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Theodore Roosevelt has been called the "advocate of good health." Perhaps you can tell how he acquired this title by reading about his struggle against physical weakness.

As I was a sickly boy, with no natural bodily prowess, and lived much at home, I was at first quite unable to hold my own when thrown into contact with other boys of rougher training. I was nervous and timid. Yet from reading of the people I admired-ranging from the soldiers of Valley Forge, and Morgan's riflemen, to the heroes of my favorite stories - and from hearing of the feats performed by my Southern forefathers and kinsfolk, and from knowing my father, I felt a great admiration for men who were fearless and who could hold their own in the world. I had a great desire to be like them.

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Until I was nearly fourteen I let this desire take no more definite shape than day-dreams. Then an incident happened that did me real good. Having an attack of asthma, I was sent off by myself to Moosehead Lake. On the stage-coach thither I met two other boys about my own age, but very much more competent and also much more mischievous. I have no doubt they were good-hearted boys, but they were boys! They found that I was an easy victim, and proceeded to make life miserable for me. The worst feature was that when I finally tried to fight

them I discovered that either one could handle me with easy contempt, and handle me so as not to hurt me much and yet to prevent my doing him any damage whatever in return.

The experience taught me what probably no amount of good advice could have taught me. I made up my mind that I must learn so that I would not again be put in such a helpless position; and having become quickly and bitterly conscious that I did not have the natural strength to hold my own, I decided that I would try to supply its place by training. Accordingly, with my father's hearty approval, I started to learn to box. I was a painfully slow and awkward pupil, and worked two or three years before I made any improvement whatever.

My first boxing-master was John Long. On one occasion, to excite interest among his patrons, he held a series of "championship" matches for the different weights, the prizes being, at least in my own class, pewter mugs of a value, I should suppose, of about fifty cents. Neither he nor I had any idea that I could do anything, but I was entered in the lightweight contest, in which it happened that I was pitted in succession against a couple of reedy striplings who were even worse than I. Equally to their surprise and to my own, and to John Long's, I won, and the pewter mug became one of my most prized possessions. I kept it, and talked about it, and I fear bragged about it, for a number of years; I only wish I knew where it is now. Years later I read an account of a little man who once in a fifth-rate handicap race won a worthless pewter medal and joyed in it ever after. Well, as soon as I read that story, I felt that that little man and I were brothers.

So far as I remember this was the only one of my exceedingly rare athletic triumphs which would be worth relating. I did a good deal of boxing and wrestling in college, but never attained to the first rank in either, even at my own weight. Once, in the big contests in the gymnasium, I got either into the finals or semifinals, I forget which; but aside from this the chief part I played was to act as trial horse for some friend or classmate who did have a chance to distinguish himself in the championship con

tests.

I was fond of horseback-riding, but I took to it slowly and

with difficulty, exactly as with boxing. It was a long time before I became even a respectable rider, and I never got much higher. I mean by this that I never became a first-flight man in the hunting field, and never even approached the bronco-busting class in the West. Any man, if he chooses, can gradually school him- . self to the requisite nerve and gradually learn the requisite seat and hands that will enable him to do respectably across country or to perform the average work on a ranch.

At intervals after leaving college I hunted on Long Island with the Meadowbrook hounds. Almost the only experience I ever had in this connection that was of any interest was on one occasion when I broke my arm. My purse did not permit me to own expensive horses. I was riding an animal, a buggyhorse originally, which its owner sold because now and then it insisted on thoughtfully lying down when in harness. It never lay down under the saddle; and when turned out to grass it would solemnly hop over the fence and get somewhere it did not belong. The last trait was what converted the beast into a hunter. It was a natural jumper, although without any speed.

On the hunt in question I got along very well until the pace winded my ex-buggy-horse, and it turned a somersault over a fence. When I mounted after the fall I found I could not use my left arm. I supposed it was merely a strain. The buggy-horse was a sedate animal, which I rode with a snaffle. So we pounded along at the tail of the hunt, and I did not realize that my arm was broken for three or four fences. Then we came to a big drop, and the jar made the bones slip past one another so as to throw my hand out of position. The fracture did not hurt me at all, and as the horse was as easy to sit as a rocking-chair, I got in at the death.

