Page:The Autobiography Of Calvin Coolidge.djvu/92

tion had awarded me the prize of a gold medal worth about one hundred and fifty dollars for writing the best essay on "The Principles Fought for in the American Revolution,” in a competition open to the seniors of all the colleges of the nation. The notice came one day, and it was announced in the next morning papers, where Judge Field saw it before I had a chance to tell him. So when he came to the office he asked me about it. I had not had time to send the news home. And then I had a little vanity in wishing my father to learn of it first from the press, which he did. He had questioned some whether I was really making anything of my education, in pretense I now think, not because he doubted it but because he wished to impress me with the desirability of demonstrating it.

But my main effort in those days was to learn the law. The Superior Court had three civil and two criminal terms each year in Northampton. Whenever it was sitting I spent all my time in the court room. In this way I became familiar with the practical side of trial work, I soon came to see that the counsel who knew the law were the ones who held