George Washington's Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour In Company and Conversation

George Washington (1732 – 1799) was a military general, statesman, and American political leader. He led the Patriot forces to victory in the American War for Independence. He was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, presided at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, where the U.S. Constitution was established, and he served as the first president of the United States from 1789 – 1797. George Washington copied the list of 110 rules when he was sixteen as a handwriting exercise. They were originally derived from a list of ideals compiled by French Jesuits in 1590, and translated into English in 1640 by Francis Hawkins. He grew up without a gentlemanly background and as such, the rules resonated well with him, providing him with a model of appropriate gentlemanly behaviour that he strove to follow and to which he encouraged others to also abide by.