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THEODORE ROOSEVELT
1919

CHAPTER 2

 HIS BIRTHPLACE AND BOYHOOD

AS the birthplace of Theodore Roosevelt is only ten minutes' walk from where I am writing, I thought I would go over and see what it looked like and describe it outside and in, as a proper setting for this chapter on his birth and childhood. To my deep regret I found that the old house had been torn down and a little two-story brick business building had been put up in its place. I entered the store and asked the man if that was the site on which Roosevelt was born. He said, "Yes," and that the old house had been taken away about a year before. I asked him if any part of the old building had been left in the new. He said, "No." I continued, "Is there not, about the place, a window out of which Theodore looked, or a piece of flooring over which he romped, or a banister down which he slid?" He answered, "Not one!" "I am sorry," I said, "for there are thousands of people who would cross a continent or come the length of an ocean to look at the place where Theodore Roosevelt was born, and pay their homage at this shrine."

Well, just here in this sweatshop district, which sixty years ago was a rich, fashionable, residential neighborhood, here at No. 28 East 20th Street, just off Broadway, New York City, Theodore Roosevelt was born October 27, 1858. At his advent no bells were rung, no whistles blown, no newspaper mentioned the fact, no president or king sent congratulations. It is not likely that many persons living on the same block, even, ever heard that such a child had been born, so silent and small are the beginnings of greatness, are the beginnings of life itself. I suspect that if any one had been there, that beautiful October day, with spirit ears keen enough, he would have heard the angels, with their harps, serenading the child that heaven had sent to earth. So on this little piece of ground, a few feet front and a few feet deep, was born the babe that grew to be the giant who set all the bells to ringing, the whistles to blowing, the bands to playing, the children to laughing, the multitude to shouting, the battle-drums to beating, and the millions to practical service for their fellowmen and for the public good. The old birthplace, four stories high, was the foundation and first story of the magnificent structure of the Roosevelt character and life.

This old building housed Roosevelt's home. The material structure has gone, but the home was a spiritual force that can never be destroyed. Everything that lives has a home, a place where it may abide, develop its growth, and prepare for its mission on the earth. This home on 20th Street was an ideal home before Theodore was born into it.

Roosevelt was born to greatness. He inherited qualities that carried him to his heights of service and fame. It is a law of nature that life stamps its image on its offspring. It is so with the grains, the herds, the flocks and the tribes of men. Theodore Roosevelt had a right to be great. He came of splendid stock on both sides. For two hundred .years the name of Roosevelt has been prominent and popular in many forms of material, intellectual, moral and political endeavors in New York City. The first of the name, Claas Mar-tenzen van Roosevelt, came from Holland to New Amsterdam in 1649. Theodore's great great grandfather was a private soldier in the Revolutionary War.

His great grandfather was a prosperous hardware merchant, and in the War of Independence gave his services to the colonists without compensation. His grandfather was a man of uncommon genius, one of the great inventors of the world. During the Revolutionary War, he ran a paddle boat propelled by hickory and whalebone springs. At the close of the war he settled in New York, interesting himself in copper mines, rolling-mills and the like. He became associated with Robert Fulton in the plan to drive a boat with steam paddles. It was disputed then, and has been since, whether Fulton or Roosevelt was the discoverer of the steamboat. Fulton got the patent. Roosevelt contested it, but gave up the contest because it was so expensive. He united with Fulton in a plan to navigate the Western waters with the steamboat, and he himself built and took from Pittsburg to New Orleans, the first steamer whose paddles ever disturbed the great waters of the Ohio and Mississippi.

