Although Sara Roosevelt enjoyed personally supervising her son’s education at home, and was anxious to keep him under her roof as long as possible, both she and her husband were fully aware that the day would eventually come when he would have to go off to school; and when that time came, they knew precisely where they would send him. That decision had been made many years earlier, shortly after Franklin’s birth, when his parents had put his name down for a place at the Groton School, a new institution thirty-five miles north of Boston that was still in the process of formation, and was the inspiration of a remarkable young Episcopal minister named Endicott Peabody.
Peabody, of old New England stock, had been educated in England when his father, a Morgan partner, had moved to London to manage the bank’s British operations. After attending Cheltenham College and graduating from Cambridge University, he returned to America, and after ordination at the Episcopal Theological School he had made it his life’s ambition to reproduce in the United States the English public (i.e., private) school system, which had been responsible for educating most of Britain’s leaders for centuries. It was his goal to create a school for the sons of the rich and powerful, for boys who would have no need to go into trade or otherwise earn a living, and to inculcate in them a sense of service and leadership so as to encourage them to find their way into government, philanthropy, or the ministry.
As his model for the Groton School he chose Rugby, with its vigorous sports program and emphasis on the classics. The prospectus for his school proclaimed that “Every endeavor will be made to cultivate manly Christian character, having regard to moral and physical as well as intellectual development.” Peabody made no secret of the fact that in his scheme of things the moral and physical aspects of the curriculum far outweighed any serious intellectual development. There would be time enough for that sort of thing when the boys reached the universities for which Groton was preparing them.
Even in the years before the school opened, Peabody’s zeal had attracted the attention of many of the leaders of eastern seaboard society, including both the Hyde Park and Oyster Bay branches of the Roosevelt family (Theodore was one of his earliest supporters), and his school was quickly oversubscribed.
Peabody’s students, in keeping with the standard English practice, were expected to attend Groton for six years, which meant enrolling in the first form at age twelve, and continuing on through the sixth form at age eighteen. But when the time came to send Franklin off, Sara could not bear to part with him, and held him back for two years. As a result, he did not enter Groton until the third form, when he was fourteen, in the autumn of 1896. Unfortunately for him, by that time all his classmates had long since established the friendships, cliques, rivalries, and other social strategies of adolescent males, and young Franklin was once again not “one of the boys.” His classmates might have forgiven him had he been a star football player, but, as he was not particularly talented along those lines, he was generally shunned, and ridiculed for his speech mannerisms—the same plummy nasality that would in time become familiar to millions—which were perceived as an affectation.
But for all its drawbacks, time would confirm that Groton was an inspired choice for young Franklin, and his allegiance to the place, and to its founder, would last a lifetime. He always kept in close contact with Dr. Peabody, and as late as 1941 wrote to him from the White House, “I count it among the blessings of my life that it was given to me in formative years to have the privilege of your guiding hand and the benefit of your inspiring example.”
It was a novel and challenging world that Franklin Roosevelt entered into when he arrived at Groton, and even though he was no longer the center of attention, and was in fact something of an odd man out, it seemed to suit him, and he settled in with little fuss.
Sept. 18, 1896
Dear Mommerr & Popperr
I am getting on finely both mentally and physically. I sit next a boy named A. Gracie King at meals, he is from Garrisons and knows the Pells and Morgans. Do you know about him?… I am all right in Latin, Greek, Science and French; a little rusty in Algebra, but not more so than the others.… We have just had Latin and Algebra, and we study French tonight. We went to Mrs. Peabody’s parlor last night for half an hour and played games.… We are off to dinner now, so I cannot write more but I will write you Sunday. With lots of love to Pa & yourself
F.D.R.
Life at Groton was built around a deliberately Spartan regime. The daily routine consisted of a cold shower on rising, followed by breakfast at 7:30, chapel services at 8:15, classes from 8:30 to noon, and two afternoon school periods of forty-five minutes each, followed by athletics. In the evening, when the boys were required to dress in starched white collars and properly shined shoes (blue suits were required on Sundays), there was another chapel service after supper, then a study period in the schoolroom, after which the director and Mrs. Peabody shook hands with each and every boy as they filed out to their dormitories. The rules were clearly defined and inviolable. There were punishments for every infraction. Tardiness was a particularly serious offense. Sleeping arrangements were minimal. Each boy had his own cubicle, about six feet wide and nine or ten feet deep, with walls that were about seven feet high and did not reach the ceiling. Each cubicle was furnished with a bed, a bureau, a chair, and a small rug. There were no doors, only a cloth curtain that could be drawn for privacy.
Peabody spoke regularly at chapel services, repeatedly returning to the character-building theme of service: service to the community, service to the nation, service to the world. He was a man of simple religion but profound and unquestioning faith. A steady stream of distinguished guest speakers challenged the boys to go forth and make the world a better place, whether it be the joss houses of China, the slums of New York, or the halls of Congress. Occasionally, as a special treat, Peabody was able to snare his friend Theodore Roosevelt, one of the boys’ favorites, as a speaker.
By the end of his first year at Groton, in the spring of 1897, an interesting new streak of independence, not previously notable in Franklin’s character, began to make itself evident. His parents were out of the country, having sailed for Germany in their annual search for cures for his aging father’s ailments. They would not return until the school year was over, and in their absence Franklin accepted an invitation from Anna Roosevelt Cowles, Theodore’s sister and a close friend of Franklin’s mother, to spend the Fourth of July with her family. He was greatly upset when his mother wrote from Europe, declining the invitation. In response, he wrote angrily to her, “I am very sorry to hear that you refused Cousin Bammie’s invitation for the 4th and as you told me that I cd make my own plans, and as Helen [Roosevelt] writes me there is to be a large party and lots of fun on the 4th, I shall try to arrange it with Cousin B next Wednesday.”
He closed on a caustic note of sarcasm that must have come as something of a shock to his mother: “Please don’t make any more arrangements for my future happiness.”
Further complications regarding Independence Day developed a few days later when Theodore Roosevelt, recently Police Commissioner in New York and newly appointed assistant secretary of the Navy, arrived in Groton to give one of his talks. “After supper tonight, Cousin Theodore gave us a splendid talk on his adventures when he was on the Police Board,” he reported to his parents. “He kept the whole room in an uproar for over an hour, by telling us killing stories about policemen and their doings in New York.” After his talk, Theodore repeated the invitation to Franklin for the holiday, and Franklin quickly accepted. But this did not end the controversy. On June 8, 1897, he wrote his mother: “I am going to Oyster Bay to stay with the Theodore Roosevelt’s on Friday, July 2, and shall stay there all Monday.” He added on June 11: “I am sorry you didn’t want me to go to Oyster Bay for the 4th but I had already accepted Cousin Theodore’s invitation & I shall enjoy it very much … I am so sorry you have refused Cousin Bammie’s invitation and I wish you had let me make my own plans as you said. As it is, I have accepted Theodore’s invitation. And I hope you will not refuse that too.”
Franklin’s relationship with his mother would remain notably close for the rest of her long life, but there is no question that his stubborn intransigence in the spring of 1897 helped redefine it and make it a little less one-sided.