The forms adopted by Washington had the grave and simple dignity which marked all he did, and it was senseless to abandon what his faultless taste and patriotic feeling approved.  Forms are in their way important things:  they may conceal perils to liberty, or they may lend dignity and call forth respect to all that liberty holds most dear.  The net result of all this business has been very curious.  Jefferson’s written message prevails; and yet at the same time we inaugurate our Presidents with a pomp and parade to which those of the dreaded Federalists seem poor and quiet, and which would make the hero of the message-in-writing fancy that the air was darkened by the shadows of monarchy and despotism.  The author of the Declaration of Independence was a patriotic man and lover of freedom, but he who fought out the Revolution in the field was quite as safe a guardian of American liberty; and his clear mind was never confused by the fantasies of that Parisian liberty which confused facts with names, and ended in the Terror and the first Empire.  The people of the United States to-day surround the first office of the land with a respect and dignity which they deem equal to the mighty sovereignty that it represents, and in this is to be found the genuine American feeling expressed by Washington in the plain and simple ceremonial which he adopted for his meetings with the Congress.

In this first speech, thus delivered, Washington indicated the subjects to which he wished Congress to direct their attention, and which in their development formed the policies of his administration.  His first recommendation was to provide for the common defense by a proper military establishment.  His last and most elaborate was in behalf of education, for which he invoked the aid of Congress and urged the foundation of a national university, a scheme he had much at heart, and to which he constantly returned.  The history of these two recommendations is soon told.  Provision was made for the army, inadequate enough, as Washington thought, but still without dispute, and such additional provision was afterwards made from time to time as the passing exigency of the moment demanded.  For education nothing was done, and the national university has never advanced beyond the recommendation of the first President.

He also advised the adoption of a uniform standard of coinage, weights, and measures.  In two years a mint was duly established after an able report from Hamilton, and out of his efforts and those of Jefferson came our decimal system.  There was debate over the devices on the coins in which the ever-vigilant Jeffersonians scented monarchical dangers, but with this exception the country got its uniform coinage peacefully enough.  The weights and measures did not fare so well.  They obtained a long report from Jefferson, and a still longer and more learned disquisition from John Quincy Adams thirty years later.  But that was all.  We still use the rule of thumb systems inherited from our English ancestors, and Washington’s uniform standard, except for the two reports, has gone no further than the national university.