Theodore's father, whose name was Theodore, was a remarkable man, a wealthy glass merchant on Maiden Lane, prominent and influential in city and national politics, and a founder of some of the most important educational and benevolent institutions in the city. He was especially devoted to any enterprises relating to the children of the poor; was a prominent member of the Dutch Reformed Church, and was respected and loved universally. At his* death, the flags in New York City were dropped to half-mast in sorrow.
Theodore's stock on his mother's side was just as good. His great great grandfather, Archibald Bullock, was a member of the Continental Congress and the first State Governor of Georgia. His mother's brother, James D. Bullock, was a prominent officer in the Confederate navy, who arranged for the purchase of the privateers Florida and Alabama. His mother, Miss Martha Bullock, was married to Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., at her father's home at Roswell, Cobb County, Ga., in 1853. The stern, rugged, masterful elements of the Holland-Dutch, Theodore Roosevelt got from his father. The beautiful, tender, loving nature, which drew a whole nation to him, he got from his mother, a lovely Southern woman. His father was a hunter, was passionately fond of a horse, and was a good driver and rider. The elder Roosevelt was an ideal family man and a devoted worker in the church.

The young Theodore inherited those traits which developed into the elements of his future greatness. His mother was a polite, magnetic, affectionate, loving woman with the warmth of hospitality and the simple, sincere piety of the sunny South. She had much native humor. The boy inherited from her those less vigorous virtues that made his life so beautiful, the gentleness that had so much to do in making him great. One of the most eloquent specimens of American literature was the reference of Henry W. Grady, the exponent of the new South at the New England dinner, as he proclaimed that Lincoln's greatness was the natural mixture of the Puritan and Cavalier. Similarly Theodore Roosevelt's greatness exhibited the moral and religious influence of the Holland-Dutch', and the chivalry of the beautiful Southland.

   Just as soon as the boy Theodore had learned to walk and talk, both parents set themselves to the task of teaching him the strictest morality; the necessity of constant truth-telling; the sin of taking that which belongs to another; the meanness of wanting the best of everything for himself; the beauty of giving something he had to others and making others happy; the necessity of personal purity and the duty to love God. The man four square, the man demanding a square deal of every one, and for every one, was only living out the sterling moral principles his father and mother had taught him when a boy.

There was no man in public life who seemed more a product of our popular school system than Mr. Roosevelt. Yet he never attended the public schools a day in his life. It would be thought that his perfectly democratic spirit could have been produced only by our common school system. Born and bred an aristocrat, his father was democratic in spirit, and he himself, by his life in the West and on the ranch and in the field of politics, became an ideal democrat, in spite of the fact that he missed a common school education. He, however, sent all of his own children to the public schools, was one of the most earnest and efficient friends of the popular school system, and was the idol of the teachers and school children of the land.

Though Theodore did not go to the public schools, he did not lack a preliminary education by any means. It must be remembered that he was the son of a rich man, and that rich people in those days had their own way of educating their children. The mother was a Southern woman who believed much in the personal influence of motherhood and home in the training of their boy, and she started in to teach him herself, to read and write and spell and figure. And her sister living in the family also acted as a teacher. And, when he advanced somewhat in his studies, they got a tutor for him, and he was taught at home till he went to college, with the exception of a few months when he attended a private school.

The parents had a university in the home. It was the library. Books, books, books, the boy was fed on them. He was brought up on them. Before he could read, his mother and others in the family read to him. They read tales of adventure, things about animals, stories of hunting big game, of Indian life, things about smart and good boys and girls. When he wore kilt skirts and a single curl on the top of his head, Theodore used to drag about a book too big for him to handle, asking some one to read to him from it. It was Livingstone's "Travels and Researches in South Africa." And the child was all waked up with interest in explorations and experiences of this great man. "Who knows how much of the plan for the African trip of Roosevelt the great explorer and hunter may have been laid in the mind of that boy at home by the story of the mountains, the rivers, the people, and the wild beasts of Africa, and of the hero who devoted his life to the task of blessing and redeeming its millions?

The mother entertained her child with stories of the Southland, of hunting opossums and coons and wild turkey and foxes; and read stories of big game hunting to him of deer and bear. She was unwittingly raising a man for the chase.

