Letter from Alfred E. Stearns to Emma Hillard (Mrs. Daniel B.) Nye, South Weymouth, Mass., December 31, 1929
Dublin Core
Title
Letter from Alfred E. Stearns to Emma Hillard (Mrs. Daniel B.) Nye, South Weymouth, Mass., December 31, 1929
Subject
Letter from Alfred E. Stearns to Emma Hillard (Mrs. Daniel B.) Nye, South Weymouth, Mass., December 31, 1929
Transcription
Dear Mrs. Nye:
Thank you for your letter just received.
I am delighted to hear that Mr. Tsai is to allow Helen and Alfred to go back home this coming summer. It will mean a lot to them, I have no doubt. Just at present I am having some rather distressing interviews by letter and in person with the three Sun children, who are still in this country completing their ninth year away from home, and whose father seems determined to have them stay [illegible] longer. I say in this country, though that is not quite true, for Charlie has recently joined the Legation in London, though for how long is any one's guess. Mr. Sun, Sr., is obsessed with the notion so common among Chinese of his class that an American advanced degree, regardless of what the degree stands for, is going to prove an open sesame socially, politically, and intellectually to those who return with it to their homeland.
What you write of Mr. and Mrs. Tsai is immensely interesting and a bit amusing if it did not have a tragic element in it too. When Mr. Stimson, the present Secretary of State, when out to take charge of his Philippine job a couple of years ago, I gave him a letter of introduction to Mr. Tsai, whom he finally located in the Rockefeller Hospital in Peking under "treatment" for the same political illness which seems to have overtaken both him and his good wife lately. I don't see how any native Chinese with a reasonable amount of intelligence and vision, especially if he happens to have a little wealth besides, can negotiate life's path these days without going crazy.
With every best wish for the New Year, believe me
Very sincerely yours,
Thank you for your letter just received.
I am delighted to hear that Mr. Tsai is to allow Helen and Alfred to go back home this coming summer. It will mean a lot to them, I have no doubt. Just at present I am having some rather distressing interviews by letter and in person with the three Sun children, who are still in this country completing their ninth year away from home, and whose father seems determined to have them stay [illegible] longer. I say in this country, though that is not quite true, for Charlie has recently joined the Legation in London, though for how long is any one's guess. Mr. Sun, Sr., is obsessed with the notion so common among Chinese of his class that an American advanced degree, regardless of what the degree stands for, is going to prove an open sesame socially, politically, and intellectually to those who return with it to their homeland.
What you write of Mr. and Mrs. Tsai is immensely interesting and a bit amusing if it did not have a tragic element in it too. When Mr. Stimson, the present Secretary of State, when out to take charge of his Philippine job a couple of years ago, I gave him a letter of introduction to Mr. Tsai, whom he finally located in the Rockefeller Hospital in Peking under "treatment" for the same political illness which seems to have overtaken both him and his good wife lately. I don't see how any native Chinese with a reasonable amount of intelligence and vision, especially if he happens to have a little wealth besides, can negotiate life's path these days without going crazy.
With every best wish for the New Year, believe me
Very sincerely yours,
Creator
Alfred E. Stearns
Publisher
Phillips Academy
Date
December 31, 1929
Rights
All Rights Reserved By Phillips Academy
Language
English
Type
Correspondence