Excerpt from Theodore Roosevelt, His Life and Work He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill; our antagonist is our helper. - Burke. He would not have liked it, perhaps, that one call him a pedagogue, and yet in the passing of the great man Theodore Roosevelt on January 6, 1919, America lost one of her foremost teachers. Sturdy Americanism was his major subject and he taught it with a vigor and enthusiasm which left its mark upon the nation. No brick walls limited the sphere of his influence. The breadth of the land was his class-room and his students were of the millions everywhere who found their lessons in his daily life. For perhaps more than any other public man of his day, Theodore Roosevelt, with the courage of his convictions, practiced what he preached. The fighter is always the teacher, and Theodore Roosevelt was primarily a fighter. It would have been his choice to have faced death on the battlefields, doing his part in leading and inspiring his fellow-citizenship in the charge against autocracy. Denied that opportunity, there remained for him a field of service no less important in the counsels of the nation, to determine its course through tangled paths, and with tongue and pen he laid about him with a force and vision that left their impress. He sent his sons to battle for the cause and became a leader in the civilian forces which provided the sinews of war. No leader had loftier ideals than Theodore Roosevelt and he aimed to achieve them by red-blooded appeals to the heart of his fellow-men to "fear God and take their own part." In another age he might have been called a "militant Christian." Through his life the same forceful, picturesque conduct marked his path. Coming generations will look back over the long list of Presidents of the United States and Theodore Roosevelt will be named as among the great. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.