CALVIN COOLIDGE
When I decided to enter the law it was only natural, therefore, that I should consider it the highest of the professions. If I had not held that opinion it would have been a measure of intellectual dishonesty for me to take it for a life work. Others may be hampered by circumstances in making their choice, but I was free, and I went where I felt the duties would be congenial and the opportunities for service large. Those who follow other vocations ought to feel the same about them, and I hope they do.
My opinion had been formed by the high estimation in which the Bench and Bar were held by the people in my boyhood home in Vermont. It was confirmed by my more intimate intercourse with the members of the profession with whom I soon came in contact in Massachusetts after I went there to study law in the autumn of 1895. When I was admitted to practice two years later the law still occupied the high position of a profession. It had not then assumed any of its later aspects of a trade.
The ethics of the Northampton Bar were high. It was made up of men who had, and were entitled
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