Part 2

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.