58 ROOSEVELT'S BIRTH AND EDUCATION 



In giviiig advice to college men, and lie knew whereof he 

 spoke, he denies that they are better or worse than men who have 

 never been inside the walls of a college, while their responsibili- 

 ties are infinitely greater. 



"The worst offense that can be committed against the repul> 

 lic is the offense of the pnblic man who betrays his trust; but 

 second only to it conies the offense of the man who tries to per- 

 suade others that an honest and efficient public man is dishonest 

 or unworthy. This is a wrong that can be committed in a great 

 many different ways. Downright foul abuse may, after all, bti 

 less dangerous than incessant misstatements, sneers, and thost'. 

 half-truths which are the meanest lies." 



HIS LOFTY AIMS AND PURPOSES. 



It is evident that Mr. Roosevelt did not pursue a college 

 course merely to gratify some ambitious member of his family 

 who wished him to obtain and flourish an academic degree. Nor 

 did he care to be known merely as an educated gentlemau. Neither 

 did he count the friendships and pleasant associations of 

 college life a compensation for four years of study. He had a 

 higher purpose in view than to be able merely to say he had been 

 through college. 



He was a student, a scholar, an athlete, a man with a college 

 degree that he might be something else. His education was only 

 a stepping-stone to those grand achievements for which a course 

 of study would help to prepare him. He had lofty aims. He 

 wished to be more than a money maker or a money spender. He 

 did not despise wealth, but he did despise the base, sordid, vulgar 

 use of it. 



" Each of us who reads the Gettysburg speech," he writes, " or 

 the second inaugural address of the greatest American of the nine- 

 teenth century, or who studies the long campaign and lofty states- 

 manship of that other American who was even greater, cannot but 

 feel within him that lift toward things higher and nobler which 

 can never be bestowed by the enjoyment of material prosperity." 



It is not possible in every instance to guess from a young 



