In the end he gave up this
plan, not because it did not lead to money, for never in his life
did he work to become wealthy, but because he disliked science as
it was then taught. One of the bad things the German universities
had done to the American colleges was to make them worship fussy
detail, and so science had become a matter of microscopes and
laboratories. The field-work of the naturalist was unknown or
despised.
He took part in four or five kinds of athletics. He seems never to
have played baseball, perhaps because of poor eyesight which made
him wear glasses. But he practiced with a rifle, rowed and boxed,
ran and wrestled. In his vacations he went hunting in Maine.
Boxing was one of his favorite forms of sport,--for two reasons.
He thought a boy or a man ought to be able to defend himself and
others, and he enjoyed hard exercise.
It is important to know what he thought and did about self-defense
and fighting. Many people dodge this, and other difficult
subjects, when they are talking to boys. It was not Roosevelt's
way to hide his thoughts in silence because of timidity, and then
call his lack of action by some such fine name as "tact" or
"discretion." When there was good reason for speaking out he
always did so. Since a boy who is forever fighting is not only a
nuisance, but usually a bully, some older folk go to the extreme
and tell boys that all fighting is wrong.
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