_The Autobiography_
OF
CALVIN COOLIDGE
[Illustration: CALVIN COOLIDGE]
_The Autobiography_
OF
CALVIN COOLIDGE
[Illustration: colophon]
_New York_
COSMOPOLITAN BOOK CORPORATION
1929
COPYRIGHT 1929 CALVIN COOLIDGE
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
SECOND TRADE EDITION
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. BY
J. J. LITTLE & IVES CO., NEW YORK
_CONTENTS_
I. SCENES OF MY CHILDHOOD 1
II. SEEKING AN EDUCATION 35
III. THE LAW AND POLITICS 81
IV. IN NATIONAL POLITICS 139
V. ON ENTERING AND LEAVING THE
PRESIDENCY 169
VI. SOME OF THE DUTIES OF THE PRESIDENT 193
VII. WHY I DID NOT CHOOSE TO RUN 237
_ILLUSTRATIONS_
CALVIN COOLIDGE _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
VICTORIA JOSEPHINE (MOOR) COOLIDGE 30
_Mother of Calvin Coolidge_
COLONEL JOHN C. COOLIDGE 48
_Vermont Senate_
CALVIN COOLIDGE 66
_At the Age of Three_
CALVIN COOLIDGE 90
_Aged Seven_
CALVIN COOLIDGE 136
_At Amherst College_
GRACE GOODHUE 190
_Before Her Marriage to Calvin Coolidge_
CALVIN COOLIDGE AND HIS FAMILY 220
_The Day He Became Governor of Massachusetts_
SCENES OF MY CHILDHOOD
_CHAPTER ONE_
SCENES OF MY CHILDHOOD
The town of Plymouth lies on the easterly slope of the Green Mountains,
about twenty miles west of the Connecticut River and somewhat south of
the central part of Vermont. This part of the state is made up of a
series of narrow valleys and high hills, some of which rank as mountains
that must reach an elevation of at least twenty-five hundred feet.
Its westerly boundary is along the summit of the main range to where it
falls off into the watershed of Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence
River. At one point a little rill comes down a mountain until it strikes
a rock, where it divides, part running north into the Ottauquechee and
part south into the Black River, both of which later turn easterly to
reach the Connecticut.
In its natural state this territory was all covered with evergreen and
hardwood trees. It had large deposits of limestone, occasionally mixed
with marble, and some granite. There were sporadic outcroppings of iron
ore, and the sands of some of the streams showed considerable traces of
gold. The soil was hard and rocky, but when cultivated supported a good
growth of vegetation.
During colonial times this region lay in an unbroken wilderness, until
the coming of the French and Indian War, when a military road was cut
through under the direction of General Amherst, running from
Charlestown, New Hampshire, to Fort Ticonderoga, New York. This line of
march lay through the south part of the town, crossing the Black River
at the head of the two beautiful lakes and running over the hill towards
the valley of the Otter Creek.
When settlers began to come in around the time of the Revolution, the
grandfather of my grandfather, Captain John Coolidge, located a farm
near the height of land westward from the river along this military
road, where he settled in about 1780.
He had served in the Revolutionary army and may have learned of this
region from some of his comrades who had known it in the old French
wars, or who had passed over it in the campaign against Burgoyne, which
culminated at Saratoga.
He had five children and acquired five farms, so that each of his
descendants was provided with a homestead. His oldest son Calvin came
into possession of the one which I now own, where it is said that
Captain John spent his declining years. He lies buried beside his wife
in the little neighborhood cemetery not far distant.
The early settlers of Plymouth appear to have come mostly from
Massachusetts, though some of them had stopped on the way in New
Hampshire. They were English Puritan stock, and their choice of a
habitation stamps them with a courageous pioneering spirit.
Their first buildings were log houses, the remains of which were visible
in some places in my early boyhood, though they had long since been
given over to the sheltering of domestic animals. The town must have
settled up with considerable rapidity, for as early as 1840 it had about
fourteen hundred inhabitants scattered about the valleys and on the
sides of the hills, which the mountains divided into a considerable
number of different neighborhoods, each with a well-developed local
community spirit.
As time went on, much land was cleared of forest, very substantial
buildings of wood construction were erected, saw mills and grist mills
were located along the streams, and the sale of lumber and lime, farm
products and domestic animals, brought considerable money into the town,
which was laid out for improvements or found its way into the country
store. It was a hard but wholesome life, under which the people suffered
many privations and enjoyed many advantages, without any clear
realization of the existence of either one of them.
They were a hardy self-contained people. Most of them are gone now and
their old homesteads are reverting to the wilderness. They went forth to
conquer where the trees were thicker, the fields larger, and the
problems more difficult. I have seen their descendants scattered all
over the country, especially in the middle west, and as far south as the
Gulf of Mexico and westward to the Pacific slope.
It was into this community that I was born on the 4th day of July, 1872.
