ABSTRACT
In 1874 young Thorstein Veblen first learned that he was to leave home when a buggy stopped near the field where he was working, and one of the farmhands came to fetch him. His luggage was in the buggy, and he was not told his destination until he arrived at Carleton Preparatory School. The majority of the institutions of the day were strictly religious. Victorian educational institutions were limited in scope and had their drawbacks. Still, Carleton was a most unusual college for the 1870s and 1880s, because it was coeducational. At Carleton the sexes were rigidly separated; nevertheless, on the few occasions of minimum mingling, Thorstein and one Ellen Rolfe, not a tractable girl, were usually seen whispering together in a comer. Although Thorstein's wry comments attracted Ellen, her rebellion had taken a divergent path. Thorstein asked her to marry him when he was eighteen years old and she was sixteen, and she refused.
