|  |
Primary source: Theodore Roosevelt, The Strenuous Life, 1902.
Caption: The future president, Theodore Roosevelt, discusses the importance of physical health and strength for American males.
. . .
Nowadays, whatever other faults the son of rich parents may 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 character--in 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. . .
|
Theodore Roosevelt, The Strenuous Life (New York: Century, 1902), 156–57.
|
| |