My parents then lived in a five room, story and a half cottage attached
to the post office and general store, of which my father was the
proprietor. While they intended to name me for my father, they always
called me Calvin, so the John became discarded.
Our house was well shaded with maple trees and had a yard in front
enclosed with a picket fence, in which grew a mountain ash, a plum tree,
and the customary purple lilac bushes. In the summertime my mother
planted her flower bed there.
Her parents, who were prosperous farmers, lived in the large house
across the road, which had been built for a hotel and still has the old
hall in it where public dances were held in former days and a spacious
corner on the front side known as the bar room, indicating what had been
sold there before my grandfather Moor bought the premises. On an
adjoining farm, about sixty-five rods distant, lived my grandfather and
grandmother Coolidge. Within view were two more collections of farm
buildings, three dwelling houses with their barns, a church, a school
house and a blacksmith shop. A little out of sight dwelt the local
butter tub maker and beyond him the shoemaker.
This locality was known as The Notch, being situated at the head of a
valley in an irregular bowl of hills. The scene was one of much natural
beauty, of which I think the inhabitants had little realization, though
they all loved it because it was their home and were always ready to
contend that it surpassed all the surrounding communities and compared
favorably with any other place on earth.
My sister Abbie was born in the same house in April, 1875. We lived
there until 1876, when the place was bought across the road, which had
about two acres of land with a house and a number of barns and a
blacksmith shop. About it were a considerable number of good apple
trees. I think the price paid was $375. Almost at once the principal
barn was sold for $100, to be moved away. My father was a good trader.
Some repairs were made on the inside, and black walnut furniture was
brought from Boston to furnish the parlor and sitting room. It was a
plain square-sided house with a long ell, to which the horse barn was
soon added. The outside has since been remodeled and the piazza built. A
young woman was always employed to do the house work. Whatever was
needed never failed to be provided.
While in theory I was always urged to work and to save, in practice I
was permitted to do my share of playing and wasting. My playthings often
lay in the road to be run over, and my ball game often interfered with
my filling the wood box. I have been taken out of bed to do penance for
such derelictions.
My father, John Calvin Coolidge, ran the country store. He was
successful. The annual rent of the whole place was $40. I have heard him
say that his merchandise bills were about $10,000 yearly. He had no
other expenses. His profits were about $100 per month on the average, so
he must have sold on a very close margin.
He trusted nearly everybody, but lost a surprisingly small amount.
Sometimes people he had not seen for years would return and pay him the
whole bill.
He went to Boston in the spring and fall to buy goods. He took the
midnight train from Ludlow when they did not have sleeping cars,
arriving in the city early in the morning, which saved him his hotel
bill.
He was a good business man, a very hard worker, and did not like to see
things wasted. He kept the store about thirteen years and sold it to my
mother’s brother, who became a prosperous merchant.
In addition to his business ability my father was very skillful with his
hands. He worked with a carriage maker for a short time when he was
young, and the best buggy he had for twenty years was one he made
himself. He had a complete set of tools, ample to do all kinds of
building and carpenter work. He knew how to lay bricks and was an
excellent stone mason.
Following his sale of the store about the time my grandfather died,
besides running the farm, he opened the old blacksmith shop which stood
upon the place across the road to which we had moved. He hired a
blacksmith at $1 per day, who was a large-framed powerful man with a
black beard, said to be sometimes quarrelsome.
I have seen him unaided throw a refractory horse to the ground when it
objected to being shod. But he was always kind to me, letting me fuss
around the shop, leaving his own row to do three or four hills for me so
that I could more easily keep up with the rest of the men in hoeing
time, or favoring me in some way in the hay field as he helped on the
farm in busy times.
He always pitched the hay on to the ox cart and I raked after. If I was
getting behind he slowed up a little. He was a big-hearted man. I wish I
could see that blacksmith again. The iron work for farm wagons and sleds
was fashioned and put on in the shop, oxen and horses brought there for
shoeing, and metal parts of farm implements often repaired. My father
seemed to like to work in the shop, but did not go there much except
when a difficult piece of work was required, like welding a broken steel
section rod of a mowing machine, which had to be done with great
precision or it would break again.
He kept tools for mending shoes and harnesses and repairing water pipes
and tinware. He knew how to perform all kinds of delicate operations on
domestic animals. The lines he laid out were true and straight, and the
curves regular. The work he did endured.
If there was any physical requirement of country life which he could not
perform, I do not know what it was. From watching him and assisting him,
I gained an intimate knowledge of all this kind of work.
It seems impossible that any man could adequately describe his mother. I
can not describe mine.
On the side of her father, Hiram Dunlap Moor, she was Scotch with a
mixture of Welsh and English. Her mother, Abigail (Franklin) Moor, was
chiefly of the old New England stock. She bore the name of two
Empresses, Victoria Josephine. She was of a very light and fair
complexion with a rich growth of brown hair that had a glint of gold in
it. Her hands and features were regular and finely modeled. The older
people always told me how beautiful she was in her youth.
