On January 6 1919, the United States’ President, Theodore Roosevelt, died by coronary embolism, in his sleep, at his Long Island Estate, Sagamore Hill, in Oyster Bay, New York. "The old lion is dead." This was the sentence his son wired to his siblings, the moment he received the news of sorrow.
Right under his pillow was a book he was reading. He was alive in his curiosity to the point of death. He was studying and consuming all the knowledge he could, until the very last—an open testament of his resolve: and a proof to the firmness of his character.
Roosevelt’s resolve for self-education and reading stemmed from his time as an asthma stricken lad; who after being confined to his bed by a debilitating illness, sought and found the seed of
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Learning is a lifelong process. That’s the clear message, the great inventor, Alexander Graham Bell was passing across in the quote at the beginning of the chapter—that we must be unceasing in our quest for answers on questions about the world in which we live.
No matter how old you are, life cannot be boring to you; if you possess an inquisitive mind.
So, I earnestly ask:
What lessons can we learn from the example of such a relentless student of life?
What can we imbibe from the life of a man who could easily rest on his laurels but didn’t?
What should be our approach to study and learning, no matter how high we climb?
The answer to these three questions is found in the notable example of Roosevelt, which visibly counsels us that: We should embrace self-education and make learning a habit in our day-to-day living.
Embrace Self-Education and Make Learning a Habit
Who can rightfully teach us to consciously learn until death, better than ourselves?
The choice and the challenge are ours and ours alone as the prolific science-fiction writer and professor of biochemistry, Isaac Asimov did believe. He said:
“Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there