Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. IV.djvu/123

Rh interest and attention, and his mind evidently turned as by instinct to such questions and problems as our republic has solved already, or has still to solve. During his college course he was an editor of the “Harvard Advocate,” in whose columns he made his first appearances in print. Besides political history, he continued an interest in natural history, which had been begun in those boyhood days when he was in search of health, and studied the birds of his country neighborhood near Oyster Bay. He was graduated in 1880, a student of sufficiently high rank to make him a member of the Phi Beta Kappa society.

Upon leaving college he traveled in Europe, and here also his time may be said to have been divided between study and hard physical exercise. This latter was mainly in Switzerland, where he climbed, among other peaks, the Matterhorn. Upon his return from Europe, where he had been absent for about a year, he studied law for a time in the office of his uncle, Robert B. Roosevelt. This was in the year 1881, which saw him attend his first primary and also write his first book, “A History of the War of 1812.” The book was the beginning of an eminent literary career, as the primary was the beginning of a political career still more eminent.

It is said that applause was the only result of Roosevelt's first political speech, somewhat to his