She was practically an invalid ever after I could remember her, but used
what strength she had in lavish care upon me and my sister, who was
three years younger. There was a touch of mysticism and poetry in her
nature which made her love to gaze at the purple sunsets and watch the
evening stars.
Whatever was grand and beautiful in form and color attracted her. It
seemed as though the rich green tints of the foliage and the blossoms of
the flowers came for her in the springtime, and in the autumn it was for
her that the mountain sides were struck with crimson and with gold.
When she knew that her end was near she called us children to her
bedside, where we knelt down to receive her final parting blessing.
In an hour she was gone. It was her thirty-ninth birthday. I was twelve
years old. We laid her away in the blustering snows of March. The
greatest grief that can come to a boy came to me. Life was never to seem
the same again.
Five years and forty-one years later almost to a day my sister and my
father followed her. It always seemed to me that the boy I lost was her
image. They all rest together on the sheltered hillside among five
generations of the Coolidge family.
My grandfather, Calvin Galusha Coolidge, died when I was six years old.
He was a spare man over six feet tall, of a nature which caused people
to confide in him, and of a character which made him a constant choice
for public office. His mother and her family showed a marked trace of
Indian blood. I never saw her, but he took me one time to see her
sister, his very aged aunt, whom we found sitting in the chimney corner
smoking a clay pipe.
This was so uncommon that I always remembered it. I thought tobacco was
only for men, though I had seen old ladies outside our neighborhood buy
snuff at the store.
He was an expert horseman and loved to raise colts and puppies. He kept
peacocks and other gay-colored fowl and had a yard and garden filled
with scarlet flowers. But he never cared to hunt or fish. He found great
amusement in practical jokes and could entice a man into a nest of bees
and make him think he went there of his own accord.
He and my grandmother brought up as their own children the boy and girl
of his only sister, whose parents died when they were less than two
years old. He made them no charge, but managed their inheritance and
turned it all over to them with the income, besides giving the boy $800
of his own money when he was eighteen years old, the same as he did my
father. He was fond of riding horseback and taught me to ride standing
up behind him. Some of the horses he bred and sold became famous. In his
mind, the only real, respectable way to get a living was from tilling
the soil. He therefore did not exactly approve having his son go into
trade.
In order to tie me to the land, in his last sickness he executed a deed
to me for life of forty acres, called the Lime Kiln lot, on the west
part of his farm, with the remainder to my lineal descendants, thinking
that as I could not sell it, and my creditors could not get it, it would
be necessary for me to cultivate it. He also gave me a mare colt and a
heifer calf, which came of stock that had belonged to his grandfather.
Two days after I was two months old, my father was elected to the state
legislature. By a curious coincidence, when my son was the same age I
was elected to the same office in Massachusetts. He was reelected twice,
the term being two years, and, while he was serving, my grandfather
took my mother and me to visit him at Montpelier.
I think I was three years and four months old, but I always remembered
the experience. Grandfather carried me to the State House and sat me in
the Governor’s chair, which did not impress me so much as a stuffed
catamount that was in the capital museum. That was the first of the
great many journeys which I have since made to legislative halls.
During his last illness he would have me read to him the first chapter
of the Gospel of John, which he had read to his grandfather. I could do
very well until I came to the word “comprehended,” with which I always
had difficulty. On taking the oath as President in 1925, I placed my
hand on that Book of the Bible in memory of my first reading it.
So far as I know, neither he nor any other members of my family ever
entertained any ambitions in my behalf. He evidently wished me to stay
on the land. My own wish was to keep store, as my father had done.
They all taught me to be faithful over a few things. If they had any
idea that such a training might some day make me a ruler over many
things, it was not disclosed to me. It was my father in later years who
wished me to enter the law, but when I finally left home for that
purpose the parting was very hard for him to bear.
The neighborhood around The Notch was made up of people of exemplary
habits. Their speech was clean and their lives were above reproach. They
had no mortgages on their farms. If any debts were contracted they were
promptly paid. Credit was good and there was money in the savings bank.
The break of day saw them stirring. Their industry continued until
twilight. They kept up no church organization, and as there was little
regular preaching the outward manifestation of religion through public
profession had little opportunity, but they were without exception a
people of faith and charity and of good works. They cherished the
teachings of the Bible and sought to live in accordance with its
precepts.
The conduct of the young people was modest and respectful. For most of
the time during my boyhood regular Sunday school classes were held in
the church which my grandmother Coolidge superintended until in her
advanced years she was superseded by my father. She was a constant
reader of the Bible and a devoted member of the church, who daily sought
for divine guidance in prayer.
I stayed with her at the farm much of the time and she had much to do
with shaping the thought of my early years. She had a benign influence
over all who came in contact with her. The Puritan severity of her
convictions was tempered by the sweetness of a womanly charity. There
were none whom she ever knew that had not in some way benefited by her
kindness.
