Mr. Roosevelt received his degree, as a possible example of what
America sometimes regards as the gilded trappings of a feudal and
reactionary Europe.--L.F.A.
Now I thank you very much for having made me an honorary member.
Harvard men feel peculiarly at home when they come to Cambridge. We
feel we are in the domain of our spiritual forefathers, and I doubt if
you yourselves can appreciate what it is to walk about the courts, to
see your buildings, and your pictures and statues of the innumerable
men whose names we know so well, and who have been brought closer to
us by what we see here. That would apply not alone to men of the past.
The Bishop of Ely to you is the Bishop of to-day; but I felt like
asking him when I met him this morning, "Where is Hereward the Wake?"
It gives an American university man a peculiar feeling to come here
and see so much that tells of the ancient history of the University.
The tie between Harvard and Cambridge has always been kept up. I
remember when you sent over Mr. Lehmann to teach us how to row. He
found us rather refractory pupils, I am afraid. In the course of the
struggle, the captain of the Harvard crew was eliminated. He
afterwards came down to Cuba and was one of the very best captains in
my regiment. At that time, however, he was still too close to his
college days--he was separated from them only by about two weeks when
he joined me--to appreciate what I endeavored to instil into him, that
while winning a boat-race was all very well, to take part in a
victorious fight, in a real battle, was a good deal better. Sport is a
fine thing as a pastime, and indeed it is more than a mere pastime;
but it is a very poor business if it is permitted to become the one
serious occupation of life.
One of the things I wish we could learn from you is how to make the
game of football a rather less homicidal pastime. (Laughter.) I do not
wish to speak as a mere sentimentalist; but I do not think that
killing should be a normal accompaniment of the game, and while we
develop our football from Rugby, I wish we could go back and undevelop
it, and get it nearer your game. I am not qualified to speak as an
expert on the subject, but I wish we could make it more open and
eliminate some features that certainly tend to add to the danger of
the game as it is played in America now. On the Pacific slope we have
been going back to your type of Rugby football. I would not have
football abolished fo
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