65 10 3636 https://chinesestudents.andover.edu/files/original/8a9fa450c2be471fb668ce249496f3a6.jpg 2804444e441b8756a283c29ea74f17d4 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 30 Sun Siblings 1929, Head of School (Stearns) Records Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Letter from Alfred E. Stearns to Sao K. Alfred Sze, London December 26, 1929 Subject The topic of the resource Letter from Alfred E. Stearns to Sao K. Alfred Sze, London December 26, 1929 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Alfred E. Stearns Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Phillips Academy Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource December 26, 1929 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource All Rights Reserved by Phillips Academy Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Correspondence Relation A related resource December 26, 1929 Dear Doctor Sze: Thank you for your letter of December 4, advising me of Charlie Sun's arrival and your receipt of my letter of November 14. Charlie has already written me several times, and I judge from the tone of his letters that he has been passing through the natural period of homesickness and distress associated with readjustments to new conditions and the making of new contacts with strangers. I am glad to feel that a good friend like you is standing by to help him in this process. It will be wholly unsatisfactory to me to have Mrs. Sze bring the jade to New York with her when she makes the trip later. My own son is located in New York now and I can easily arrange to have him meet her if desired on her arrival. Wishing you and yours the happiest of New Years, and with kind personal regards, believe me Very sincerely yours, Dr. Alfred E. Stearns Sao Ke Alfred Sze https://chinesestudents.andover.edu/files/original/b16d05c10ba6dfc1fe61d7f70f0c4883.jpg 9e701d1a5ab11ecf90b4bf291cc36d0e https://chinesestudents.andover.edu/files/original/afa98d5c7b45ae8c38f28fe41549d765.jpg d1bbe04ab09dcb15e58a0378cda6fb2f Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 30 Sun Siblings 1929, Head of School (Stearns) Records Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Letter from Alfred E. Stearns to Charles Sun, London December 26, 1929 Subject The topic of the resource Letter from Alfred E. Stearns to Charles Sun, London December 26, 1929 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Alfred E. Stearns Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Phillips Academy Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource December 26, 1929 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource All Rights Reserved by Phillips Academy Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Correspondence Relation A related resource December 26, 1929 Dear Charlie: I have read with a good deal of interest and some amusement and lots of sympathy your good letter of December 12. It is mighty nice of you to keep me so thoroughly posted as to your new surroundings and prospects and feelings. Don't get over-pessimistic, however, at the start. As you become adjusted to the new surroundings, the colder houses, and the English diet, to say nothing of the weather. I really believe that the outlook will brighten up. Every one who goes to England for the first time is pretty sure to have an experience and reactions similar to yours. Miss Clemons I know will be delighted to look you up if she goes to London. Further, I am sure that Marjorie would be more than pleased to have a chance to see you, and as she occasionally goes to London, I imagine that you ought to be able to get together some time. Tom was here two or three days ago and had lunch with me. He is about as distressed over his immediate future as you are over yours, for he feels that his father's wish to have him study for a degree is not going to get him very far, and he is further convinced that it is going to be terribly difficult for him to go back to China and swing into the old ways. Tom seems to have done remarkably well at Middlebury and has earned the high regard of students, faculty, and townspeople alike. His development has been a source of real satisfaction to me, for as you know, it took him a good while to get really started. I am delighted to know that Dr. Sze shares my own feelings about your father's desire to have you get another degree. [Illegible] degrees, which in themselves, at least, mean so little. What you accomplish and what you are yourself are the things that count in live [sic] and not the degrees that you happen to be able to tack on to your name. I do wish your father could appreciate this, for I am sure that more than one Chinese student who has come to this country and been forced to work for a degree and hence look on it with undue reverence has been actually injured in the process and far less able to do his real job in the world as a result. I know it is going to be difficult to make your father realize all this, but I am going to try my best to put the situation to him tactfully and beg him to let you do something more worth while. If Dr. Sze is willing to cooperate to the extent of writing your father in the same vein, I am sure it would help mightily. Naturally I do not expect too much from anything I may say, for I doubt if your father has fully forgiven me yet for