Her maiden name was Sarah Almeda Brewer. When she married my grandfather
she was twenty and he was twenty-eight years old. She was accustomed to
tell me that from his experience and observations he had come to have
great faith in good blood, and that he chose her for his wife not only
because he loved her, but because her family, which he had seen for
three generations, were people of ability and character.
While he would have looked upon rank as only pretense, he looked upon
merit with great respect. His judgment was vindicated by the fact that
more of her kin folks than he could have realized had been and were to
become people of merited distinction.
The prevailing dress in our neighborhood was that of the countryside.
While my father wore a business suit with a white shirt, collar and
cuffs, which he always kept clean, the men generally had colored shirts
and outer garments of brown or blue drilling. But they all had good
clothes for any important occasions.
I was clad in a gingham shirt with overalls in the summer, when I liked
to go barefooted. In the winter these were changed for heavy wool
garments and thick cowhide boots, which lasted a year.
My grandmother Coolidge spun woolen yarn, from which she knitted us
stockings and mittens. I have seen her weave cloth, and when I was ten
years old I had a frock which came from her loom. We had linen sheets
and table cloths and woolen bed blankets, which she had spun and woven
in earlier days. I have some of them now. My grandfather Coolidge wore
a blue woolen frock much of the time, which is a most convenient garment
for that region. It is cut like a shirt, going on over the head, with
flaps that reach to the knees.
When I went to visit the old home in later years I liked to wear the one
he left, with some fine calfskin boots about two sizes too large for me,
which were made for him when he went to the Vermont legislature about
1858. When news pictures began to be taken of me there, I found that
among the public this was generally supposed to be a makeup costume,
which it was not, so I have since been obliged to forego the comfort of
wearing it. In public life it is sometimes necessary in order to appear
really natural to be actually artificial.
Perhaps some glimpse of these pictures may have caused an English writer
to refer to me as a Vermont backwoodsman. I wonder if he describes his
King as a Scotchman when he sees him in kilts.
To those of his country who remember that Burgoyne sent home a dispatch
saying that the Green Mountains were the abode of the most warlike race
on the continent, who hung like a thunder cloud on his left--which was
fully borne out by what they helped to do to him at Bennington and
Saratoga--I presume the term of Vermont backwoodsman still carries the
implication of reproach. But in this country it is an appellation which
from General Ethan Allen to Admiral George Dewey has not been without
some distinction.
While the form of government under which the Plymouth people lived was
that of a republic, it had a strong democratic trend. The smallest unit
was then the school district. Early in my boyhood the women were given a
vote on school questions in both the district and town meetings.
The district meeting was held in the evening at the school house each
year. The officers were chosen and the rate of the school tax was fixed
by popular vote. The board and room of the teacher for two-week periods
was then assigned to the lowest bidders. The rates ran from about fifty
cents each week in the summer to as high as $1.25 in the winter.
The town officers were chosen annually at the March meeting. Here again
the rate of taxes was fixed by popular vote. The bonded debt was rather
large, coming down, as I was told, from expenses during the war and the
costs of reconstructing roads and bridges after the disastrous freshet
of 1869.
The more substantial farmers wanted to raise a large tax to reduce the
debt. I noticed my father did not vote on this subject and I inquired
his reason. He said that while he could afford to pay a high rate, he
did not wish to place so large a burden on those who were less able, and
so was leaving them to make their own decision.
In those days there were about two hundred and fifty qualified voters,
not over twenty-five of which were Democrats, and the rest Republicans.
They had their spirited contests in their elections, but not along party
lines.
One of the patriarchs of the town, who was a Democrat, served many years
as Moderator by unanimous choice. He was a man of sound common sense and
an excellent presiding officer, but without much book learning.
When he read that part of the call for the meeting which recited that it
was to act “on the following questions, _viz._,” he always read it “to
act upon the following questions, _vizley_.” This caused him to be
referred to at times by the irreverent as Old Vizley.
I was accustomed to carry apples and popcorn balls to the town meetings
to sell, mainly because my grandmother said my father had done so when
he was a boy, and I was exceedingly anxious to grow up to be like him.
On the even years in September came the Freemen’s meeting. This was a
state election, at which the town representative to the legislature was
chosen. They also voted for county and state officers and for a
Representative to the Congress, and on each fourth year for Presidential
electors. I attended all of these meetings until I left home and
followed them with interest for many of the succeeding years.
Careful provision was made for the administration of justice through
local authorities. Those charged with petty crimes and misdemeanors were
brought before one of the five Justices of the Peace, who had power to
try and sentence with or without calling a jury. He also had a like
jurisdiction in civil matters of a small amount.
The more important cases, criminal and civil, went to the County Court
which sat in the neighboring town of Woodstock in May and December. My
father was nearly all his life a Constable or a Deputy Sheriff, and
sometimes both, with power to serve civil and criminal process, so that
he arrested those charged with crime and brought them before the Justice
for trial.
