The Everything Theodore Roosevelt Book (6 page)

A Loud Attention-Grabber

Another criticism of TR at Harvard centered on his penchant for grabbing attention. He occasionally broke the unwritten rules of decorum that suggested students should be quiet when passing each other in the halls or on the grounds. And he was always running when everyone else was walking.

Perhaps some of his classmates might have thought he was trying to gain attention. But, that was simply the way TR did everything: full speed ahead, which helped him earn respect from his classmates.

TR was not a big man when he entered college. He was about five feet nine inches tall and weighed 135 pounds. To him, size did not matter. What he lacked in size he made up for in stamina and courage. TR used those assets to gain the respect of his classmates.

He did not play on any intercollegiate teams, but he did participate in sports. One of his favorite activities was boxing. He would take on all comers in sparring matches or tournaments. TR did not win any championships, but he won some of his classmates over to his side.

In March 1879, TR won a match in a lightweight boxing tournament at Harvard. As it ended, the referee called “Time.” Just as TR dropped his hands, his opponent punched him hard in the face. The crowd protested and screamed, “Foul.” TR allegedly told them to quiet down. “He did not hear,” TR explained. That indicated his sense of fair play.

Tragedy Strikes

Halfway through TR’s stay at Harvard, a major tragedy occurred. On February 9, 1878, his father died of stomach cancer. That was a bitter blow for the young man, who had enjoyed a close relationship with Theodore Sr. for almost twenty years. TR made no bones about his admiration for his father. He said, “I never knew anyone who got greater joy out of living than did my father, or anyone who more whole-heartedly performed every duty; and no one whom I have ever met approached his combination of enjoyment of life and performance of duty.”

Thee had opened TR’s eyes to the fact that not everybody lived as well as the Roosevelts did. Thee made sure that his family visited people in all strata of society. On Thanksgiving or Christmas Day he sometimes took TR and his siblings to dinner at places like the Newsboys’ Lodging House or Miss Slattery’s Night School for Little Italians, both of which he had a hand in establishing.

The Newsboys’ Lodging House was one of Thee’s pet projects. He was also active in getting orphaned and homeless children off the streets and out of the city. He arranged as often as possible to get them placed on farms in the West.

Thee helped form the Children’s Aid Society in New York City, which built institutions for homeless children and originated “orphan trains” to transport them to the western part of the United States. For a while, Thee visited the Newsboys’ Lodging House every Sunday night and sponsored dinners there. TR picked up temporarily where he left off after he graduated from college in 1880.

Thee’s death affected TR deeply, but he continued his studies. Despite the fact he claimed that he did not learn much of value at Harvard, he did well academically there.

A True Liberal Arts Education

TR did occasionally enter classrooms. They were not his favorite places on campus, though. He admitted that he did not have much interest in the academic side of the school, which was the primary reason he enrolled at Harvard.

TR’s avowed purpose in attending Harvard was to study natural history. Once he arrived on campus, he discovered that the curriculum was not geared toward the sciences. It was, after all, a liberal arts college. He compensated through physical activities and a perfunctory interest in the courses that were available.

One of his favorite professors was A. S. Hill, who taught English. TR developed a fondness for Elizabethan poetry, much to the amusement of some of his classmates.

History was also a favorite subject of his. It stimulated his interest in politics, as one of the topics on which he concentrated was the Federalist Papers. Later in his political career, he often used them as a starting point for solving problems.

Books over Studies

One of TR’s major accomplishments during his time at Harvard was his authorship of
The Naval War of 1812
, although TR belittled it later. He completed it years later when he was in law school.

He noted in his self-deprecating fashion, “Those chapters were so dry that they would make a dictionary seem light reading by comparison.” Readers did not agree with his assessment after the book was published.

TR commented that the chapters he wrote represented “purpose and serious interest on my part, not the perfunctory effort to do well enough to get a certain mark.” He revealed, “Corrections of them by a skilled older man would have impressed me and have commanded my respectful attention.”

There is no telling what direction his education would have taken if that had happened. History turns on such little events.