When the boy got old enough to read for himself, they fairly surrounded him with books. It was no accident that books on nature study were placed in his hands. It was done on purpose, not only to entertain him, but to make a naturalist of Mm. So when the boy went out even to play in the country he took notice of the flowers, the ants, and bugs and lizards, and fishes and birds; he knew something about them and wanted to find out more, and as he grew in years he made them his study, his companions and his joy.

They placed in his hands also magazines, which were bright, spicy and morally healthful. His parents were much wiser than they knew, when they implanted in his childish heart this appetite for reading and satisfied it so well. He kept up the habit of incessant reading of books at Harvard and throughout his life, and became one of the most omnivorous readers and most well informed o'f public men.

It was a fortunate thing for the making of this great man that Theodore's parents were so full of the playful spirit themselves and saw the absolute necessity for amusement and exercise for their children. They were allowed to run and jump and howl at the top of their voices; they were taught games indoors and out-of-doors. Though their home was in the city, they spent at least four months of the year at some country seat on purpose to give the children opportunity for recreation and for the development of their physical strength. What glorious times the children had roaming through the woods, picking flowers, catching fish out of the streams, rowing boats, watching the birds and having companionship with everything that God has made! They kicked up their heels at every kind of outdoor sport that could be imagined, had piles of fun and grew and were supremely happy. They had every conceivable kind of pet—cat, dogs, horses, and others. Theodore had a sorrel Shetland pony called General Grant; and when his sister read about General Grant in her history of the Civil War, she wondered why it was that they happened to call this general after their pony.

Theodore the boy did not have very many playmates outside of his own home and circle of relatives. His parents were very careful of the company he kept, but they were quite democratic and allowed him to select his own chums according to his taste. They seemed as well satisfied if he selected a chum in ordinary circumstances, or a poor boy, as though he had chosen a son of wealth as his companion.

For ten years I have been well acquainted with one of Theodore Roosevelt's boy chums, John W. McNichols, of Dobbs Ferry, New York, a sturdy, honest village blacksmith. We were brought together by our mutual friendships for our national hero. He had told me so many things about having played as a boy with young Theodore, that I asked him to tell me a few things which I could put in my book about him. He said, "I will count it a pleasure and an honor to do so." Then he went on to say: "Theodore's father went into the fine Paton Place on the hill at Dobbs Ferry during the summer of 1872. I was thirteen and he a year older. The way I happened to get acquainted with him was, that his father had twenty-two horses (you know he drove four-in-hand) and my uncle, a blacksmith, shod his horses for him. The coachman usually brought the horses down and took them back, but there were three ponies in the stable. One belonged to the boy, Theodore, and the other two to his sisters. Theodore would go down to the shop to get one of the ponies and I would ride the other back with him.

'' One day I was sent up to get one of the ponies and I saw the boy Teddy alone on the pond in a nice little white skiff. I went down to the shore and he rowed to where I was and asked me if I would not get in and take a ride with him. That is how we got acquainted at first. And after that I did not have to ask to get into the skiff, but he told me to get into it and take a row any time, whether he was there or not. We had such fine times rowing that skiff. I often rowed him and he would sit in the stern with his back to me and drag his feet in the water as a rudder. "We used to get very warm those summer days and very thirsty. At such times we would pull the boat out of the pond into a little stream up to a spring which was the source of the pond, and there drank to our fill of the cool water. I got a cocoanut shell, sawed it in two halves and made two drinking-cups of it; one I marked 'T. R.' for him and the other 'J. N.' for me. (My name is McNichols, but they always called me Nichols in those days, and hence I marked it 'J. N.')- We had a little place where we kept those cups, and whenever we rowed, and that was nearly every day, we went to the spring and drank out of our cups. Oh, but that water tasted mighty good! It tastes good now as I think of it.

'' We were both good swimmers for boys. We swam in the pond, and when he came down to the shop and the horses were not ready, he and I used to slip off down to the beach behind the old livery stable and swim in the Hudson.