Unless it would keep me out of school, he would take me with him when
attending before the local justices or when he went to the opening
session of the County Court. Before him my grandfather had held the same
positions, so that together they were the peace officers most of the
time in our town for nearly seventy-five years.
In addition to this they often settled the estates of deceased persons
and acted as guardian of minors. This business was transacted in the
Probate Court, where I often went.
My father was at times a Justice of the Peace and always had a
commission as notary public. This enabled him to take the acknowledgment
of deeds, which he knew how to draw, and administer oaths necessary to
pension papers which he filled out for old soldiers usually without
charge, or to take affidavits required on any other instruments.
In my youth he was also always engaged in the transaction of all kinds
of town business, being constantly elected for that purpose. He was
painstaking, precise and very accurate, and had such wide experience
that the lawyers of the region knew they could rely on him to serve
papers in difficult cases and make returns that would be upheld by the
courts.
This work gave him such a broad knowledge of the practical side of the
law that people of the neighborhood were constantly seeking his advice,
to which I always listened with great interest. He always counseled them
to resist injustice and avoid unfair dealing, but to keep their
agreements, meet their obligations and observe strict obedience to the
law.
By reason of what I saw and heard in my early life, I came to have a
good working knowledge of the practical side of government. I understood
that it consisted of restraints which the people had imposed upon
themselves in order to promote the common welfare.
As I went about with my father when he collected taxes, I knew that when
taxes were laid some one had to work to earn the money to pay them. I
saw that a public debt was a burden on all the people in a community,
and while it was necessary to meet the needs of a disaster it cost much
in interest and ought to be retired as soon as possible.
After the winter work of laying in a supply of wood had been done, the
farm year began about the first of April with the opening of the
maple-sugar season. This was the most interesting of all the farm
operations to me.
With the coming of the first warm days we broke a road through the deep
snow into the sugar lot, tapped the trees, set the buckets, and brought
the sap to the sugar house, where in a heater and pans it was boiled
down into syrup to be taken to the house for sugaring off. We made eight
hundred to two thousand pounds, according to the season.
After that the fences had to be repaired where they had been broken down
by the snow, the cattle turned out to pasture, and the spring planting
done. Then came sheep-shearing time, which was followed by getting in
the hay, harvesting and threshing of the grain, cutting and husking the
corn, digging the potatoes and picking the apples. Just before
Thanksgiving the poultry had to be dressed for market, and a little
later the fattened hogs were butchered and the meat salted down. Early
in the winter a beef creature was slaughtered.
The work of the farm was done by the oxen, except running the mowing
machine and horse rake. I early learned to drive oxen and used to plow
with them alone when I was twelve years old. Of course, there was the
constant care of the domestic animals, the milking of the cows, and
taking them to and from pasture, which was especially my responsibility.
We had husking bees, apple-paring bees and singing schools in the
winter. There were parties for the young folks and an occasional
dramatic exhibition by local talent. Not far away there were some public
dances, which I was never permitted to attend.
Some time during the summer we usually went to the circus, often rising
by three o’clock so as to get there early. In the autumn we visited the
county fair. The holidays were all celebrated in some fashion.
Of course, the Fourth of July meant a great deal to me, because it was
my birthday. The first one I can remember was when I was four years old.
My father took me fishing in the meadow brook in the morning. I recall
that I fell in the water, after which we had a heavy thundershower, so
that we both came home very wet. Usually there was a picnic celebration
on that day.
Thanksgiving was a feast day for family reunions at the home of the
grandparents. Christmas was a sacrament observed with the exchange of
gifts, when the stockings were hung, and the spruce tree was lighted in
the symbol of Christian faith and love. While there was plenty of hard
work, there was no lack of pleasurable diversion.
When the work was done for the day, it was customary to drop into the
store to get the evening mail and exchange views on topics of interest.
A few times I saw there Attorney General John G. Sargent with his
father, who was a much respected man.
A number of those who came had followed Sheridan, been with Meade at
Gettysburg, and served under Grant, but they seldom volunteered any
information about it. They were not talkative and took their military
service in a matter of fact way, not as anything to brag about but
merely as something they did because it ought to be done.
They drew no class distinctions except towards those who assumed
superior airs. Those they held in contempt. They held strongly to the
doctrine of equality. Whenever the hired man or the hired girl wanted to
go anywhere they were always understood to be entitled to my place in
the wagon, in which case I remained at home. This gave me a very early
training in democratic ideas and impressed upon me very forcibly the
dignity and power, if not the superiority of labor.
It was all a fine atmosphere in which to raise a boy. As I look back on
it I constantly think how clean it was. There was little about it that
was artificial. It was all close to nature and in accordance with the
ways of nature. The streams ran clear. The roads, the woods, the fields,
the people--all were clean. Even when I try to divest it of the halo
which I know always surrounds the past, I am unable to create any other
impression than that it was fresh and clean.
