Nobody thought of calling Theodore Roosevelt “Teddy,” when he was
a boy. He was always known as “Tedie,”—pronounced as if written
“Teedie.” But several years before he went to Harvard, when he was
about fifteen years old, his mother thought that it was high time that
the baby name was replaced by something more dignified, and so it was
decided, in family council, that he should be addressed as Theodore.
Unfortunately, family decisions of this kind are not always respected
at school or college, and, when young Roosevelt became a freshman at
Harvard, he was promptly dubbed “Teddy” by his classmates. The nickname
stuck; he has been “Teddy” ever since to his intimates, and to-day he
is more generally known under that title by seventy-six millions of
people than by any other. There is every reason to believe that he
enjoys the little informality, justly regarding it as a tribute to his
popularity.
When he was nine years of age, young Roosevelt was taken abroad by
his parents, and he made another trip with them to Europe not long
afterward, greatly enjoying a voyage up the Nile. At seventeen he
entered Harvard, and promptly grew a pair of side-whiskers, of which it
may reasonably be supposed that he was very proud. The side-whiskers
resembled those of Pendennis, as pictured by Thackeray. It goes without
saying that he soon became extremely popular at college, where he
acquitted himself fairly well in his studies. Old classmates recall
the fact that he had a passion for animals and that he collected many
queer natural history specimens, which he kept in his room.