58 
ROOSEVELT’S BIRTH AND EDUCATION 
In givilig 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 repub¬ 
lic is the offense of the public man who betrays his trust; but 
second only to it comes 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. Dowmright foul abuse may, after all, be 
less dangerous than incessant misstatements, sneers, and those 
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 washed him to obtain and flourish an academic degree. Nor 
did he care to be known merely as an educated gentleman. 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 