We had some books, but not many. Mother liked poetry and read some
novels. Father had no taste for books, but always took and read a daily
paper. My grandfather Moor read books and papers, so that he was a
well-informed man.
My grandmother Coolidge liked books and besides a daily Chapter in the
Bible read aloud to me “The Rangers or the Tory’s Daughter” and “The
Green Mountain Boys,” which were both stories of the early settlers of
Vermont during the Revolutionary period. She also had two volumes
entitled “Washington and His Generals,” and other biographies which I
read myself at an early age with a great deal of interest.
At home there were numerous law books. In this way I grew up with a
working knowledge of the foundations of my state and nation and a taste
for history.
My education began with a set of blocks which had on them the Roman
numerals and the letters of the alphabet. It is not yet finished. As I
played with
[Illustration:
Allison Spence
VICTORIA JOSEPHINE (MOOR) COOLIDGE
_Mother of Calvin Coolidge, about the time of her marriage_]
them and asked my mother what they were, I came to know them all when I
was three years old. I started to school when I was five.
The little stone school house which had unpainted benches and desks wide
enough to seat two was attended by about twenty-five scholars. Few, if
any, of my teachers reached the standard now required by all public
schools. They qualified by examination before the town superintendent. I
first took this examination and passed it at the age of thirteen and my
sister Abbie passed it and taught a term of school in a neighboring town
when she was twelve years old.
My teachers were young women from neighboring communities, except
sometimes when a man was employed for the winter term. They were all
intelligent, of good character, and interested in their work. I do not
feel that the quality of their instruction was in any way inferior. The
common school subjects were taught, with grammar and United States
history, so that when I was thirteen I had mastered them all and went to
Black River Academy, at Ludlow.
That was one of the greatest events of my life. The packing and
preparation for it required more time and attention than collecting my
belongings in preparation for leaving the White House. I counted the
hours until it was time to go.
My whole outfit went easily into two small handbags, which lay on the
straw in the back of the traverse sleigh beside the fatted calf that was
starting to market. The winter snow lay on the ground. The weather was
well below freezing. But in my eagerness these counted for nothing.
I was going where I would be mostly my own master. I was casting off
what I thought was the drudgery of farm life, symbolized by the cowhide
boots and every-day clothing which I was leaving behind, not realizing
what a relief it would be to return to them in future years. I had on my
best clothes and wore shoes with rubbers, because the village had
sidewalks.
I did not know that there were mental and moral atmospheres more
monotonous and more contaminating than anything in the physical
atmosphere of country life. No one could have made me believe that I
should never be so innocent or so happy again.
As we rounded the brow of the hill the first rays of the morning sun
streamed over our backs and lighted up the glistening snow ahead. I was
perfectly certain that I was traveling out of the darkness into the
light.
We have much speculation over whether the city or the country is the
better place to bring up boys. I am prejudiced in behalf of the country,
but I should have to admit that much depends on the parents and the
surrounding neighborhood. We felt the cold in winter and had many
inconveniences, but we did not mind them because we supposed they were
the inevitable burdens of existence.
It would be hard to imagine better surroundings for the development of a
boy than those which I had. While a wider breadth of training and
knowledge could have been presented to me, there was a daily contact
with many new ideas, and the mind was given sufficient opportunity
thoroughly to digest all that came to it.
Country life does not always have breadth, but it has depth. It is
neither artificial nor superficial, but is kept close to the realities.
While I can think of many pleasures we did not have, and many niceties
of culture with which we were unfamiliar, yet if I had the power to
order my life anew I would not dare to change that period of it. If it
did not afford me the best that there was, it abundantly provided the
best that there was for me.
SEEKING AN EDUCATION
CHAPTER TWO
SEEKING AN EDUCATION
One of the sages of New England is reported to have declared that the
education of a child should begin several generations before it is born.
No doubt it does begin at a much earlier period and we enter life with a
heritage that reaches back through the ages. But we do not choose our
ancestors. When we come into the world the gate of gifts is closed
behind us. We can do nothing about it. So far as each individual is
concerned all he can do is to take the abilities he has and make the
most of them. His power over the past is gone. His power over the future
depends on what he does with himself in the present. If he wishes to
live and progress he must work.
During early childhood the inspiration for anything like mental
discipline comes almost entirely from the outside. It is supplied by the
parents and teachers. It was not until I left home in February of 1886
that I could say I had much thought of my own about getting an
education. Thereafter I began to be more dependent on myself and assume
more and more self-direction. What I studied was the result of my own
choice. Instead of seeking to direct me, my father left me to decide.
But when I had selected a course he was always solicitous to see that I
diligently applied myself to it.