"He was out one day in. his little skiff paddling and playing around and I was at the shore watching him. He saw two wealthy neighbors driving along the road not far from the pond, and just as they came opposite to it he pretended to make a misstep and turned the boat upside down. He did not come up, and the rich neighbors ran frantically to the edge of the pond and were making strenuous efforts to rescue his dead body. Just then he came out from under the upturned skiff and laughed at them, and they laughed harder at each other and went back to their carriage. He was full of all kinds of funny boyish pranks.

"Theodore always went down with his father in their depot wagon, as they called it in those days, to the 8.15 train for New York. On the way back from the train he had the coachman drive around to the shop to get me to go out to the place and get the pony to shoe. I had already started to school and my uncle told him if he would hurry he could catch me before I got to school and could take me out with him. Sure enough he got me just before entering the school, and I went out with him. As we were driving up to go around to the stable, Mr. Teddy told the coachman to stop right there, and he took the livery of the coachman and put it on himself, the coat all buttoned up, and the hat in its place. I started to get off the box and he said, 'No, you stay, I want you as my footman.' I said to him, 'Ted, I got this old hickory shirt on and this little straw hat and your mother will get on to us.' He said, 'Do what I tell you to do. You are my footman to-day.'

"He drove around to the front of the house and saw a girl on the porch sweeping, and he called out in a loud voice, 'Is Mrs. Roosevelt in?' The girl said, 'Yes.' He continued, 'Go ask her to come out and take a ride; I am ready. Tell her if she does not come out now she cannot have any ride at all to-day.' The girl turned to carry the word to Mrs. Roosevelt, when she put her head out of an upstairs window, called to the girl and said, 'Who is that person that is calling for mef' She answered, 'I am not just sure, but I think it is Mr. Theodore.' I heard her say as we were driving off to the barn, 'Well, whoever it is, that is about the finest-looking rig that has come to this house this summer.'

"Teddy had a nice little gun and we took turns in practice shooting. We used to play ball there and catch it and knock it with a bat, though there were not enough boys in that neighborhood to make a game of baseball.

"When he was Governor of the State he rode with his staff from New York through Dobbs Ferry to the camp at Peekskill. I knew he was coming by and hung out a big flag at my blacksmith shop and stood out in front of it to hail him as he went by. He rode up to where I was, took me by the hand and said, ' John, I remember you well. We had good old times the summer we were boys together.'

"When he was elected President the second term I concluded I would write him a letter of congratulation. I went to the bank and got a sheet of paper with the bank heading on it and wrote him a letter reminding him of the good times we had had as boys together, never thinking that any notice would be paid to it; but within three days I got a letter from his secretary, Mr. William Loeb, Jr., saying that the President received my letter and would answer it personally. In just a few days I received a letter referring to that glorious summer we had together and he also sent me a large photograph of himself to John W. McNichols from Theodore Roosevelt, in his own handwriting. How proud I was of it and how proud I was to show it to my friends, some of whom thought I was half inclined to stretch things a little when I talked of having the boy, Theodore Roosevelt, as my chum.

   "I took a piece of the finest steel I could find and hammered on my own anvil a horseshoe for good luck. It was about the size of a shoe that an ordinary saddle horse would wear. I plated it four times with gold and I put an inscription on it including his name and mine, and the date, and sent it to him as a reminder of those grand four months of fun between May and October, 1872. I received a letter from him, thanking me from the bottom of his heart and saying that he would keep it as one of his own precious treasures as long as he lived.''

Poor Theodore had a serious handicap in the asthma which attacked him very early and remained with him through his college days and for some years after. He drove it out by his vigorous ranch life. The singular solicitude which an invalid always awakens was felt by Theodore's father and mother. His father often carried him upstairs in his arms, and when the little fellow would wheeze in his sleep it easily awoke father and mother, who hurried to his bed to help him if possible in his paroxysms of pain and choking. And sometimes they would find him sitting up in the bed with his elbows on his knees trying to get his breath. Many a time between two and four o'clock in the morning, when his spells were the worst, his father would hitch up and drive the boy over the country roads to give him fresh air and some relief.

