Eleanor and Franklin Read Online Free

afflicted was Bamie, who suffered from a curvature of the spine, while Theodore Jr. was sickly and asthmatic. It was largely for Theodore Jr. that the upstairs back of the house was transformed into a large play and exercise “piazza” so that he could build himself up on the exercising devices. The equipment was also a source of joy for the other children, especially Elliott, who quickly became the leader in their youthful sports and won all competitions.
    The children’s education was centered in the home. Aunt Gracie taught them their letters and there was an occasional tutor, but it was their father who really opened up new worlds of learning for them. On picnics and rides, or before the fire in winter, he discussed authors with them and had them recite their favorite poems. He was a firm believer in the educational effect of travel, and when Elliott was nine took his whole brood on a twelve-month Grand Tour of Europe, and three years later on an even more extended and strenuous pilgrimage to Egypt, the Holy Land, southeastern and central Europe. The children were left in Dresden, where they stayed with German families for “purposes of board and instruction,” and where they remained for five months while their family’s new house on Fifty-seventh Street was being built. They were getting on in German grammar, Elliott wrote his father, adding “We have learned three pieces of German poetry.” But on July 4, he rebelled against the glories of German culture being preached day after day by Fräulein. “Don’t you think America is the best country in the world?” he asked his father. “Please, when you write tell me if we have not got as good Musick and Arts as the Germans have at the present time.” When in September, 1873, the Fifty-seventh Street house was nearing completion—though a hand-carved circular staircase had missed its connection on the second floor by three feet—the children set out for home.
    Upon their return Theodore Jr. was given a tutor to prepare him for Harvard. Elliott wanted very much to enter St. Paul’s, but he now suddenly began to suffer from severe headaches and dizzy spells. His father, feeling that health was more important than formal education, sent him abroad in 1874 and in 1875 south with a friend of the family who was a doctor in the hopes that two months of outdoor life and hunting would build up his constitution. He loved the shooting, but, he confessed to his “dear funny little Bamie,” he was also homesick. “Sometimes I long for Home—what a sweet word it is. I wonder what you all are doing this beautiful moonlit night. I can see you now. Conie and Thee home from dancing class and full of it have finished their storeys and are gone upstairs to study. Papa’s pet or the belle of New York is entertaining some friends in the parlor and Father is in his study. And Mother?”
    He was lonely, as his loving letter to his father written on his fifteenth birthday showed.
    Mar 6th 1875
    Saturday.
    My own dear Father. *
    I got your kinde “Father” like letter with Muzes to day oh! it was so nice to feel you had thought of me on my birthday. . . .
    Dear old Govenor—for I will call you that not in publick but in private for it does seem to suit you, you splendid Man just my ideal, made to govern & doing it so lightly & affectionately that I can call you by the name as a pet one.—its not such a long time since you were fifteen & any way as I was saying to Mrs Metcalfe today you are one of the few men who seem to remember they were boy’s once them selves & therefore can excuse pieces of boyish folly committed by their boy’s.
    Do you think it would be a good plan to send me to school again perhaps as I am not going to college I could make more friends there. I will do just as you think best, mon père.
    I gave you my plan of study in my last letter but I would just as leif study