urging him to allow Mary to give up her college course, which in her case was little more than a farce, and to take up the nursing in which she is naturally so efficient and in which also she is evidently finding keen delight. Certainly if you are to do a real job in London, you can't be expected to find the time and strength to invest on the outside in the hunt for a degree. That, at least, year father should realize. So keep up your courage and take care of your health. We will work this thing out, and right, in the end if we stick to it and be patient. Wishing you an increasingly happy and prosperous New Year, and with warm personal regards, believe me Very faithfully yours, Charles Sun Dr. Alfred E. Stearns https://chinesestudents.andover.edu/files/original/1154cf3a0c6732e153e9b3039c00f338.jpg 68e8a6e1ffaabd990c3ebcd8b3643ebf https://chinesestudents.andover.edu/files/original/ab68c8e5e93659e90767733cb3dd6a4d.jpg 269b057e0be8563b1ced33429ba1a0f9 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 30 Sun Siblings 1929, Head of School (Stearns) Records Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Letter from Alfred E. Stearns to Charles Sun, London December 16, 1929 Subject The topic of the resource Letter from Alfred E. Stearns to Charles Sun, London December 16, 1929 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Alfred E. Stearns Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Phillips Academy Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource December 16, 1929 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource All Rights Reserved by Phillips Academy Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Correspondence Relation A related resource Dear Charlie: Your good letter of December 2 has duly reached me and I am hoping that long before it arrived my earlier letter enclosing a draft for thirty-five hundred dollars has reached you. As I explained in that note, this amount represents within a few dollars the total surplus standing to your account and in my hands, and was forwarded to you at your father's request. From now on I take it that it will not be necessary for you to report your expenditures to me, as your father seems to share my own feelings that you are amply able now to manage your own affairs. I hope, though, that this does not mean that my contacts with you are going to be any less intimate. In that case I shall be the real loser. Of course you will find things very different there from what you have known them in America. On the other hand, there should be much of interest to you and contacts with new people and the necessity of adopting new ways are broadening influences in themselves. I am sorry, though, that you do not find more congenial companions among your Chinese colleagues there, for it would make it much easier for you to break into the new life if you had some good friends among your own countrymen. Miss Clemons wrote me some time ago that she had received a letter from you and was hoping very much to look you up when she was next in England. She has been planning to join Marjorie there around Christmas time so that no doubt you will hear from her soon if you have not heard already. I was out in Amherst last Sunday for my annual engagement at the Agricultural College in the morning and at Amherst College in the late afternoon. The old Andover boys, or at least a good number of them, came up after the service and we had a nice little visit together until the organ recital put it to an end. Mr. Allis's son is here and singing in our choir so that Amherst contacts are pretty good this year. In about an hour I am leaving for New York to attend a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Amherst trustees, so you see altogether Amherst has held quite a place in my thought and schedule for the past few days. But I did miss seeing you up in the old town last week, and I shall continue to do so as I return there from time to time. Do keep me posted on all your activities. This is the closing week of the fall term and hence an extra busy one, so I won't attempt to lengthen this letter. It carries with it, however, the old time and friendliest good will and every best wish for a Merry Christmas and a truly happy and worth while New Year. Every sincerely yours, Charles Sun Dr. Alfred E. Stearns https://chinesestudents.andover.edu/files/original/c0ef211f7674424e263a34352d0fb711.jpg 81ca0e019e78c4129b27bc9434ba0d76 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 30 Sun Siblings 1929, Head of School (Stearns) Records Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Letter from Alfred E. Stearns to Thomas Sun, Middlebury College December 12, 1929 Subject The topic of the resource Letter from Alfred E. Stearns to Thomas Sun, Middlebury College December 12, 1929 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Alfred E. Stearns Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Phillips Academy Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource December 12, 1929 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource All Rights Reserved by Phillips Academy Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Correspondence Relation A related resource Dear Tom: I have your note of December 11. School closes on Thursday, the 19th, and it regularly takes me the rest of the week