the Civil War. A Boston merchant, Frank Stearns, was class of 1878; he had married the daughter of an officer who had brought back a cannon from the Civil War; Stearns was also the name of an Amherst president. Stearns had his own department store in Boston. A Dickinson had founded Amherst, and another Dickinson had ferociously guarded the college’s virtue; Edward Dickinson, the son of the founder, Samuel, and father of Emily, made it clear that Amherst would sacrifice all rather than become impure. Laying the cornerstone of the Barrett Gymnasium in 1859, Dickinson, a Whig politician, had warned that if the structure were “desecrated to any purpose of immorality,” it should be destroyed: “Would that a fire consume it or an earthquake throw it down.”
Austin Dickinson, Edward’s son, was the school treasurer; the poems of his late sister Emily were praised in the press. The Dickinsons were royalty and broke rules, their own or the college’s, with impunity; Austin was an indifferent bookkeeper, and there was gossip about an old affair he was said to have conducted with the wife of the astronomy professor, David Todd, class of 1875. Henry P. Field, class of 1880, was the son of a professor, Thomas P. Field, class of 1834, and a loyal alumnus. He was also the Dickinson family lawyer, based in Northampton, the county seat. Field, a bachelor and secretary to his class, stayed at the Lord Jeffery Inn whenever he visited other alumni. Field’s law partner was John C. Hammond, class of 1865. Both men, Calvin noticed, were Republicans. Herbert Pratt, a member of his class, was from a family that had made a fortune in kerosene and given the school the Pratt Gymnasium and Pratt Field, completed in the spring of 1891, just months before Calvin’s arrival. For such people, doors seemed to fly open.
But for him the doors shut one by one. Fraternity recruitment came. Charles Andrews, a young man he met, pledged Phi Delta Theta. Dwight Morrow, a boy from a family with even fewer resources than his own, found a new home at Beta Theta Pi, which maintained a gaudy house with a prominent porch on the corner of College Street and Boltwood Avenue. “He was master of the situation,” Coolidge would say later of Morrow’s response to it all. Boy after boy found some kind of affiliation. Coolidge looked on, helpless.
Athletics likewise did not seem possible, and that too hurt because physical fitness was a near obsession at Amherst. Coolidge lacked the talent that would win someone a name on the field; he was not an especially fast runner, he was not especially comfortable with a ball, and he was certainly not comfortable dancing. He could not make a team. He experienced the well-known shock of arriving at a school and finding oneself to be not steps but leagues behind the serious athletes. One of the humiliations of college was that students’ physical shortcomings were quantified—and meticulously. Amherst had its own health guru, another dynasty man, Edward Hitchcock, the son of a geologist and Amherst university president. He taught physical culture—what we today would call health studies—to the freshmen. Hitchcock was also a pioneer in anthropometry, the study of the physical measures of men. Not only did “Doc,” as he was known to the students, record the height and weight of each Amherst freshman, he also measured them up and down and tested them for strength of lungs, arms, and legs. He carefully recorded additional physical characteristics of decades of Amherst students and took extra care to study students who stood out.
A fellow freshman in Coolidge’s year, H. W. Lane, held Hitchcock’s attention: “Mr H. W. Lane of this class makes the most remarkable record of strength tests in our books,” Hitchcock wrote. Ernest Hardy of Northampton, the county seat, weighed in the heaviest, at 191 pounds. Coolidge weighed only 119.5 pounds, below the class average, despite a height that was slightly more than
Austin Dickinson, Edward’s son, was the school treasurer; the poems of his late sister Emily were praised in the press. The Dickinsons were royalty and broke rules, their own or the college’s, with impunity; Austin was an indifferent bookkeeper, and there was gossip about an old affair he was said to have conducted with the wife of the astronomy professor, David Todd, class of 1875. Henry P. Field, class of 1880, was the son of a professor, Thomas P. Field, class of 1834, and a loyal alumnus. He was also the Dickinson family lawyer, based in Northampton, the county seat. Field, a bachelor and secretary to his class, stayed at the Lord Jeffery Inn whenever he visited other alumni. Field’s law partner was John C. Hammond, class of 1865. Both men, Calvin noticed, were Republicans. Herbert Pratt, a member of his class, was from a family that had made a fortune in kerosene and given the school the Pratt Gymnasium and Pratt Field, completed in the spring of 1891, just months before Calvin’s arrival. For such people, doors seemed to fly open.
But for him the doors shut one by one. Fraternity recruitment came. Charles Andrews, a young man he met, pledged Phi Delta Theta. Dwight Morrow, a boy from a family with even fewer resources than his own, found a new home at Beta Theta Pi, which maintained a gaudy house with a prominent porch on the corner of College Street and Boltwood Avenue. “He was master of the situation,” Coolidge would say later of Morrow’s response to it all. Boy after boy found some kind of affiliation. Coolidge looked on, helpless.
Athletics likewise did not seem possible, and that too hurt because physical fitness was a near obsession at Amherst. Coolidge lacked the talent that would win someone a name on the field; he was not an especially fast runner, he was not especially comfortable with a ball, and he was certainly not comfortable dancing. He could not make a team. He experienced the well-known shock of arriving at a school and finding oneself to be not steps but leagues behind the serious athletes. One of the humiliations of college was that students’ physical shortcomings were quantified—and meticulously. Amherst had its own health guru, another dynasty man, Edward Hitchcock, the son of a geologist and Amherst university president. He taught physical culture—what we today would call health studies—to the freshmen. Hitchcock was also a pioneer in anthropometry, the study of the physical measures of men. Not only did “Doc,” as he was known to the students, record the height and weight of each Amherst freshman, he also measured them up and down and tested them for strength of lungs, arms, and legs. He carefully recorded additional physical characteristics of decades of Amherst students and took extra care to study students who stood out.
A fellow freshman in Coolidge’s year, H. W. Lane, held Hitchcock’s attention: “Mr H. W. Lane of this class makes the most remarkable record of strength tests in our books,” Hitchcock wrote. Ernest Hardy of Northampton, the county seat, weighed in the heaviest, at 191 pounds. Coolidge weighed only 119.5 pounds, below the class average, despite a height that was slightly more than
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