Richard Nixon's ChildhoodOne way in which both Frank and Hannah did show their love was in

Richard Nixon's Childhood

One way in which both Frank and Hannah did show their love was in their willingness to make sacrifices for their children. As parents, they were devoted to ensuring that their sons obtained the best possible education. At an early age they concentrated their efforts on Richard, as he showed most signs of being a talented and perhaps even a gifted child.

The making of the early mind of Richard Nixon owed most to his mother. If her marriage had not cut short her college education she would have become a teacher. She was a well-educated young woman, proficient in Greek, Latin, German and French, with a deep interest in European culture.

Hannah taught Richard to read before he went to infant school and awakened his interest in her own specialized areas of classics, languages, and history. By the age of five he had become an eager reader of children's encyclopedias, history stories and adult periodicals.

Hannah opened Richard's mind to European culture; she started him off in French and German, introduced him to Shakespeare and trained him to recite poetry. Hannah was, above all, a classicist. She believed that Latin was the fountainhead of language, and that the ancient historians and orators were the masters of clear expression. Under his mother's instruction classics had a strong influence on Richard's childhood imagination.

Besides expanding Richard's mental curiosity and capabilities far beyond the interests of the average five year old, Hannah drilled into him the importance of working hard in order to grow up to be somebody. A small clue to her strong desire for her second son was her attempt to stop the use of the nickname Dick as too foolish, perhaps, for a future man of importance. By the way Miss George, please call my son Richard and never Dick. I named him Richard, 'Hannah told his school-teacher on the day he entered the elementary school. Miss Mary George never forgot this request—one of the many reasons why this little boy was rather different from the others in her class. Her recollections of Richard Nixon's early progress are revealing.

"He was a very quiet, studious boy and kept mostly to himself...he was one of those rare individuals born with knowledge. He only had to be exposed or shown and he never forgot...he absorbed knowledge of any kind...in that year he read no less than thirty or forty books, maybe more, besides doing all of his other work...he never had to work for knowledge at all. He was told something and he never forgot. He has a photographic mind, I think."

Although this early judgment of Richard's ability by his first schoolmistress may be too flattering, nevertheless Miss George's reference to the photographic quality of his mind showed much insight. The phrase 'photographic memory' falls too easily from the tongue and is rarely accurate, but what can be said with certainty of Richard Nixon is that he was blessed with a very good memory. For various reasons it has often suited him during his career to downplay this remarkable gift. During his life he preferred to brush aside discussion of this talent with the comment, 'My memory is very good only for a simple reason—I worked at it.' However he acquired it, there is little doubt that this capacity for remembering information of every description, from names, facts and figures to speeches and documents, was fundamental to his later political success.

'He was a very quiet child and rarely ever smiled or laughed', recalled his schoolteacher Miss George. 'I have no recollection of him playing with others in the playground, which undoubtedly he did... like other youngsters in mild weather Richard always came barefoot. Every day he wore a freshly cleaned white shirt with a big black bow tie and knee pants. He always looked like his mother had scrubbed him from head to toe. The funny thing is, I can never reme

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