to clear up my term letters; so that I think that you can pretty safely count on finding me there on Saturday morning, the 21st. I am mighty glad that you and Mary are going to get together during the holidays. Faithfully yours, Dr. Alfred E. Stearns Thomas Sun https://chinesestudents.andover.edu/files/original/13cba898d3f81c34df62d5e8757f09f3.jpg c0220064d6875087aab2a5377bedfa7b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 30 Sun Siblings 1929, Head of School (Stearns) Records Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Letter from Alfred E. Stearns to Mary Sun, New Haven, Conn. December 9, 1929 Subject The topic of the resource Letter from Alfred E. Stearns to Mary Sun, New Haven, Conn. December 9, 1929 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Alfred E. Stearns Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Phillips Academy Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource December 9, 1929 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource All Rights Reserved by Phillips Academy Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Correspondence Relation A related resource Dear Mary: Thanks for your last letter. It is good hear from you after these many weeks of silence and to know that you are so happy and making such good progress in your work. Your letters have certainly a far better ring than those which used to come from Elmira. I am enclosing a check for three hundred dollars as requested. Kindly send me the statement, though, for I would like to look it over and have it for your father's file. I suppose you know that Charlie has landed safely in London. I had a letter from him while he was on the sea and another longer one written after he had arrived at his destination. I don't think he is over-happy at the prospects just ahead of him, but I am hopeful that things will brighten as he becomes more used to his surroundings and has had a chance to make friends. With all best wishes, believe me Faithfully yours, Dr. Alfred E. Stearns Mary Sun https://chinesestudents.andover.edu/files/original/e5309635f03d5c6eaa7aac44304a8889.jpg 7f4e3bcdd3a475098fa81b14553a5504 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 30 Sun Siblings 1929, Head of School (Stearns) Records Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Letter from Alfred E. Stearns to Thomas Sun, Middlebury College December 6, 1929 Subject The topic of the resource Letter from Alfred E. Stearns to Thomas Sun, Middlebury College December 6, 1929 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Alfred E. Stearns Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Phillips Academy Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource December 6, 1929 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource All Rights Reserved by Phillips Academy Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Correspondence Relation A related resource Dear Tom: I have your letter of December 4 with a statement of your expenses to date. Herewith find enclosed a check for five hundred fifty dollars ($550.00) for your further college expense. Please sign and return the accompanying receipt. I realize that you have had extra expenses this year, though I am at a loss to understand how a college coach can justify his encouragement of extra if not perhaps unnecessary expenses for the members of his squad in connection with their football trips. There is bound to be added expenses for a boy on the football squad, I suppose, but certainly no coach has a right to add unnecessarily to this burden, which is a real burden to some boys. However, that water is already over the dam, so I won't discuss the matter further. On the whole, I think you have done pretty well with your expenses, though I note that they have been running somewhat higher than those incurred by Charlie at Amherst. Indeed, at your father's request, I have just sent Charlie in London a draft covering his balance, which amounts to a bit over thirty-five hundred dollars. Yours is very much less than that, as you will note from the statement recently sent you. So do be careful, for I hate to have to report to your father any very noticeable differences in the amounts that you boys are spending, and it naturally seems as if living at Middlebury ought to be if anything a bit cheaper than Amherst. I don't know what your father plans for your further study in this country, but I shall be only too glad to talk the matter over with you at your convenience and discuss with you all the pros and cons. Frankly, I don't see why you could not secure the German and French, if that is what your father wishes, about as well at Middlebury as at Harvard. This should certainly be true in the case of the French, which Middlebury has always emphasized. Anyway, let's talk the whole thing over when you can get down here. Let me know in advance, though, when you plan to make the trip so that we may be sure to hit a date when I am to be here. With all best wishes, believe me Faithfully yours, Dr. Alfred E. Stearns Thomas Sun https://chinesestudents.andover.edu/files/original/fc95fbae5c470c614bd55436f2603861.jpg 7d734531e540c0391dd7b5df6adb6fea https://chinesestudents.andover.edu/files/original/849fc670c0467af139077324cfcdbe7a.jpg 7eef7dd5be0fafb464b8dad765ea8d74 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 