Going away to school was my first great adventure in life. I shall never
forget the impression it made on me. It was so deep and remains so vivid
that whenever I have started out on a new enterprise a like feeling
always returns to me. It was the same when I went to college, when I
left home to enter the law, when I began a public career in Boston, when
I started for Washington to become Vice-President and finally when I was
called to the White House. Going to the Academy meant a complete break
with the past and entering a new and untried field, larger and more
alluring than the past, among unknown scenes and unknown people.
In the spring of 1886 Black River Academy had just celebrated its
fiftieth anniversary. While it had some distinguished alumni, the great
body of its former students were the hard-working, every-day people,
that made the strength of rural New England. My father and mother and
grandmother Coolidge had been there a few terms. While it had a charter
of its own, and was independent of the public authorities, it was
nevertheless part village high school. At its head was a principal, who
had under him two women assistants. A red brick structure, built like a
church, with an assembly room and a few recitation rooms made up its
entire equipment, so that those who did not live at home boarded in
private families about the town of Ludlow. The spring term began in
midwinter in order that the girls could be out by the first Monday in
May to teach a summer district school and the boys could get home for
the season’s work on the farm.
For the very few who were preparing for college a classical course was
offered in Latin, Greek, history and mathematics, but most of the pupils
kept to the Latin Scientific, and the English courses. The student body
was about one hundred and twenty-five in number. During my first term I
began algebra and finished grammar. For some reason I was attracted to
civil government and took that. This was my first introduction to the
Constitution of the United States. Although I was but thirteen years old
the subject interested me exceedingly. The study of it which I then
began has never ceased, and the more I study it the more I have come to
admire it, realizing that no other document devised by the hand of man
ever brought so much progress and happiness to humanity. The good it has
wrought can never be measured.
It was not alone the school with its teachers, its students and courses
of study that interested me, but also the village and its people. It all
lay in a beautiful valley along the Black River supported on either side
by high hills. The tradespeople all knew my father well and he had an
intimate acquaintance with the lawyers. Very soon I too knew them all.
The chief industry of the town was a woolen mill that always remained a
mystery to me. But the lesser activity of the village was a cab shop. I
worked there some on Saturdays, so I came to know how toys and baby
wagons were made. It was my first acquaintance with the factory system,
and my approach to it was that of a wage earner. As I was employed at
piece work my wages depended on my own ability, skill and industry. It
was a good training. I was beginning to find out what existence meant.
My real academy course began the next fall term when I started to study
Latin. In a few weeks I broke my right arm but it did not keep me out of
school more than two days. Latin was not difficult for me to translate,
but I never became proficient in its composition. Although I continued
it until my sophomore year at college the only part of all the course
that I found of much interest was the orations of Cicero. These held my
attention to such a degree that I translated some of them in later life.
When Greek was begun the next year I found it difficult. It is a
language that requires real attention and close application. Among its
rewards are the moving poetry of Homer, the marvelous orations of
Demosthenes, and in after life an increased power of observation.
Besides the classics we had a course in rhetoric, some ancient history,
and a little American literature. Plane geometry completed our
mathematics. In the modern languages there was only French.
In some subjects I began with the class when it started to review and so
did the work of a term in two weeks. I joined the French class in mid
year and made up the work by starting my study at about three o’clock in
the morning.
During the long vacations from May until September I went home and
worked on the farm. We had a number of horses so that I was able to
indulge my pleasure in riding. As no one else in the neighborhood cared
for this diversion I had to ride alone. But a horse is much company, and
riding over the fields and along the country roads by himself, where
nothing interrupts his seeing and thinking, is a good occupation for a
boy. The silences of Nature have a discipline all their own.
Of course our school life was not free from pranks. The property of the
townspeople was moved to strange places in the night. One morning as the
janitor was starting the furnace he heard a loud bray from one of the
class rooms. His investigation disclosed the presence there of a
domestic animal noted for his long ears and discordant voice. In some
way during the night he had been stabled on the second floor. About as
far as I deem it prudent to discuss my own connection with these
escapades is to record that I was never convicted of any of them and so
must be presumed innocent.
The expenses at the Academy were very moderate. The tuition was about
seven dollars for each term, and board and room for each week not over
three dollars. Oftentimes students hired a room for about fifty cents
per week and boarded themselves. In my own case the cost for a school
year averaged about one hundred and fifty dollars, which was all paid by
my father. Any money I earned he had me put in the savings bank, because
he wished me to be informed of the value of money at interest. He
thought money invested in that way led to a self-respecting independence
that was one of the foundations of good character.
It was about twelve miles from Ludlow to Plymouth. Sometimes I walked
home Friday afternoon, but usually my father came for me and brought me
back Sunday evening or Monday morning. When this was not done I often
staid with the elder sister of my mother, Mrs. Don C. Pollard, who lived
about three miles down the river at Proctorsville. This was my Aunt
Sarah who is still living. She was wonderfully kind to me and did all
she could to take the place of my own mother in affection for me and
good influence over me while I was at the Academy and ever after. The
sweetness of her nature was a benediction to all who came in contact
with her. What men owe to the love and help of good women can never be
told.
