52 ROOSEVELT'S BIRTH AND EDUCATION. 



bringing up a boy. Although a man of wealth and positioja he 

 taught his children — the four of them, two boys and two girls — the 

 virtue of labor, and pointed with the finger of scorn to the despic- 

 a.ble thing called man who lived in idleness. With such teach- 

 ings at home, it is no wonder that Theodore was moved to declare: 

 " I was determined as a bo}' to make a man of myself. " 

 His vacation days and little outing excursions to the farms of 

 his uncles gave the boy a fondness for country life, which found 

 appreciation in later years in these words: 



" I belong as much to the country as to the city, I owe all my 

 vigor to the country." 



RESOLVED TO MAKE SOMETHING OF HIMSELF. 



In New York he was an example of the strong-spirited, well- 

 educated 3^ouug Knickerbocker of the better class. " He had no 

 need to work," says a writer in McClure's. " His income was 

 ample to keep him in comfort, even luxury, all his life. He might 

 spend his summers in Newport and his winters on the continent, 

 and possibly win some fame as an amateur athlete and a society 

 man; and no one would think of blaming him, nor of asking more 

 than he gave." 



Such a life, however, was not according to his taste or the 

 high ideal of manhood and splendid achievement he had placed 

 before him. He was not a dreamer, not a builder of air-castles. 

 Better than the moderate wealth he had inherited were the family 

 traits, the strong common sense, the noble purposes and true ideas 

 of worldly success, which were as much a part of him as his fond- 

 ness for fun and athletic sports. Let every American boy 

 remember Mr. Roosevelt's saying that in early life he resolved to 

 make something of himself 



He attended a preparator}- school, in order to fit himself for 

 entering Harvard College. It was customary with the teacher in 

 this school to call on the boys for declamations. Theodore at that 

 early period lacked many of the graces of oratory, which he seems 

 to have acquired afterward ; and, like most boys, when he was the 

 victim of embarrassment his memory was more or less treacherous. 



