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THE lamented death of Theodore Roosevelt occurred just as the February ST. NICHOLAS was going to press, and therefore had to be chronicled in a brief eulogy of a single page. But already countless tributes to his character and memory had appeared in the daily and weekly papers and countless others had been eloquently voiced from pulpit and platform all over the land. And as this is written, the announcement comes that Sunday, February 9th, has been set apart for memorial services in all parts of the country, as well as in Alaska, Hawaii, and Porto Rico, by the Roosevelt Memorial Committee, which includes members of Congress, governors of States, army and navy officers, and leaders prominent in business, farming, education, labor, the church and the stage, music and art, newspapers and magazines, as well as social workers, "Rough Riders" and big-game hunters in short, "representatives of all the myriad activities of American life that were touched by Theodore Roosevelt at one time or another." The object of the committee, as stated by its chairman, is "to crystallize into some binding form the spirit and teaching of this great American, and to perpetuate in living ways the character, principles, and statesmanship that made the imperishable glory of his life."

This number of ST. NICHOLAS must be closed before the date dedicated to the

memorial services, and therefore must content itself with urging its readers, each and all, to miss no opportunity of hearing the spoken addresses or of reading every word uttered in memory of the man whose marvelous history and achievements, burning love of country, and valiant ardor in defense of all he believed to be right and just made him the greatest American of his time, and one of the great outstanding Americans of all time, worthy of the lasting homage of the world.

In anticipation, moreover, of numerous other memorials that will be proposed and perfected, later on, and in response to the committee's appeal, ST. NICHOLAS, fortunately, can offer a special tribute of its own, this month, by reprinting here the main portion of a contribution which is among the few most prized by its editor and readers from the entire file of this magazine-an article written especially for its pages, and at its request, by Theodore Roosevelt himself, while governor of New York. And it is, in every word, as vital and inspiring to the American boys of to-day as to those who read it when first published. Nobody but Theodore Roosevelt could have written it, and it breathes in every line the knightly devotion to good citizenship, the dauntless courage, and the virile spirit that every American, whether young or old, first calls to mind at the mere mention of his name.

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of American man of whom America can be other faults the son of rich parents may

really proud.

There are always in life countless tendencies for good and for evil, and each succeeding generation sees some of these tendencies strengthened and some weakened; nor is it by any means always, alas! that the tendencies for evil are weakened and those for good strengthened. But during the last few decades there certainly have been some notable changes for good in boy life. The great growth in the love of athletic sports, for instance, while fraught with danger if it becomes one-sided and

tend to develop, he is at least forced by the opinion of all his associates of his own age to bear himself well in manly exercises and to develop his body-and therefore, to a certain extent, his characterin the rough sports which call for pluck. endurance, and physical address.

Of course, boys who live under such fortunate conditions that they have to do either a good deal of outdoor work or a good deal of what might be called natural outdoor play, do not need this athletic development. In the Civil War the soldiers

who came from the prairie and the backwoods and the rugged farms where stumps still dotted the clearings, and who had learned to ride in their infancy, to shoot as soon as they could handle a rifle, and to camp out whenever they got the chance, were better fitted for military work than any set of mere school or college athletes could possibly be. Moreover, to mis-estimate athletics is equally bad whether their importance is magnified or minimized. The Greeks were famous athletes, and as long as their athletic training had a normal place in their lives, it was a good thing. But it was a very bad thing when they kept up their athletic games while letting the stern qualities of soldiership and statesmanship sink into disuse. Some of the boys who read this paper will certainly sometime read the famous letters of the younger Pliny, a Roman who wrote, with what seems to us a curiously modern touch, in the first century of the present era. His correspondence with the Emperor Trajan is particularly interesting; and not the least noteworthy thing in it is the tone of contempt with which he speaks of the Greek athletic sports, treating them as the diversions of an unwarlike people which it was safe to encourage in order to keep the Greeks from turning into anything formidable. So, at one time, the Persian kings had to forbid polo, because soldiers neglected their proper duties for the fascinations of the game. A soldier needs to know how to shoot and take cover and shift for himself-not to box or play football. . . . When a man so far confuses ends and means as to think that foxhunting, or polo, or football, or whatever else the sport may be, is to be itself taken as the end, instead of as the mere means of preparation to do work that counts when the occasion calls-why, that man had better abandon sport altogether.