Our Young Folks

Although TR was an avid reader, textbooks were not his favorite source of knowledge. He said he learned more from his favorite magazine,
Our Young Folks
, than he did from any textbook he ever read.

TR claimed that everything in the magazine “instilled the individual virtues, and the necessity of character as the chief factor in any man’s success—a teaching in which I now believe as sincerely as ever.” The magazine taught him the “right stuff,” which shaped his life.

TR believed “All the laws that the wit of man can devise will never make a man a worthy citizen unless he has within himself the right stuff, unless he has self-reliance, energy, courage, the power of insisting on his own rights and the sympathy that makes him regardful of the rights of others.”

TR did not discount completely the value of the textbooks he used at Harvard. He acknowledged that he learned something from them, but they were merely supplementary to the other books he had read at home prior to entering college. It was from all those books combined that he learned the individual morality that he applied in every phase of his life.

A Photographic Memory

TR may not have had a high opinion of textbooks or the lessons that complemented them, but he read them. They contained new thoughts and ideas that intrigued him. That explained why he read as many books as he did throughout his life and what facilitated the process.

He possessed two valuable assets to help him satisfy his reading habit: a photographic memory and the ability to speed-read.

It was amazing to some people how much and how fast TR could read and retain. He could read a page while other people were reading a sentence or repeat stories from a newspaper he had just put down as if he were still reading it.

TR could easily read two or three books a day. When TR traveled, he always took along a sufficient number of books to educate and amuse himself with. He also used reading as an escape—and he read some esoteric material at times.

A classic example of his retreat into books occurred in the hours leading up to TR’s nomination as vice president at the 1900 Republican Convention. He was sitting quietly in another room, impervious to all the excitement. He was relaxing by reading
Thucydides
. His companion at the time, Albert Shaw, said he “was not reading the book as much as he was living it.”

TR’s ability to read quickly and absorb information made him one of the most intellectually talented presidents in U.S. history. Some of his predecessors may have been more versed in the classics, but TR was better equipped to digest facts on issues that mattered to statesmen, such as military history and affairs, economics, and business statistics. His experience at Harvard helped him develop his reading, concentration, and retention skills.

TR’s Attention Span

Charles William Eliot, the president of Harvard when TR was in attendance, recalled his remarkable power of concentration. Although TR confessed that he rarely saw Eliot, the president knew about him.

TR lamented the lack of science courses at Harvard. Ironically, Eliot is remembered for expanding the range of courses during his tenure and offering undergraduates unlimited choices in selecting from the list. He wanted them to discover their “natural bents” and pursue them into specialized studies.

Eliot stated that “the intellectual power which most attracted the attention of his [TR’s] companions and teachers was an extraordinary capacity for concentrating every faculty on the work at hand, whether it were reading, writing, listening, or boxing.”

He added that TR “would read by himself in a room half-filled with noisy students without having his attention distracted even for an instant; indeed, he would make no answer to questions addressed directly to him, and did not seem to hear them.” That was a talent that TR never lost.

There Is More to College than Studying

TR became a “joiner” at Harvard. When he wasn’t boxing, engaging in endurance contests, or studying, he was participating in a club activity of some sort. He was connected with
The Advocate
, Harvard’s undergraduate journal of fiction, poetry, art, and criticism, and the O. K. Society, a group of the publication’s editors, which included him.

At various times he was a member and vice president of the Natural History Society, the Art Club, the Finance Club, the Glee Club, the Harvard Rifle Corps, and the Harvard Athletic Association.

His position as editor reflected TR’s enthusiasm and penchant for challenging authorities. In 1916, on the fiftieth anniversary of the publication’s founding, Albert Bushnell Hart, then head of the government department at Harvard and a classmate of TR’s, talked about the newspaper in 1880. He noted that those were turbulent days.

TR was by far the most honored member of the Harvard Class of 1880 when it came to advanced degrees, honorary degrees, and society memberships. Only one classmate came close: Albert Bushnell Hart. His resume included a PhD in history, an LLD, honorary degrees from Tufts (1905) and Western Reserve (1907), and a LittD. He became a professor of history and a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society.