This persistent asthma and the nervousness which was the result, or possibly the cause of it, made him quite weak for his age. When he came in contact with the few playmates he had, he found that those of the same size and age could thrash him easily. This mortified him very much. He resolved that he would build up a strong body by exercise, not only that he might be healthy and grow up to be a usefulman, but also that he might be able to protect himself, physically, against any kind of ill-treatment or injustice. He talked the matter over with his father and his father consented to have a man give him boxing lessons. It so chanced that that teacher was a professional pugilist. The boy liked the sport amazingly and grew strong on it, practised it at Harvard and through the rest of his life, and was one of the most enthusiastic champions of that kind of sport in the United States. This boxing in boyhood, while it developed his strength and mitigated his attacks of asthma, did not entirely eradicate it. The deep determination with which this slim, sick, weak boy developed himself into one of the finest athletes and strongest men in the nation, was the same force of will which enabled him to triumph over ten thousand hindrances which were piled up in his pathway to his journey's end.

How touching was the affection of the father for Theodore and how perfectly that affection was reciprocated by him. The Greatest of All, in teaching men to pray, said, "Say Our Father," because he thought that the word father came nearer to that of God than any other one. In the physical support, in the education furnished, in the amusement supplied, in the genuine delights furnished, in the great moral principles inculcated, and in the personal affection lavished, he was to the boy's mind a type of the Heavenly Father. For he said of him, "He was the best man I ever knew."

The affection of the mother for Theodore was pathetic. Her boy, her bright boy, her sick boy, her good boy, was ever so much dearer to her than her own life; and Theodore fairly worshipped her. When only nine or ten years of age, he kept a diary. On one of the pages he wrote that he had had a cholera morbus the night before and a nightmare, that the devil had taken him up and carried him away, but he continued that he felt the delicate touch of his mother's fingers and that made him better.

The father and mother of Theodore were very careful in his religious instruction. They taught him that the Bible was the book of books; that talking to God was as real as talking to people, and that to be a consistent Christian was to be the greatest thing in life, and to include about every other thing. Family prayers led by the father were just as regular as the breakfast on the table, and the children were taught at a very early age that there was a real relation between them and the God of heaven. The mother taught Theodore at her knee the little prayer, "Now I lay me down to sleep," and other prayers as well. Sometimes the children were allowed a little latitude of extemporaneous prayer. On one occasion Theodore availed himself of this liberty to a large degree.

His mother had disciplined him in some way for some misconduct, and Theodore thought unjustly. And so when he came to his prayer before going to bed he broke out in a request that God would bless the Union army and give it success. He gave his mother this piece of his mind under the pretense of prayer, because he knew that she was a pronounced Confederate, and he took this means of getting even with her. She was so full of humor that she turned her face away so that he might not see her laugh. Bringing her face around to him seriously, she told him that she would let him off this time if he would agree not to do so again. Powerful as was the father's religious influence over Theodore, that of his mother was just as great. If father was the name most like God to Roosevelt, mother was a name next to that of Heaven to him. With his splendid lineage, with his mental ability, with all the books, and amusements, and earthly affections, it was the religion of the old home that made the Theodore Roosevelt the nation knew.

Theodore's first handicap was the asthma; the second handicap was the fact that he was born in a rich man's home. He is the first very rich man's son who ever became President. All virtue does not inhere in those that are poor or in moderate circumstances, nor is all vice to be found in wealth, but the fact is that out of poverty and moderate financial circumstances, in this free land of great opportunity, have come most of our successful men. There is a feeling of self-dependence, and industry, so necessary to success which is demanded by it. Wealth so easily breeds in the youth indolence, luxury, excessive pursuit of pleasure, dissipation, effeminacy and failure. This is not always the case, for some of the sons of the rich overcome their handicaps and succeed in business or in some learned profession and they deserve especial credit for their habits of study, industry, honesty and virtue. Nearly all of the great fortunes of America have been founded by poor boys who had to work their way up. The two greatest by Rockefeller, who hoed potatoes in the field at fifty cents a day; and by Carnegie, the poor little Scotch messenger boy who worked to support his widowed mother.