30 Sun Siblings 1929, Head of School (Stearns) Records Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Letter from Alfred E. Stearns to Charles Sun, London December 5, 1929 Subject The topic of the resource Letter from Alfred E. Stearns to Charles Sun, London December 5, 1929 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Alfred E. Stearns Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Phillips Academy Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource December 5, 1929 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource All Rights Reserved by Phillips Academy Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Correspondence Relation A related resource December 5, 1929 Dear Charlie: Thank you for your frank and friendly letter of November 23 which reached me this morning and which I have read with the keenest interest. Naturally I should expect you to be a bit homesick, if not actually a bit bewildered for a few weeks after your arrival in a new country and with a new job on your hands. Don't form final judgments, therefore, until you have become better acquainted with your surroundings and more fully adjusted to the new conditions. Once this has happened, I am sure we can bet down to rock bottom in our discussions and know just where we stand. At present I should feel a bit hesitant to advise you too strongly in one way or the other in connection with your problems, for it is my judgement that these problems will take on somewhat definite shape and hue with the passing of those early days in England. On the other hand, I am perfectly frank to admit that your attitude towards a college advanced degree -- per se -- is one with which I sympathize to the full. I will go further and say that in my judgment there is a sadly mistaken idea prevalent among a great many of your Chinese friends of the older generation that the securing of college degrees by their children represents something of unique and necessary value in itself and hence is to be eagerly sought. I have noticed this frequently and must admit that I am greatly troubled by it. In this respect, your father only shares an apparently prevalent feeling among his countrymen and so should not be blamed. I am sure, however, that this has been his feeling about Mary, and I doubt very much whether he has ever fully accepted my point of view that a college degree for Mary, who thoroughly disliked the college work and who had no natural ability for this sort of thing, would have been of little if any value, if not indeed harmful. Mary is happy now, and I am sure she is going to be able to give a lot more to the world as a result of her present training than she could possibly have done from mere possession of a college degree. I mention this, not for a minute for the purpose of taking a position hostile to that of your father or which criticizes in any but the friendliest way his point of view. I am simply taking illustrations which are intimately known to me personally to justify my general contention which relates to the Chinese point of view as a whole rather than to that of any individual. So just steady down for two or three weeks and see how things shape up for you. If at the end of that time you still feel as you do now, just let me know and I shall be ready and glad to write your father frankly and fully about the problem, giving him my own point of view, and explaining why I feel as I do. In the meantime, I am assuming that what we have written each other on this very personal matter will be regarded by us both as confidential. I want you always to feel that you can come to me with the utmost freedom with your problems and perplexities, and to the very best of my ability, limited though that ability may be, I shall deem it a privilege and a source of real pleasure to be able to help you. With every best wish for the days and work ahead, and the hope that you will give me the privilege through the medium of your letters of following along with you in your new life and interests, believe me Ever sincerely yours, Charles Sun Dr. Alfred E. Stearns https://chinesestudents.andover.edu/files/original/62c56f62b8867a0af05ec8b166aaf0a0.jpg 5dcda06faec8f4ecb6882d55e431b1f6 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 30 Sun Siblings 1929, Head of School (Stearns) Records Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Letter from Alfred E. Stearns to Charles Sun, c/o Sao K. Alfred Sze, Chinese Legation, London December 4, 1929 Subject The topic of the resource Letter from Alfred E. Stearns to Charles Sun, c/o Sao K. Alfred Sze, Chinese Legation, London December 4, 1929 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Alfred E. Stearns Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Phillips Academy Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource December 4, 1929 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource All Rights Reserved by Phillips Academy Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Correspondence Relation A related resource Dear Charlie: At your father's request I am enclosing herewith a draft for thirty-five hundred dollars ($3500.00), representing approximately your credit balance on your account with me. Your father evidently feels that you should have this money now to handle for yourself, and I am only too glad