Washington and the cherry tree

Cultural  

1. The subject of a fanciful story by an early biographer of George Washington, Mason Weems; the source of the saying “I cannot tell a lie.” According to Weems, the young Washington received a new hatchet and used it to chop down his father's prized cherry tree. His father demanded to know how the tree had fallen. George was tempted to deny his misdeed, but then, “looking at his father with the sweet face of youth brightened with the inexpressible charm of all-conquering truth, he bravely cried out, ‘I cannot tell a lie. I did cut it with my hatchet.’”

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Example Sentences

Reading them the story of George Washington and the cherry tree, on the other hand, in which truthfulness is met with approval, does reduce lying, albeit to a modest degree.

From New York Times

In 2014 she and her colleagues found that children who were told classic stories about honesty, such as the story of George Washington and the cherry tree, in which he is praised for admitting he cut it down, were more likely to confess to ignoring researcher instructions than the children who heard stories in which bad things happened to kids who lie, as in Pinocchio or “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.”

From Scientific American

Even as a kid, I never fell for that bit about George Washington and the cherry tree.

From Washington Post

Authors worried that his lack of religiosity wouldn’t play in the pious country villages where the self-made men of tomorrow were presumably to be found.16 Some, including Parson Weems, the enterprising bookseller who invented the story of George Washington and the cherry tree, simply bent the truth to their purposes.

From Slate

Kang Lee, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, has now tested whether hearing classic tales meant to encourage honesty—“Pinocchio,” “The Boy Who Cried Wolf,” and “George Washington and the Cherry Tree”—actually does make children less likely to lie.

From New York Times