NMH Magazine : Winter 2004

History Lesson

On September 1, 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt paid a visit to Mount Hermon and Northfield. He arrived by train in the early evening, then was spirited by carriage to Memorial Chapel, where he received a thunderous standing ovation followed by the Hermon school yell with “Roosevelt!” tacked on the end. The President delivered a short speech congratulating Hermonites on their good work and included a touch of trademark humor when he said,  “I am sure you have sound hearts in sound bodies, and that you have good lungs I am willing to testify.”

After addressing the Mount Hermon crowd, Roosevelt spoke to Northfield students and faculty in the packed-beyond-capacity Auditorium. Starstruck Hermon students followed him across the river, taking seats in the choir loft in order to hear him again. During the President’s speech on the virtues of good citizenship, his fans in the choir loft applauded so vigorously that he turned to them and said, “I like you, for you seem to be made of the right stuff.”

Although Roosevelt’s visit was brief, it lived on in the masthead of the Mount Hermon newspaper, The Hermonite, which until 1925 sported a quote from TR’s speech: “I think they teach here the essentials of good citizenship, that is, that a man is no good who does not know how to work with his hands as well as his head.”