By the early 1800s, Harvard was over 160 years old and was experiencing a hostile theological takeover by Unitarians. These anti-Calvinists succeeded. Otherwise, Harvard might have been a sound and prestigious destination for the five sons of wealthy New York businessman Cornelius Van Schaack Roosevelt. Though I doubt he would ever place a bumper sticker on his carriage bragging, “My Kids Go to Harvard.”

Instead, he concluded Harvard was too far gone by the mid-1800s, and none of his sons were exposed to the decline taking place at Harvard.

Cornelius’s son Theodore Roosevelt, Senior, skipped college altogether and started a family with similar high standards for academic integrity. He kept his own children away from the “coarsening” influences of the New York City public schools and gave them a stimulating home-schooling experience.

Records of this experience are well-preserved because Theodore Senior's second child, Teddy, became a famous Civil Service Commissioner, wild west rancher, Police Commissioner of New York City, Assistant Secretary of the Navy on the eve of the Spanish-American war, a colonel in the Rough Riders, Governor of New York, Vice President of the United States, and one of the youngest and most popular of all Presidents of the United States.

The records reveal that Teddy (TR), his two sisters and brother, enjoyed an 1870's home school experience not far different from a 1770's or a 1970's home school experience. In any era, family togetherness and academic freedom produces a rarefied atmosphere that makes the most of the innate curiosity to learn. Social historian David McCullough describes TR as a boy who “could barely keep still.” His tutor Arthur Cutler remembered that TR “never seemed to know what idleness was.” TR's friend John Woodbury remembered “such an amazing array of interests.”

It is estimated that TR penned some 150,000 letters. He wrote books when the only reasons to do so were intellectual. TR has been called the best prepared man to assume the presidency.

Yet he had virtually no formal education until he went away to college. And that college was Harvard, mainly because of its reputation for natural science, one of TR's chief interests.

But Was Harvard Safe?

When TR and his brother neared college age, Theodore Sr. was reluctant to send TR's brother. But the father thought he would try TR at Harvard and evaluate year by year if TR could handle the many negative influences of the school and campus.

Even though TR had never been in a classroom, had never had a professor, there was never any question about his ability to keep up academically. TRs friend Richard Saltonstall was under the impression that Teddy was coasting through Harvard. According to historian McCullough, TR would look back and say he had left Harvard little prepared for the real world. “He thought what he had learned at Harvard of considerably less value that what he had learned at home,” writes McCullough.

What Was He Taught as Harvard?

The short answer: it may be that the things TR learned at Harvard made TR one of America’s worst presidents.

TR’s father might have pulled TR out after the first year, but Theodore Sr. died during that first year. This is how TR's greatest mentor was replaced by the lesser men who taught him the latest Harvard ideas, like, for example, the theory of disinterested benevolence, articulated by William Ellery Channing (Harvard class of 1798).

This idea was valuable to Harvard statists because it supported the case for bigger and bigger statist government. Harvard statism justified vast government growth in the pursuit of vast benevolent influence. TR came to believe at some point that America's constitutional restraints could be set aside because of the greatness of the altruistic ideals of his administration, and he enlarged the scope and powers of the federal government far beyond anything the founders, or Scripture, would have approved.

Conclusion:

Even Christian institutions with good intentions can be corrupted if sound theology is not guarded and taught. Teddy Roosevelt became a conduit for many of the poisonous ideas which destroyed America’s Biblical and constitutional foundations in the 20th century. It is those foundations which describe life in the real world, and extend civilization in the real world. What Teddy Roosevelt was taught were utopian foundations for an artificial world. This is why his presidency failed and he led the world in the wrong direction at the dawn of the highly destructive 20th century.