Some of the boys in comfortable circumstances reached the Presidency, but a number of very poor ones worked their way up to it. Lincoln was abjectly poor, was hard up for money till after he got into the White House. A gentleman at the World's Fair in Chicago, who was closely related to Lincoln, told me that one day when he had made out the slip for the day's deposit in the bank, which represented a considerable amount of money, being the day he received his salary, the President said to him, "This is the first time in my life that I have ever been ahead of the hounds in money matters.'' Johnson, his Vice-president, was an apprentice to a tailor down in Tennessee. Garfield drove a mule on the towpaths of a canal; McKinley was a clerk in the post office; Cleveland and Wilson were the poor sons of Presbyterian preachers. "We do not forget that Washington at the time of his inaugural was said to be the richest man in the United States, but he was a child of moderate financial circumstance, and, as a boy, had to work for his living; that he inherited Mt. Vernon from a relative, and that the wealth he had when President was that which came to him by the widow Custis, the rich woman whom he married. The historical fact remains that this boy from 20th Street was the only son of a very rich man that ever became President of the United States.

The home of wealth, ordinarily the handicap of greatness, was in the case of Theodore Roosevelt, one of its important helps. His father made wealth his servant and not his master. His father and mother did not consider wealth the main thing in life. They took great pains to teach their boy by precept and example that wealth was of value only as it contributed to physical well-being, mental development and moral and religious growth. They taught their children that truth, honor and virtue were the real riches in life.

It is more than likely that Theodore Roosevelt owed his elevation to the presidency to the fact that his father was rich, and that he laid away .a portion of his wealth so that his son might devote his time entirely to the public good without any care on his part about temporal support. In fact, Colonel Roosevelt, time and again to those of us closest to him, claimed that much of his success in life grew out of the fact that his father made it possible for him to give his life up to the service of the state without having first to go through the burden of making a living for his family. In these times, so many men of wealth swallow their breakfast and hurry away to business. They burden themselves down with it all day, and return home at night after the children have gone to bed, or maybe after a meeting at the club. They really need to be introduced to their families. Theodore Roosevelt's father never thought of going down to business till he had gathered about him his wife and children at family prayers. He spent all the time possible at home and counted his home as the principal thing. Though he did not neglect his business, he considered the dear children that God had given him more precious than any earthly fortune.

The brightest hope of the republic is in the fact that the principles that were incarnated in the old home of Theodore Roosevelt are those that characterize the average home among the rich and poor in this country to-day—the principles of conjugal fidelity, filial obedience, integrity, industry, education and religion.

Theodore never went to school except a few months when he attended a special school near his home. While at this school an incident occurred which was thus told to one of the editors of The Christian Herald:
Some fifty years ago, one very cold morning, a half-dozen or more boys were gathered closely around an old Stove In the MacMillan School in New York City. One of those boys had poor health and especially weak eyes. An old gentleman always brought this boy to school. It was noticeable that the boy was always present and never failed to know his lessons.

While shivering around the old stove that morning, another boy, Fred McDaniel, a tall, awkward and unpurpose-ful-looking boy, came down the aisle, threw his skates on the floor and his books upon his desk, walked over to the old stove and said: "Ted, you're a fool!" Ted looked up quickly and said impulsively: "What do you mean?" "Oh, I don't mean what you think I mean," said Fred. "I mean that you're not able to come to school. Your eyes are weak, and you'll put them out and be blind. Your father is rich and you don't have to go to school. My father is rich and I expect to make the teacher expel me. I was expelled from school in Albany, and they'll do it here. I'm simply not going to school." By this time Ted had risen to his feet.

"I may put my eyes out," he said. "I am going to be educated—I am going to be educated!"

