The life of George Washington was already thoroughly moralized during his lifetime—by which I mean that his life story was turned into what medieval writers called an exemplum, or a story for the moral instruction and edification of his fellow countrymen. From Washington’s life, young American men were supposed to learn what a man, an American man, and a military or national leader ought to be.
This process has continued down to the present day and is still very much in the background of Jon Erwin’s Young Washington—a fact that Mr. Erwin, to his credit, makes no bones about. He is also to be congratulated for bucking the trend of recent years for denigrating Washington, along with the other Founding Fathers, for owning slaves or expropriating the lands of America’s indigenous people.
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