No boy can afford to neglect his work; and, with a boy, work, as a rule, means study. Of course, there are occasionally brilliant successes in life where the man has been worthless as a student when a boy. To take these exceptions as examples would be as unsafe as it would be to advo

cate blindness because some blind men have won undying honor by triumphing over their physical infirmity and accomplishing great results in the world. I am no advocate of senseless and excessive cramming in studies, but a boy should work, and should work hard, at his lessons-in the first place, for the sake of what he will learn; and in the next place, for the sake of the effect upon his own character of resolutely settling down to learn it. Shiftlessness, slackness, indifference in studying, are almost certain to mean inability to get on in other walks of life. Of course, as a boy grows older it is a good thing if he can shape his studies in the direction toward which he has a natural bent; but whether he can do this or not, he must put his whole heart into them. I do not believe in mischief-doing in school hours, or in the kind of animal spirits that results in making bad scholars; and I believe that those boys who take part in rough, hard play outside of school will not find any need for horse-play in school. While they study they should study just as hard as they play football in a match game. It is wise to obey the homely old adage, “Work while you work; play while you play."

A boy needs both physical and moral courage. Neither can take the place of the other. When boys become men they will find out that there are some soldiers very brave in the field who have proved timid and worthless as politicians, and some politicians who show an entire readiness to take chances and assume responsibilities in civil affairs, but who lack the fighting edge when opposed to physical danger. In each case, with soldiers and politicians alike, there is but half a virtue. The possession of the courage of the soldier does not excuse the lack of courage of the statesman, and even less does the possession of the courage of the statesman excuse shrinking on the field of battle. Now, this is all just as true of boys. A coward who will take a blow without returning it is a contemptible creature; but, after all, he is hardly as contemptible as the boy who dares not stand up for what he deems right against the sneers of his

companions who are themselves wrong. Ridicule is one of the favorite weapons of wickedness, and it is sometimes incomprehensible how good and brave boys will be influenced for evil by the jeers of associates who have no one quality that calls for respect, but who affect to laugh at the very traits which ought to be peculiarly the cause of pride.

There is no need to be a prig. There is no need for a boy to preach about his own good conduct and virtue. If he does, he will make himself offensive and ridiculous. But there is urgent need that he should practise decency; that he should be clean and straight, honest and truthful, gentle and tender, as well as brave. If he can once get to a proper understanding of things, he will have a far more hearty contempt for the boy who has begun a course of feeble dissipation, or who is untruthful, or mean, or dishonest, or cruel, than this boy and his fellows can possibly, in return, feel for him. The very fact that the boy should be manly and able to hold his own, that he should be ashamed to submit to bullying without instant retaliation, should, in return, make him abhor any form of bullying, cruelty, or brutality

. . Bullies do not make brave men; and boys or men of foul life cannot become good citizens, good Americans, until they change; and even after the change, scars will be left on their souls.

In his story called "Captains Courageous," Rudyard Kipling describes in the liveliest way just what a boy should be and do. The hero is painted in the beginning as the spoiled, over-indulged child of wealthy parents, of a type which we do sometimes unfortunately see, and than which there exist few things more objectionable on the face of the broad earth. This boy is afterward thrown on his own resources, amid wholesome surroundings, and is forced to work hard among boys and men who are real boys and real men

THE final lines of this stirring appeal promptly became a motto for thousands of American boys who loved their author as

doing real work. The effect is invaluable. The boy can best become a good man by being a good boy-not a goody-goody boy, but just a plain good boy. I do not mean that he must love only the negative virtues; I mean he must love the positive virtues also. "Good," in the largest sense, should include whatever is fine, straightforward, clean, brave, and manly. The best boys I know-the best men I knoware good at their studies or their business, fearless and stalwart, hated and feared by all that is wicked and depraved, incapable of submitting to wrong-doing, and equally incapable of being aught but tender to the weak and helpless. A healthy-minded boy should feel hearty contempt for the coward, and even more hearty indignation for the boy who bullies girls or small boys, or tortures animals. One prime reason for abhorring cowards is because every good boy should have it in him to thrash the objectionable boy as the need arises.

Of course, the effect that a thoroughly manly, thoroughly straight and upright boy can have upon the companions of his own age, and upon those who are younger, is incalculable. If he is not thoroughly manly, then they will not respect him, and his good qualities will count for but little; while, of course, if he is mean, cruel, or wicked, then his physical strength and force of mind merely make him so much the more objectionable a member of society. He cannot do good work if he is not strong, and does not try with his whole heart and soul to count in any contest; and his strength will be a curse to himself and to every one else if he does not have a thorough command over himself and over his own evil passions, and if he does not use his strength on the side of decency, justice, and fair dealing.

In short, in life, as in a football game, the principle to follow is:

Hit the line hard; don't foul and don't shirk, but hit the line hard!

the unfailing champion of manly courage.

Every young American will welcome, too, the glimpses of Theodore Roosevelt's

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