American Boys Life of Theodore Roosevelt | Page 7

Cambridge,
Massachusetts, and became a student at Harvard College. During the
previous year his health had been poor indeed, but now he had taken
hold of himself in earnest.
"I determined to be strong and well, and did everything to make myself
so," he has said. "By the time I entered Harvard I was able to take part
in whatever sports I liked."
As perhaps some of my readers know, Harvard College (now termed a
University) is the oldest and largest institution of learning in the United
States. It was founded in 1636, and among its graduates numbered John
Quincy Adams, sixth President of our country. The college proper is
located in Cambridge, but some of the attached schools are in Boston.
Theodore Roosevelt was rich enough to have lived in elegant style

while at Harvard, but he preferred unostentatious quarters, and took
two rooms in the home of Benj. H. Richardson, at what was then No.
16 and is now No. 88 Winthrop Street. The residence is a neat and
comfortable one, standing on the southwest corner of Winthrop and
Holyoke streets.
The young student had two rooms on the second floor,--one of good
size, used for a study, and a small bedroom. In the whole four years he
was at the college he occupied these rooms, and he spent a great deal of
time in fixing them up to suit his own peculiar taste. On the walls were
all sorts of pictures and photographs, along with foils and
boxing-gloves, and the horns of wild animals. On a shelf rested some
birds which he had himself stuffed, and books were everywhere.
[Illustration: HOUSE IN WHICH THEODORE ROOSEVELT
ROOMED WHILE AT HARVARD.]
"It was a regular den, and typical of Roosevelt to the last degree," a
student of those times has said. "He had his gun there and his fishing
rod, and often spoke of using them. He was noted for trying to get at
the bottom of things, and I remember him well on one occasion when I
found him with a stuffed bird in one hand and a natural history in the
other, trying to decide if the description in the volume covered the
specimen before him." When Roosevelt graduated from college, he was
one of a very few that took honors, and the subject of his essay was
natural history. How his love of natural history continued will be
shown later when we see him as a ranchman and hunter of the West.
Theodore Roosevelt had decided to make the most of himself, and
while at Harvard scarcely a moment was wasted. If he was not studying,
he was in the gymnasium or on the field, doing what he could to make
himself strong. He was a firm believer in the saying that a sound body
makes a sound mind, and he speedily became a good boxer, wrestler,
jumper, and runner. He wrestled a great deal, and of this sport says:--
"I enjoyed it immensely and never injured myself. I think I was a good
deal of a wrestler, and though I never won a championship, yet more
than once I won my trial heats and got into the final rounds."

At running he was equally good. "I remember once we had a stiff run
out into the country," said a fellow-student. "Roosevelt was behind at
the start, but when all of the others got played out he forged ahead, and
in the end he beat us by several minutes. But he never bragged about it.
You see, it wasn't his style."
With all his other sports, and his studying, the young collegian did not
give up his love for driving. He had a good horse and a fancy cart,--one
of the elevated sort with large wheels,--and in this turnout he was seen
many a day, driving wherever it pleased him to go. Sometimes he
would get on the road with other students, and then there was bound to
be more or less racing.
With a strong love for natural history it was not surprising that he
joined the Natural History Club of the college, and of this he was one
of the most active members. He also joined the Athletic Association, of
which he was a steward, and the Art Club, the Rifle Corps, the O.K.
Society, and the Finance Club. In his senior year he became a member
of the Porcellian Club, the Hasty Pudding, and the Alpha Delta Phi
Club, and also one of the editors of a college paper called the Advocate.
On Sundays he taught a class of boys, first in a mission school, and
then in a Congregational Sunday school. It was a life full of planning,
full of study, and full of work, and it suited Theodore Roosevelt to the
last degree.