Struggling from a congenital double inguinal hernia, Eliot could not participate in many physical activities. As Eliot was often isolated, his love of literature developed. Once he learned to read, the young boy immediately became obsessed with books and was completely absorbed in tales depicting savages, the Wild West, or Mark Twain's thrill-seeking Tom Sawyer.
Eliot grew up within the family's tradition of service to religion, community, and education. Years later he declared, "Missouri and the Mississippi have made a deeper impression on me than any part of the world." In St. Louis from 1898 to 1905, young Eliot received a classical education privately and at Smith Academy, originally named Eliot Academy, where his studies included Latin, Ancient Greek, French, and German. He composed and read the valedictory poem for his graduation in 1905. His first published poem, "A Fable For Feasters", was written as a school exercise and was published in the Smith Academy Record in February 1905. He also published three short stories in 1905, "Birds of Prey," "A Tale of a Whale," and "The Man Who Was King." .
After a year at Milton Academy in Massachusetts, he attended Harvard University in 1906. He was shy, correct in dress, and intellectually independent. He studied under such versatile men as William James, George Santayana, Josiah Royce, and Irving Babbitt. He discovered Dante and heard talk of reviving poetic drama. Eliot's stay at Harvard to earn a master of arts in philosophy was interrupted by a year at the Sorbonne. Eliot moved to Paris, where from 1910 to 1911, he studied philosophy. He attended lectures by Henri Bergson and read poetry with Alain-Fournier. He returned to Harvard in 1911 studying Indian philosophy and Sanskrit. But in 1914 he went abroad again on a Harvard fellowship to study in Germany. When World War I broke out, he transferred to Merton College, Oxford, and studied with a disciple of F.