I was fond of walking and climbing. As a lad I used to go to the north woods, in Maine, both in fall and winter. There I made life friends of two men, Will Dow and Bill Sewall; I canoed with them, and tramped through the woods with them, visiting the winter logging camps on snow-shoes.

I never did much with the shotgun, but I practiced a good deal with the rifle. I had a rifle range at Sagamore Hill, where I often took friends to shoot. My own experience as regards

marksmanship was much the same as my experience as regards horsemanship. There are men whose eye and hand are so quick and so sure that they achieve a perfection of marksmanship which no practice will enable ordinary men to attain. There are others who cannot learn to shoot with any accuracy at all. In between come the mass of men of ordinary abilities who, if they choose resolutely to practice, by sheer industry and judgment can make themselves fair rifle shots. The men who show such industry and judgment without special difficulty can raise themselves to the second class of respectable rifle shots; to this class I belong. When obliged to live in cities, I found for a long time that boxing and wrestling enabled me to get a good deal of exercise in attractive form. I was reluctantly obliged to abandon both as I grew older. I dropped the wrestling earliest. When I became Governor of New York, the champion middleweight wrestler of America happened to be in Albany, and I asked him to come around three or four afternoons a week. Incidentally I may say that his presence caused me a difficulty with the Comptroller, who refused to audit a bill I put in for a wrestling-mat, explaining that I could have a billiard-table, billiards being recognized as a proper amusement for a Governor, but that a wrestlingmat symbolized something unusual and unheard of and could not be permitted.

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The middleweight champion was of course so much better than I was that he could take care of himself and of me too, and see that I was not hurt for wrestling is a much more violent amusement than boxing. But after a few months he had to go away, leaving as a substitute a good-humored stalwart professional oarsman. The oarsman turned out to know very little about wrestling. He could not even take care of himself, not to speak of me. By the end of our second afternoon one of his long ribs had been caved in and two of my short ribs badly damaged, and my left shoulder-blade so nearly shoved out of place that it creaked. He was nearly as pleased as I was when I told him I thought we would "vote the war a failure" and abandon wrestling.

After that I took up boxing again. While President I used to box with some of the aides, as well as play singlestick with

General Wood. After a few years I had to abandon boxing as well as wrestling, for in one bout a young captain of artillery struck me on the eye, and the blow smashed the little bloodvessels. Fortunately it was my left eye; the sight has been dim ever since; if it had been the right eye I should have been entirely unable to shoot. Accordingly I thought it better to acknowledge that as an elderly man I would have to stop boxing. I then took up jiu-jitsu for a year or two.

When I was working very hard in the Legislature, with little chance of getting out of doors, all the exercise I got was boxing and wrestling. A young fellow turned up who was a second-rate prize-fighter, the son of one of my old boxing teachers. For several weeks I had him come round to my rooms in the morning to put on the gloves with me for half an hour. Then he suddenly stopped. Some days later I received a letter of woe from him from the jail. I found that he was by profession a burglar, who merely followed boxing as the amusement of his lighter moments, or when his regular business was dull.

CLASS ACTIVITIES

1. What caused Roosevelt's desire to become physically vigorous? What similar influence have you had in your life? What traits of Roosevelt's character are shown in this selection? Why did not his physical weakness prove to be a handicap to him? Can you guess why he urged his own sons to go into athletics, even if they had to play on the scrub teams?

2. Do you own anything that corresponds to Roosevelt's pewter mug or the "little man's" pewter medal? How did you get it? Is it unbecoming for a boy or girl to brag a little about some accomplishments?

3. Read aloud evidence from the tale showing that Roosevelt was not conceited about his own physical accomplishments. There are at least five passages that may be quoted.

4. What touches of humor can you find in the account? How do they help the story?

5. Read "The Vigor of Life" again, skimming over it rapidly to decide which of the forms of organization (pp. 27, 107, 375) Roosevelt follows.

6. Explain the difference between a day-dream and an ambition.

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