effect on the life of his city, and on the life of the whole nation. Theodore Roosevelt's mother, Martha Bullock Roosevelt, was from South Carolina, and is buried in that State. The home of his childhood was most happy, and by birth he is distinctly united with the South as well as the North. He is a grandson of Cornelius Van Schaak and Margaret Barnhill Roosevelt; great grandson of Jacobus John and Mary Van Schaak Roosevelt, and his descent is in the direct line from Claes Martenszoon and Jaunetge Thomas Van Roosevelt, who came from Amsterdam, Holland, to New York, in 1651.
His early schooling was interrupted by delicate health, and after he had attended for a time the McMullen school, in New York city, his parents found it better for him to study under the care of private tutors at home. His college preparation was made under Mr. Cutler, who founded later the "Cutler School." His special tastes and interest in his boyhood and youth were gratified, he says, by reading, and particularly by natural history. And he writes (especially for the youthful readers of "Men of Mark"): "I was not athletic, but was absorbed in tales of adventure, and gradually took up vigorous sports, as a consequence of reading these tales, written by Scott, Cooper, Marryat, and Mayne Reid."
Much was done by his parents to improve his health. With them he visited Egypt, making a voyage up the Nile. He devoted himself to boating, tramping, running, and vigorous exercise generally, to the limit of his ability, and by force of will, that he might transform his frail body into a strong and responsive instrument for his spirit and will; and seeing that the lack of physical strength is a hampering hindrance to any career in life, by his personal resolution and by life in the open, he at length became the athlete, the hardy hunter and horseman whom the world knows through his books and his deeds.
He graduated from Harvard university in 1880. As an under-graduate he was enthusiastic in all college affairs. His scholarship was excellent, and his interest in athletics was marked. His early ambition was to be a naturalist and a college professor. While still an undergraduate he began that work as an author which he has kept up through life. Finding misstatements in a history of the War of 1812, he studied the subject in the official files, and these studies resulted in his first book, "The War of 1812." He was asked by the British editors of the work, "The Royal Navy" to write the chapter on that war.