to comply with his request, I am sure that you are perfectly competent to take care of your financial affairs and in a way which your father will fully approve. I am sending the money in dollars rather than pounds as our local bank feels that you will probably get more out of it in this way on account of the present high rate of exchange for sterling. Please acknowledge receipt, so that I may be sure that the check has not miscarried, and believe me, with constant good will and the best of wishes, Ever faithfully yours, Charles Sun Dr. Alfred E. Stearns https://chinesestudents.andover.edu/files/original/4c9c49e0c8dff62130b0e6639e2115a0.jpg b9bfbc8568ddff99fe6031565fdfcbe6 https://chinesestudents.andover.edu/files/original/b09921ec563201185f4c46a055d986fb.jpg 08437b5afe18277adb417b538f5d2cfa https://chinesestudents.andover.edu/files/original/db8f16f34ec2ebf90e21378dbf057110.jpg a6292f7129efc9ccdf99b528f785df64 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 30 Sun Siblings 1929, Head of School (Stearns) Records Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Letter from Alfred E. Stearns to C.Y. Sun, Tientsin December 27, 1929 Subject The topic of the resource Letter from Alfred E. Stearns to C.Y. Sun, Tientsin December 27, 1929 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Alfred E. Stearns Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Phillips Academy Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource December 27, 1929 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource All Rights Reserved by Phillips Academy Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Correspondence Relation A related resource My dear Mr. Sun: First let me thank you and most warmly for your generous Christmas gifts. Mary sent me the embroidered hangings and Tom forwarded from Middlebury the small silver plates and the carved piece. The exact nature of the last I regret to say I am not able to determine, for the bottom piece had been broken completely off in transit and whatever was inserted in the semi-circular arms at the top had entirely disappeared. I am writing Tom to find out if I can whether these losses occurred after the box left him or some where earlier transit. If the former, it is just possible that I may be able to secure some restitution from the express company, though I am rather doubtful about it. Nonetheless, I am just as appreciative of and just as grateful for your exceptionally generous thought, so please don't allow the fact that the goods were damaged to worry you for a moment. You have already done far more than was necessary or expected by way of showing your appreciation of what little I have tried to do for your children. The deepest satisfaction that has come to me from the whole process has been the evidences that have been steadily increasing in recent years of the development in the youngsters, if I may still call them that, of poise and character and purpose that seemingly have more than justified your investments in their behalf and in realizing more fully as the days go on your hopes and ambitions for them. In this connection, I do wish that I could just sit down with you and discuss frankly face to face some of the questions that are now confronting us in connection with the further education of the children, Charlie and Tom especially. I have recently talked with both of them, and Charlie has written me several letters since he reached the Legation in London. Both of the boys have been developing remarkably well in my judgment. I always expected as much from Charlie, but was a little puzzled at first about Tom, as it seemed to take him longer to find his footing and develop a serious purpose. His record at Middlebury, however, has been one of steady gain, and in a talk I had with him only a few days ago when he came out and had lunch with me, I was more than ever impressed with the boy’s increased maturity, judgment, and his sensible viewpoints on many of his problem. Just at present I am truly worried about Charlie. The boy is naturally homesick, and we must make reasonable allowance for that. On the other hand, even before he left this country, he was inclined to be a bit morose and discouraged, a tendency which seems to have been growing on him and to regard his future with anxiety, if not actual apprehension. We cannot afford to allow the boy to continue in this mood, which in a more active stage would mean the definite undermining of his future development, if not actually something more dangerous. Charlie has so much ability and such fine traits of character that we must guard against the possibility of placing him in a position where these cannot have their fullest and finest play. Just at the moment the boy is thoroughly disheartened at the prospect of having to work for a degree of some kind outside of and in addition to his duties at the Legation. Charlie himself feels that the combination is altogether too much for him to handle satisfactorily. Personally, I cannot help feeling that he is probably right. Nor can he appreciate just what value is to attach to the added decree even if he were to get it. Neither can I. Frankly, I'm convinced that most of the Chinese boys who have come to this country and have pursued that intellectual will-o-the-wisp termed a degree for the sake of the degree alone - and scores of them have done this - have been far more injured than benefited in the process. A good many of us here in America are coming to look with increasing suspicion on some of the degrees sought for and frequently secured by our own students. I myself, and the same may be said of most of my headmaster friends in our our beet American boarding schools are far less likely to take a man on to our teaching force who has done special work for a degree than we are one who has not. In other words, this specialized study has generally lessened the ability of the individual to do the high and broad grade of work that we desire. I have found from my many years’ experience in dealing with these Chinese boys and their parents that my good friends in China seen to have, from point of view, a distorted and altogether too exalted a view of the value of a degree in itself, and I have not hesitated to argue with them on this proposition and to state frankly my opinion. I should not be a good friend if I did otherwise, and it is only because I wish to play the part of an absolute friend with you and your children that I am venturing to speak with such frankness now. Whatever work Charlie, or Tom either, for that matter, can do to strengthen his knowledge and broaden his viewpoints, with special reference to the kind of work which he is going to do in later life, the better for them. If a degree come naturally in this process, there is little to criticize, but the work and development are the main thing and not the degree, and I am perfectly sure that those who are eventually to lead China out of her present chaotic condition and to help put her in her proper and deserved place as a nation are not going to be those who have labored primarily for degrees in foreign institutions. The foreign training, the foreign contacts ought to prove tremendous assets to the Chinese leaders of the coming generation. Degrees in themselves will mean nothing. I may have interpreted absolutely wrongly your attitude towards and ambitions for the boys. If so, you will pardon I know this unnecessary and perhaps uncalled for expression of opinion on my part. I could hardly have a less sincere and deep interest in their development, however, if they were my own sons, for they have been, as it were, a part of my family circle now for a good many years and I am tremendously interested in them and in their future. I wish it might be possible for them to take a little breathing space in the American education in the shape of a vacation trip home, even though the visit might necessarily be very limited in time, and talk over with you in person their problems and future plans. If that is not practicable, we will try our best to work them out over here. Please understand always that my suggestions are suggestions only and that I am always ready to carry out so far as I can your instructions and to help you realize your ambitions. These necessarily take precedence over any of my own and that fact I clearly understand. Knowing your general ambition for the children, however, I cannot help wondering at times whether the best procedure is being adopted for the attainment of the high goal which you hold for them. It is only that questioning which justifies me in offering anything savoring of suggestion or advice. Trusting that you will fully appreciate the spirit which prompts me to write with such great frankness. and that you will not label me an intruder because I have done so, and with heartiest New Year's greetings and good wishes to you and yours, believe me Very sincerely yours, C.Y.Sun Dr. Alfred E. Stearns https://chinesestudents.andover.edu/files/original/59944c532bc20e5fe8dd575bd24be252.jpg 3c0546c10a8ac0da572f3cc5dcaf0887 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 30 Sun Siblings 1929, Head of School (Stearns) Records Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Letter from Alfred E. Stearns to C.Y. Sun, Tientsin December 2, 1929 Subject The topic of the resource Letter from Alfred E. Stearns to C.Y. Sun, Tientsin December 2, 1929 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Alfred E. Stearns Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Phillips Academy Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource December 2, 1929 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource All Rights Reserved by Phillips Academy Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Correspondence Relation A related resource My dear Mr. Sun: I have just received your letter of November 6 and note your request in regard to additional funds for Charlie. As Charlie has already sailed for England, and indeed is now doubtless in London, I will see that a draft on London is forwarded to him covering the balance of his account to date. In addition to the necessary passage money, I had already given Charlie a sum that would enable him to meet early and needed expenses in his new environment. The exact balance remaining, I cannot state at the moment, as my account books are at my house and I am writing from my office. I will send you a memorandum later, however, indicating the amount transferred to Charlie in accordance with your instructions. With kindest regards and the greetings of the Christmas season, believe me Very sincerely yours, C.Y.Sun Dr. Alfred E. Stearns