[Illustration: FIG. 87.—Robert Jeffries Roberts (1849-1920).] It was such models as these that Roberts sought to copy during his own years of apprenticeship. Born in England June 29, 1849, he was brought to America in early infancy, and thereafter resided in Boston with the exception of three years in Springfield and Utica (1887-1890). He nearly completed the course of study at the Phillips Street Grammar School, at fifteen entered the service of the Western Union Telegraph Company, first as messenger boy and afterwards as delivery clerk, and finally gave up this position to earn his living by the wood-turner’s trade. Primarily to escape from the evil influences of the streets, he joined the Tremont Gymnasium in 1864, and a few years later was both exercising and giving instruction at the Union Gymnasium, 300 Washington Street, and also visiting Dr. Winship’s gymnasium across the way, next door to the Boston Theater. When the Young Men’s Christian Association bought out the Tremont Gymnasium, in 1872, he continued his membership there, and now made it his practice to go two nights a week each, in regular rotation, to the Union, Association, and Winship gymnasia. In 1875, having determined to devote himself to the new calling, he asked to be made superintendent of the Association gymnasium, and on the first of July began to discharge the duties of that position. A list of his best performances at about this time will serve to show the aims and results of the strenuous course of discipline to which Roberts had subjected himself hitherto. Although only five feet five inches high, he weighed 145 pounds and had a 43-inch chest, 32-inch waist, 23-inch thigh, 14½-inch calf, and 15-inch upper arm. With a yoke on his shoulders he lifted 2200 pounds, could rise from a lying to a sitting posture while holding a 100-pound weight back of his neck, push up a 120-pound dumb-bell with each hand, pull himself up to the chin 3 times with either hand and 35 times with both, had covered more than 12 feet in one broad jump and 35 feet in three, cleared 4 feet 6 inches in a standing high jump from either side, 5 feet 4 inches in a leap with running start, and 9 feet with the pole, put the 16-pound shot 35 feet right and left, threw the 16-pound hammer 70 feet, walked a mile in less than eight minutes and 6 miles an hour, ran 100 yards in eleven seconds and 5 miles in thirty minutes, had learned to box and wrestle, and was a good swimmer and oarsman.