Within three weeks, Fred succeeded in carrying out his determination, getting himself expelled from school. Another boy, Devolt, was present that morning. Devolt says: "Many years later I went to Albany, where Fred and I were born, to visit my parents. As I entered the depot, the wind was piercing, the snow was falling fast. I was attracted by the sight of a large man wearing coarse and untidy clothes. His face was haggard, his hair was streaked with gray, across his shoulder was a large strap that held a heavy bundle of daily papers. "Have a paper, sir?" I recognized the voice, and as I turned he said to me: "De-volt, is that you?" "Yes, Fred, old fellow, I'm so glad to see you."

After talking a few moments, the two old schoolmates
stepped into a nearby cafe to have supper. Having ordered
their supper, Devolt said: "Fred, do you remember	"

"Wait, Devolt, I know what you're going to say. You are going to tell me about the morning I told Ted he was a fool. Yes, Devolt, I remember it all, and it's the saddest memory of my life. For now he's our President, and I—I will sleep in a garret to-night."

When Theodore was sixteen years of age, his father moved into the more fashionable district from the old house on 20th Street to 6 West 57th Street. Theodore was now feeling his wings as it were, and was getting ready to fly out of the nest. One of the first things he did was to take a bold public stand, joining the Christian church as a member of the St. Nicholas Reformed Church. This selection of the path of virtue and piety on the threshold of life has its parallel in the Choice of Heracles recorded by Xenophon in his "Memorabilia of Socrates." One of the most brilliant and powerful of the young men of Greece was hesitating as to what path into life he should enter. While doing so, he repaired to a solitude for meditation. While there, two maidens approached him.

One of them possessed physical charms, but was aided by art so that she seemed fairer and rosier than she really was; she was elegantly clad, and greatly admired herself. She told the young man that if he would follow her path she would lead him to happiness, furnish him food and drink, and pleasure, and luxury, and that she would never require him to toil a day either with body or mind. The young man asked her what was her name. She replied,'' Those who love me call me Happiness, those who hate me call me Vice."

The other maiden, whose name was Virtue, approached the young man and made her plea. Socrates thus describes her and tells what she said to him: "She was fair to look upon, frank and free by gift of nature. Her limbs adorned with purity and her eyes with bashfulness, sobriety set the rhythm of her gait, and she was clad in white apparel.'' And she said, "Hercules, I, too, am come to you, seeing that your parents are well known to me, and in your nurture I have gauged your nature; wherefore I entertain good hope that if you choose the path which leads to me, you shall greatly bestir yourself to be the doer of many a doughty deed of noble enterprise; and that I, too, shall be held in even higher honor for your sake, lit with the luster shed by valorous deeds. I will not cheat you with preludings of pleasure, but I will relate you the things that are according to the ordinances of God in very truth. Know then that among things that are lovely and of good report, not one have the gods bestowed upon mortal man apart from toil and pains. Would you obtain the favor of the gods, then must you pay these same gods service. Would you be loved by your friends, you must benefit these friends. Do you desire to be honored by the state, you must give the state your aid. Do you claim admiration for your virtue from all Hellas, you must strive to do some good to Hellas. Do you wish earth to yield her fruits to you abundantly, to earth you must pay your court: Do you seek to amass riches from our flocks and herds, on them must you bestow your labor. Or is it your ambition to be potent as a warrior, able to save your friends and to subdue your foes, then must you learn the arts of war from those who have the knowledge, and practise their application in the field when learned. Or would you e'en be powerful of limb and body, then must you habituate limbs and body to obey the mind, and exercise yourself with toil and work.'' The maiden Virtue seems a veritable prophetess foretelling the destiny of the hero, Theodore Roosevelt.

In entering life he came to two roads, a broad one leading to destruction and a narrow one leading to heaven. He deliberately took God as his guide and Christ as his example, and at the age of sixteen entered the Army of the King and battled for the cause of righteousness till the day of-his death.