Letter from C.Y. Sun, Tientsin, to Alfred E. Stearns, December 26, 1920
Dublin Core
Title
Letter from C.Y. Sun, Tientsin, to Alfred E. Stearns, December 26, 1920
Subject
Letter from C.Y. Sun, Tientsin, to Alfred E. Stearns, December 26, 1920
Transcription
My dear Dr. Stearns,
It is most gratifying to receive your kind favour of November the 5th and to note its contents. I appreciate deeply all the arrangements that you have made for all the children and especially so the admission of the three youngsters into your own home, —the very thing I cared most, as, their being admitted into a home like yours ensures good discipline which is an important part of their education. I am convinced that failures in life are always due to lack of religious home training during the so-called impressionable age of a youth.
I feel greatly pleased over the kind remarks that you have made about Arthur, but I am of the opinion that he still needs further Christian home training to ensure his characters being perfectly adjusted. I wonder if it is possible or not too much for me to ask you to try to put him into a real, good Christian home for at least a certain length of time so as to enable him to get acquainted with the American home ideals. However, I leave the question to your best judgement, should you consider it otherwise.
I thank you for your kind invitation for advice, I am sorry I have nothing to suggest any more than to say that I hope our children will be so trained and so educated as those best American Citizens that you turned out in the States. Besides, I don’t think one could give any advice after a reading of the introduction on page 16 of the report of Phillips Academy for 1919-1920 sent to me by Arthur. He also has been good enough to send me "The Phillips Bulletin” (Oct. 1920 issue). I read carefully and with interest your article entitled "Andover and China". Both writings represented to me a perfect knowledge of the Chinese youth and their mission to Phillips. A perusal of them leaves no room for any suggestion. Generally speaking, a Chinese youth should be taught especially the meaning as well as practice of the following ideals:
Punctuality
Frugality
Discipline
Self-sacrifice for a good cause
Self-respect, self-denial, self-control, self-defence
Respect for righteousness
Exactness.
As you are such a good, sympathic [sic] friend our younger generation, I venture to tell you the insufficiency in these virtures [sic] of our people. These faults have caused my nation being placed under an autocracy for the last centuries. We are now trying to get rid of it, and therefore it is absolutely essential to deroot these basis faults of the nation from our younger generation most vigoriously [sic].
I now wish to point out some of the short-comings of my children; first as regard to Arthur, I am afraid he needs to be exact in his habits; Charles is a very smart boy but his obstinate temperment [sic] requires treatment by explanations and persistant [sic] checking; Thomas is not so smart as the rest of the children but is a good hearted kid, his impulsiveness and sulkiness can easily be remedied by the application of the same method as I suggested for Charles. Mary is a very ambitious girl like her brothers, I think she will soon be more familiar with your family. She tells me she desires to learn violin besides other musical instruments.
Finally, I wish to thank you most heartily for your consent to accept the guardianship over my children; your interest in them is so vital and valuable not only to our family but also to our nation. We all appreciate the great task that you so kindly and generously undertake to educate our younger generation. For this we are always grateful.
Yours respectfully,
It is most gratifying to receive your kind favour of November the 5th and to note its contents. I appreciate deeply all the arrangements that you have made for all the children and especially so the admission of the three youngsters into your own home, —the very thing I cared most, as, their being admitted into a home like yours ensures good discipline which is an important part of their education. I am convinced that failures in life are always due to lack of religious home training during the so-called impressionable age of a youth.
I feel greatly pleased over the kind remarks that you have made about Arthur, but I am of the opinion that he still needs further Christian home training to ensure his characters being perfectly adjusted. I wonder if it is possible or not too much for me to ask you to try to put him into a real, good Christian home for at least a certain length of time so as to enable him to get acquainted with the American home ideals. However, I leave the question to your best judgement, should you consider it otherwise.
I thank you for your kind invitation for advice, I am sorry I have nothing to suggest any more than to say that I hope our children will be so trained and so educated as those best American Citizens that you turned out in the States. Besides, I don’t think one could give any advice after a reading of the introduction on page 16 of the report of Phillips Academy for 1919-1920 sent to me by Arthur. He also has been good enough to send me "The Phillips Bulletin” (Oct. 1920 issue). I read carefully and with interest your article entitled "Andover and China". Both writings represented to me a perfect knowledge of the Chinese youth and their mission to Phillips. A perusal of them leaves no room for any suggestion. Generally speaking, a Chinese youth should be taught especially the meaning as well as practice of the following ideals:
Punctuality
Frugality
Discipline
Self-sacrifice for a good cause
Self-respect, self-denial, self-control, self-defence
Respect for righteousness
Exactness.
As you are such a good, sympathic [sic] friend our younger generation, I venture to tell you the insufficiency in these virtures [sic] of our people. These faults have caused my nation being placed under an autocracy for the last centuries. We are now trying to get rid of it, and therefore it is absolutely essential to deroot these basis faults of the nation from our younger generation most vigoriously [sic].
I now wish to point out some of the short-comings of my children; first as regard to Arthur, I am afraid he needs to be exact in his habits; Charles is a very smart boy but his obstinate temperment [sic] requires treatment by explanations and persistant [sic] checking; Thomas is not so smart as the rest of the children but is a good hearted kid, his impulsiveness and sulkiness can easily be remedied by the application of the same method as I suggested for Charles. Mary is a very ambitious girl like her brothers, I think she will soon be more familiar with your family. She tells me she desires to learn violin besides other musical instruments.
Finally, I wish to thank you most heartily for your consent to accept the guardianship over my children; your interest in them is so vital and valuable not only to our family but also to our nation. We all appreciate the great task that you so kindly and generously undertake to educate our younger generation. For this we are always grateful.
Yours respectfully,
Creator
C.Y. Sun
Publisher
Phillips Academy
Date
December 26, 1920
Rights
All Rights Reserved by Phillips Academy
Language
English
Type
Correspondence