St. Johnsbury Academy just proudly reported that Academy math students earned the highest cumulative score in the annual New England Mathematics League Contest. Few know that Coolidge actually attended St. Johnsbury, if only for a few weeks. The future president was there for a short prep course that helped him to gain admission to the college of his choice, Amherst College in Massachusetts.

Coolidge honored teachers, and often supported pay raises for them. In 1919, the same year that he opposed a public-sector police union, Coolidge wrote from Boston to the mayor of Northampton that he was concerned about teachers’ compensation: “It has become notorious that the pay for this most important function is much less than that which prevails in commercial life and business activities.”