Wow. Didn’t know this…
The 110 Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation, which helped shape the character of America’s first president, were developed by French Jesuits.
President George Washington hand-copied an English translation of the 110 rules at age 16 as a mere handwriting exercise, but historians said that the rules themselves came to define much of his character and that he relied on them both as a military officer and as president, according to Aleteia. While the rules mainly concern external matters of etiquette, historian Richard Brookhiser asserted they actually address moral matters indirectly and that the Jesuits who developed them in 1595 intended them to transform the inner selves of young men by shaping their outer selves.
The formative role that such rules played in Washington’s life and careers, and the spiritual purpose of those rules as developed by the Jesuits, lends further credence to the idea that Judeo-Christian principles were integral not only to the personal lives of America’s founding fathers, but to the founding of America itself.