ROOSEVELT'S BIRTH AND EDUCATION. 49 



Opposite kind. It meant something to be a Roosevelt. More was 

 expected of every member of the family than would have been 

 expected of anyone with a name less honorable. It was some 

 advantage, and at the same time it involved a good deal of respon- 

 sibility, to be connected by blood and birth with an old Knicker- 

 bocker family that had helped for generations to make the history 

 of New York. 



It was the Roosevelt idea that a boy should be taught to run 

 alone, be independent, be something more than a pampered weak- 

 ling. Money was intended to help a young man, not to handicap 

 him. Young Theodore might have lived on his fortune and 

 made his life one of sport and pleasure, but to do this he would 

 have had to be something besides a Roosevelt. Such an aimless 

 empty, worthless career would have been contrary to all the 

 Roosevelt family history and achievements. There is no good 

 reason why the self-made men should all be poor. It is possible 

 to become great in spite of money. 



HIS APPEARANCE WHEN A BOY. 



Mr. Ray S. Baker, in a sketch of Mr. Roosevelt, says this of 

 his boyhood : " As a young boy he was thin-shanked, pale and 

 delicate, giving little promise of the amazing vigor of his later 

 life. To avoid the rough treatment of the public school, he was 

 tutored at home, also attending a private school for a time — Cut- 

 ler's, one of the most famous of its day. Most of his summers 

 and in fact two-thirds of the year, he spent at the Roosevelt farm 

 near Oyster Bay, then almost as distant in time from New York 

 as the Adiroudacks now are. For many years he was slow to 

 learn and not strong enough to join in the play of other boys • 

 but as he grew older he saw that if he ever amounted to anything 

 he must acquire vigor of body. With characteristic energy he 

 set about developing himself He swam, he rode, he ran ; he 

 tramped the hills back of the bay, for pastime studying and cata- 

 loguing the birds native to his neighborhood ; and thus he laid 

 the foundation of that incomparable physical vigor from which 

 rose his future prowess as a ranchman and hunter." 



H.B.G. 



