Of all the stories of Roosevelt's college career, that of his boxing match is most vividly remembered. He enrolled in the light-weight sparring at the meeting in the Harvard Gymnasium on March 22 1879, and defeated his first competitor. When the referee called "time," Roosevelt immediately dropped his hands, but the other man dealt him a savage blow on the face, at which we all shouted, "Foul, foul!" and hissed; but Roosevelt turned towards us and cried out "Hush! He didn't hear," a chivalrous act which made him immediately popular. In his second match he met Hanks. They both weighed about one hundred and thirty-five pounds, but Hanks was two or three inches taller and he had a much longer reach, so that Theodore could not get in his blows, and although he fought with unabated pluck, he lost the contest. More serious than his short reach, however, was his near-sightedness, which made it impossible for him to see and parry Hanks's lunges. When time was called after the last round, his face was dashed with blood and he was much winded; but his spirit did not flag, and if there had been another round, he would have gone into it with undiminished determination. From this contest there sprang up the legend that Roosevelt boxed with his eyeglasses lashed to his head, and the legend floated hither and thither for nearly thirty years. Not long ago I asked him the truth. "Persons who believe that," he said, "must think me utterly crazy; for one of Charlie Hanks's blows would have smashed my eyeglasses and probably blinded me for life." In a class of one hundred and seventy he graduated twenty second, which entitled him to membership in the Phi Beta Kappa, the society of high scholars. To one who examines his academic record wisely, the best symptom is that he did fairly well in several unrelated subjects, and achieved preeminence in one, natural history. He had the all-round quality which shows more promise than does a propensity to light on a particular topic and suck it dry; but he had also power of concentration and thoroughness. As I have just said, he was a happy combination of the amateurish and intense. His habit of absorption became a by-word; for if he visited a, classmate's room and saw a book which interested him, instead of joining in the talk, he would devour the book, oblivious of, everything else, until the college bell rang for the next lecture, when he would jump up with a start, and dash off. The quiet but firm teaching of his parents bore fruit in him: he came to college with a body of rational moral principles which he made no parade of, but obeyed instinctively. And so, where many young fellows are thrown off their balance on first acquiring the freedom which college life gives, or are dazed and distracted on first hearing the babel of strange philosophies or novel doctrines, he walked straight, held himself erect, and was not fooled into mistaking novelty for truth, or libertinism for manliness.