Education
Young "Teedie", as he was nicknamed as a child, was mostly home schooled by tutors and his parents. A leading biographer says: "The most obvious drawback to the home schooling Roosevelt received was uneven coverage of the various areas of human knowledge." He was solid in geography (thanks to his careful observations on all his travels) and well read in history, strong in biology, French, and German, but deficient in mathematics, Latin and Greek.
He matriculated at Harvard College in 1876. His father's death in 1878 was a tremendous blow, but Roosevelt redoubled his activities. He did well in science, philosophy and rhetoric courses but fared poorly in Latin and Greek. He studied biology with considerable interest and was already an accomplished naturalist and published ornithologist. He had a photographic memory and developed a lifelong habit of devouring books, memorizing every detail. He was an eloquent conversationalist who, throughout his life, sought out the company of the smartest people. He could multitask in impressive fashion, dictating letters to one secretary and memoranda to another, while browsing through a new book. While at Harvard, Roosevelt was active in rowing, boxing, the Alpha Delta Phi literary society, the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, and was a member of the Porcellian Club. He also edited The Harvard Advocate. He was runner-up in the Harvard boxing championship.
Upon graduating, Roosevelt underwent a physical examination, and his doctor advised him that because of serious heart problems, he should find a desk job and avoid strenuous activity. He chose to embrace strenuous life instead. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa (22nd of 177) from Harvard with an A.B. magna cum laude in 1880. He entered Columbia Law School, where he was a diligent student but showed little interest in a legal career; he spent much of his time writing a book on the War of 1812. When offered a chance to run for the New York Assembly as a Republican in 1881, he dropped out of law school to pursue his new goal: "I intended to be one of the governing class." He was elected and overnight became a prominent player in state politics, and a rising star in the Republican Party (the "GOP").
Read more about this topic: Theodore Roosevelt
Famous quotes containing the word education:
“His education lay like a film of white oil on the black lake of his barbarian consciousness. For this reason, the things he said were hardly interesting at all. Only what he was.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“... many of the things which we deplore, the prevalence of tuberculosis, the mounting record of crime in certain sections of the country, are not due just to lack of education and to physical differences, but are due in great part to the basic fact of segregation which we have set up in this country and which warps and twists the lives not only of our Negro population, but sometimes of foreign born or even of religious groups.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)
“... the whole tenour of female education ... tends to render the best disposed romantic and inconstant; and the remainder vain and mean.”
—Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797)