The Academy had no athletics in those days, as the boys from the farms
did not feel the need of such activity. A few games of baseball were
played, but no football or track athletics were possible. Games did not
interest me much though I had some skill with a bat. I was rather
slender and not so tall as many boys of my age.
Those who attended the school from out of town were all there with a
real purpose of improving themselves, so that while there was no lack of
fun and play they all worked as best they could, for their coming had
meant too much sacrifice at home not to be taken seriously. They had
come seeking to better their condition in life through what they might
learn and the self-discipline they might secure.
The school had much to be desired in organization and equipment, but it
possessed a sturdy spirit and a wholesome regard for truth. Of course
the student body came from the country and had country ways, but the
boys were inspired with a purpose, and the girls with a sweet sincerity
which becomes superior to all the affectations of the drawing-room. In
them the native capacity for making real men and women remained all
unspoiled.
The Presidential election of 1888 created considerable interest among
the students. Most of them favored the Republican candidate Benjamin
Harrison against the then President Grover Cleveland. When Harrison was
elected, two nights were spent parading the streets with drums and
trumpets, celebrating the victory.
During most of my course George Sherman was the principal and Miss M.
Belle Chellis was the first assistant. I owe much to the inspiration and
scholarly direction which they gave to my undergraduate days. They both
lived to see me President and sent me letters at the time, though they
left the school long ago. It was under their teaching that I first
learned of the glory and grandeur of the ancient civilization that grew
up around the Mediterranean and in Mesopotamia. Under their guidance I
beheld the marvels of old Babylon, I marched with the Ten Thousand of
Xenophon, I witnessed the conflict around beleaguered Troy which doomed
that proud city to pillage and to flames, I heard the tramp of the
invincible legions of Rome, I saw the victorious galleys of the Eternal
City carrying destruction to the Carthaginian shore, and I listened to
the lofty eloquence of Cicero and the matchless imagery of Homer. They
gave me a vision of the world when it was young and showed me how it
grew. It seems to me that it is almost impossible for those who have not
traveled that road to reach a very clear conception of what the world
now means.
It was in this period that I learned something of the thread of events
that ran from the Euphrates and the Nile through Athens to the Tiber and
thence stretched on to the Seine and the Thames to be carried overseas
to the James, the Charles and the Hudson. I found that the English
language was generously compounded with Greek and Latin, which it was
necessary to know if I was to understand my native tongue. I discovered
that our ideas of democracy came from the agora of Greece, and our ideas
of liberty came from the forum of Rome. Something of the sequence of
history was revealed to me, so that I began to understand the
significance of our own times and our own country.
In March of my senior year my sister Abbie died. She was three years my
junior but so proficient in her studies that she was but two classes
below me in school. She was ill scarcely a week. Several doctors were in
attendance but could not save her. Thirty years later one of them told
me he was convinced she had appendicitis, which was a disease not well
understood in 1890. I went home when her condition became critical and
staid beside her until she passed to join our mother. The memory of the
charm of her presence and her dignified devotion to the right will
always abide with me.
In the spring of 1890 came my graduation. The class had five boys and
four girls. With so small a number it was possible for all of us to take
part in the final exercises with orations and essays. The subject that I
undertook to discuss was “Oratory in History,” in which I dealt briefly
with the effect of the spoken word in determining human action.
It had been my thought, as I was but seventeen, to spend a year in some
of the larger preparatory schools and then enter a university. But it
was suddenly decided that a smaller college would be preferable, so I
went to Amherst. On my way there I contracted a heavy cold, which grew
worse, interfering with my examinations, and finally sent me home where
I was ill for a considerable time.
But by early winter I was recovered, so that I did a good deal of work
helping repair and paint the inside of the store building which my
father still owned and rented. There was time for much reading and I
gave great attention to the poems of Sir Walter Scott. After a few weeks
in the late winter at my old school I went to St. Johnsbury Academy for
the spring term. Its principal was Dr. Putney, who was a fine
drill-master, a very exact scholar, and
[Illustration:
Allison Spence
COLONEL JOHN C. COOLIDGE
_While in the Vermont Senate_]
an excellent disciplinarian. He readily gave me a certificate entitling
me to enter Amherst without further examination, which he would never
have done if he had not been convinced I was a proficient student. His
indorsement of the work I had already done, after having me in his own
classes for a term, showed that Black River Academy was not without some
merit.
During the summer vacation my father and I went to the dedication of the
Bennington Battle Monument. It was a most elaborate ceremony with much
oratory followed by a dinner and more speaking, with many bands of music
and a long military parade. The public officials of Vermont and many
from New York were there. I heard President Harrison, who was the first
President I had ever seen, make an address. As I looked on him and
realized that he personally represented the glory and dignity of the
United States I wondered how it felt to bear so much responsibility and
little thought I should ever know.