Ellery 2/16

The museum visit on Thursday was very exciting. I was more observant then I have ever been and consequently saw many things that I have skipped over every other time. Firstly, the quotes from Theodore Roosevelt in the Roosevelt Rotunda section of the museum are of great interest. I was especially struck by his words in relation to youth:
I want to see you game, boys, I want to see you brave and manly, and I also want to see you gentle and tender. Be practical as well as generous in your ideals. Keep your eyes on the stars and keep your feet on the ground. Courage, hard work, self-mastery, and intelligent effort are all essential to successful life. Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.
The struggle for manhood has become such an important part of our history. The struggle betweens the Victorian ideals self-restraint and “innate savage” inside all men was realized by Teddy Roosevelt himself. In this quote he encourages young boys to exercise their wild side and their gentle side in order to be the perfect man. Within this one room, there are so many quotes that not only glorify manhood by also link manliness to nationhood. For Roosevelt, being a man meant being patriotic and violence was necessary to protect your nation and your manhood. I never noticed until recently how the museum represents man’s exploration, man’s discovery, and man’s domination over nature, no women allowed!. I have been going for years and never saw the writings on the wall, literally. These sections that we saw were also great; I had never even seen the reptiles and amphibians section. Depending on what section I was looking at, animals were either separated by region, or species. In the Birds of the world section, the animals were separated by region. Each diorama had up to 50 or 60 birds including plant life and scenery that might have been common in the area of interest. My favorite part of the dioramas is the amount of detail that went into the creation of each. The most beautiful of all was the little hummingbird that I found in the corner of the American Tropical Rainforest that was in mid-flight, sucking the pollen from a flower in a tree. It’s amazing how lively all these dead animals look, as if there are frozen in time.