Date: May 21, 1895
Context: Coolidge writes of his preparations for delivering the Grove Oration.
My Dear Father:-
My Grandmother wrote to me to day that Mother had gone to Proctor so I suppose she did not get the card I sent.
I thought you might be some lonesome so I write to you.
You see I am on the Hyde fifteen. Everyone in the senior class has the opportunity to compete. Orations are written and handed in at the first of the term then they are sent to New York to the judges who select the fifteen best ones and these are delivered and the best six compete for the prize at commencement. I wrote my own oration and helped another man, very considerable on his and we both got on. Another man wrote two for himself and they both went on so the sixteenth oration has one place in the fifteen. So that would make it that there may be twelve better oration writers in the Senior class than I am. You called my attention very carefully to how much the Dartmouth book agent was doing on his vacation and he was doing even better than you thought, so I have taken pains to explain what I was doing for perhaps you did not see that so plainly and I was sure you would like to know. I wrote most of my oration at home during my vacation. I do not probably stand any show of making the six so all I shall accomplish is done now. Besides the six speak Tuesday evening and the Grove comes in the afternoon.
I won a debate today from the man I beat for the Grove oration.
I am sorry you are not well and hope you will soon be better.
The term goes very quickly.
Ex Pres. Seeley died last week. He was a great man. Only a few men are great enough to comprehend his greatness. You can find a description of what he was before convertion after convertion and finally after death in Corinthians I chapter 13, the description of a Christian gentleman. And he got his greatness by discipline in Amherst, in the professional school and by a course of study in Philosophy and Theology in Germany. He had been in congress and had a National reputation. He was known too in Europe and in India where he had been called to lecture. Where men love the truth his name is cherished. In philosophy he taught that there never was a man nor a nation that educated himself and never could be. If that is so, and nothing can be clearer, is it not worth everything to be under competent teachers, can any man afford to lose any opportunity for the best discipline that he can possibly get who is to stand for a moment in the competition of the twentieth century? You may forget and neglect the laws of gravitation but they will never forget you and you will go [to] the bottom. And the same is true of mind, of human nature, isn’t it worth everything to know these laws, be disciplined to always use them, to serve law and thus have power to rule?
With love
J. Calvin Coolidge
Citation: Your Son, Calvin Coolidge
View the original document
The Coolidge Foundation thanks Marisol Balderas, who prepared this document for digital publication