average, 68.9 inches. Other physical characteristics were also recorded, such as hair color: Coolidge was one of five “auburns” counted in the class.
If Coolidge could not be Greek, at least he could read Greek, along with Latin. But even in academics the reception was less warm than he had hoped. With newspapers being the only input from the outside world, the professors and clergy were giants at a campus like Amherst. In 1890, professors’ salaries were $2,500, more than twenty times tuition. The step up from laborer to professor was immense, for the average wage earner in 1890 earned $425 a year. When a young Scottish American, Alexander Meiklejohn, just Coolidge’s age, began his first job as an assistant professor teaching philosophy at Brown, in 1897, he would receive a salary almost equivalent to that of his six brothers combined. A “prexy,” or university president, earned even more than the professors. The giants did not seem to pay much attention to Coolidge. They read lectures aloud; the first-year students’ work, just as at the academies, was to memorize, recite, or stay silent. Coolidge found his assignments both unsatisfying and tiring. There was a word, he learned, for a man who was left out without a fraternity: they called such a man an ouden, from the Greek for “nothing.” Some of the oudens at Amherst were oudens on principle: Harlan Stone, a year older, rejected fraternities as “a rather artificial way of forming friendships.” But most in the band of outsiders were never invited, boys too quiet or too much the hayseed to make the cut.
“I am in a pleasant place and like very much,” Calvin wrote to his father, John, on October 15 of his freshman year, in a kind of shorthand. “but suppose I shall like better as become better acquainted, I don’t seem to get acquainted very fast however.”
He was back where he had been at the beginning at Black River Academy: on the margin. There was nothing to do but press on and wait for Christmas. As he trudged around, Coolidge found that he often thought of home. In November, he wrote home to his grandmother, starting out bravely, “This term is almost done it is 11 weeks since I left home; I never was away as long before but to be gone one week is just about the same as 11 only a repetition of the same thing. We get very good advantages here for quite a broad education.” Shortly, though, he segued to that beloved topic of the homesick, food: “I suppose you will have the bed set out in the kitchen for me when I come to stay with you and I can have some coffee with cream in it I have not drunk a cup of coffee as I remember since I came here. . . . I don’t like their potatoes here.” When he went home at Christmas, he had not yet received his first grades. Amherst graded on a scale of 2 to 5. Calvin, perhaps suspecting that his grades would be far worse than 4 or 5, decided he did not want to go back to college. As much as his father would have liked him to stay home, he saw that school was worthwhile in Calvin’s case. There was also the principle of finishing what one started. His father sent him back.
Returning to Amherst in January 1892 was even harder than starting in September, perhaps harder even than sitting down to take the exams while he was sick in 1890. “I hate to think I must stay here 12 weeks before I can go home again,” he wrote to Plymouth Notch. “I think I must be very home-sick my hand trembles so I can’t write so any one can read it. It is just seven o’clock I wonder if you are most home there is some snow here but it has stopped snowing now.” His life seemed to be going in the wrong direction: “Each time I get home I hate to go away worse than before and I don’t feel so well here now.” The grades for the first semester were indeed disappointing 2s, just passing, which “seem pretty low don’t they?” as he wrote to his father January 14.
With no exit, though, he gradually pulled himself
If Coolidge could not be Greek, at least he could read Greek, along with Latin. But even in academics the reception was less warm than he had hoped. With newspapers being the only input from the outside world, the professors and clergy were giants at a campus like Amherst. In 1890, professors’ salaries were $2,500, more than twenty times tuition. The step up from laborer to professor was immense, for the average wage earner in 1890 earned $425 a year. When a young Scottish American, Alexander Meiklejohn, just Coolidge’s age, began his first job as an assistant professor teaching philosophy at Brown, in 1897, he would receive a salary almost equivalent to that of his six brothers combined. A “prexy,” or university president, earned even more than the professors. The giants did not seem to pay much attention to Coolidge. They read lectures aloud; the first-year students’ work, just as at the academies, was to memorize, recite, or stay silent. Coolidge found his assignments both unsatisfying and tiring. There was a word, he learned, for a man who was left out without a fraternity: they called such a man an ouden, from the Greek for “nothing.” Some of the oudens at Amherst were oudens on principle: Harlan Stone, a year older, rejected fraternities as “a rather artificial way of forming friendships.” But most in the band of outsiders were never invited, boys too quiet or too much the hayseed to make the cut.
“I am in a pleasant place and like very much,” Calvin wrote to his father, John, on October 15 of his freshman year, in a kind of shorthand. “but suppose I shall like better as become better acquainted, I don’t seem to get acquainted very fast however.”
He was back where he had been at the beginning at Black River Academy: on the margin. There was nothing to do but press on and wait for Christmas. As he trudged around, Coolidge found that he often thought of home. In November, he wrote home to his grandmother, starting out bravely, “This term is almost done it is 11 weeks since I left home; I never was away as long before but to be gone one week is just about the same as 11 only a repetition of the same thing. We get very good advantages here for quite a broad education.” Shortly, though, he segued to that beloved topic of the homesick, food: “I suppose you will have the bed set out in the kitchen for me when I come to stay with you and I can have some coffee with cream in it I have not drunk a cup of coffee as I remember since I came here. . . . I don’t like their potatoes here.” When he went home at Christmas, he had not yet received his first grades. Amherst graded on a scale of 2 to 5. Calvin, perhaps suspecting that his grades would be far worse than 4 or 5, decided he did not want to go back to college. As much as his father would have liked him to stay home, he saw that school was worthwhile in Calvin’s case. There was also the principle of finishing what one started. His father sent him back.
Returning to Amherst in January 1892 was even harder than starting in September, perhaps harder even than sitting down to take the exams while he was sick in 1890. “I hate to think I must stay here 12 weeks before I can go home again,” he wrote to Plymouth Notch. “I think I must be very home-sick my hand trembles so I can’t write so any one can read it. It is just seven o’clock I wonder if you are most home there is some snow here but it has stopped snowing now.” His life seemed to be going in the wrong direction: “Each time I get home I hate to go away worse than before and I don’t feel so well here now.” The grades for the first semester were indeed disappointing 2s, just passing, which “seem pretty low don’t they?” as he wrote to his father January 14.
With no exit, though, he gradually pulled himself
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