and verse, with a selection from Washington's speeches and writings

The popular idea of Washington has recently begun to veer away from the vision of an eighteenth century demigod in a wig,an old-fashioned statue in dusky bronze, stern and forbidding. We are swinging around toward the idea of a loveable, fallible, very human personality with humor, a hot temper, and a genuine love of pleasure. Accordingly, in gathering material for this book the editor has passed by those earlier writers who are mainly responsible for this distorted view; and he has aimed to gather here the essays, orations poems, stories, and exercises which best exhibit the modern conception of Washington; together with a selection from his own writings and the finest of the elder tributes to the memory of our greatest National Hero. A good deal of American history was once violently distorted by the partisanship of the eighteenth century, frozen solid by its icy formalism, and left thus for the edification of succeeding generations. For example, it was not until 1868 that Franklin's Autobiography was by accident given to the world in the simple natural style in which he wrote it. The book had been "edited" by Franklin's loyalist grandson, and had been cut and tortured into the pompous, stilted periods that were supposed to befit the dignity of so important a personage. When John Bigelow published the original with all its navet and homely turns of phrases and suppressed passages, he shed a flood of light upon Benjamin Franklin. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 15140
Author: Schauffler, Robert Haven
Release Date: Feb 22, 2005
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Editor: Schauffler, Robert Haven, 1879-1964