Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. I.djvu/26

8 before he left school. His eldest half-brother, Lawrence, had already been an officer in the English service, and was at the siege of Carthagena under Admiral Vernon, for whom he formed a great regard, and whose name he afterward gave to his estate on the Potomac. Observing George's military propensities, and thinking that the English navy would afford him the most promising field for future distinction, Lawrence obtained a midshipman's warrant for him in 1746, when he was just fourteen years old, and George is said to have been on the point of embarking on this English naval service. The earnest remonstrance of his mother was interposed, and the project reluctantly abandoned. He thereupon resumed his studies, and did not leave school till the autumn before his sixteenth year. Soon afterward he went to reside with his brother Lawrence, who had married a Fairfax of Belvoir, and had established himself at Mount Vernon.

Washington's education was now finished, so far as schools and schoolmasters were concerned, and he never enjoyed or sought the advantages of a college. Indeed, only a month after he was sixteen he entered on the active career of a surveyor of lands, in the employment of William Fairfax, the father of his brother's wife, and the manager of the great estate of his cousin, Lord Fairfax. In this work he voluntarily subjected himself to every