It is worth while to remember that this man who became as
much of a Westerner as an Easterner, who was understood and
trusted by the people of the Western States, was born on the
Atlantic coast and educated at a New England college.
The real American, if he was born in the East, does not talk with
contempt about the West; if he is a Westerner he does not pretend
that all the good in the world is on his side of the Mississippi.
Nor, wherever he came from, does he try to keep up old quarrels
between North and South. Theodore Roosevelt was an American, and
admired by Americans everywhere. Foolish folk who talk about the
"effete East," meaning that the East is worn out and corrupt, had
best remember that Abraham Lincoln did not believe that when he
sent his son to the same college which Theodore Roosevelt's father
chose for him.
At Harvard he kept up his studies and interest in natural history.
In the house where he lived he sometimes had a large, live turtle
and two or three kinds of snakes. He went in to Boston and came
back with a basket full of live lobsters, to the consternation of
the other people in the horse-car. He held a high office in the
Natural History Society, and took honors, when he graduated, in
the subject. His father had encouraged his desire to be a
professor of natural history, reminding him, however, that he must
have no hopes of being a rich man.
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