Letter from Alfred E. Stearns to Mary Sun, Cornell University, July 8, 1927
Dublin Core
Title
Letter from Alfred E. Stearns to Mary Sun, Cornell University, July 8, 1927
Subject
Letter from Alfred E. Stearns to Mary Sun, Cornell University, July 8, 1927
Transcription
My dear Mary:
I have just received a most distressing letter from the Dean of Elmira College. Miss Harris, who tells me that she is writing you in the endeavor to stir your pride and induce you to apply yourself as you should to your college work. She tells me further that you would have been dismissed from the college this spring if you had not been a foreigner, and she adds that your whole trouble rises from your social inclination and the fact that you waste your time deplorably.
Just why this information was not sent me long ago, I don't know. I am protesting that I should have been kept more fully and promptly advised of your situation and that in the future I shall expect that this will be done. On the other hand, this doesn't in any way release you from the responsibility that properly rests on you to make better use of your time from now on, to eliminate whatever social activities are interfering with your work, and to save yourself from the possibility even of the lasting disgrace that would be brought on you and your family if you were to be dismissed from college because of your unwillingness to do the work required of you. I can't believe that you would openly court a disaster such as this, knowing what it would mean to you as well as to your home, and I am hoping that the hard work you will do this summer will, in part at least, offset the losses of the past year and enable you to take up your work at Elmira next fall in an utterly changed frame of mind and with that vigor of which I know you are perfectly capable.
Very sincerely yours,
AES/G
I have just received a most distressing letter from the Dean of Elmira College. Miss Harris, who tells me that she is writing you in the endeavor to stir your pride and induce you to apply yourself as you should to your college work. She tells me further that you would have been dismissed from the college this spring if you had not been a foreigner, and she adds that your whole trouble rises from your social inclination and the fact that you waste your time deplorably.
Just why this information was not sent me long ago, I don't know. I am protesting that I should have been kept more fully and promptly advised of your situation and that in the future I shall expect that this will be done. On the other hand, this doesn't in any way release you from the responsibility that properly rests on you to make better use of your time from now on, to eliminate whatever social activities are interfering with your work, and to save yourself from the possibility even of the lasting disgrace that would be brought on you and your family if you were to be dismissed from college because of your unwillingness to do the work required of you. I can't believe that you would openly court a disaster such as this, knowing what it would mean to you as well as to your home, and I am hoping that the hard work you will do this summer will, in part at least, offset the losses of the past year and enable you to take up your work at Elmira next fall in an utterly changed frame of mind and with that vigor of which I know you are perfectly capable.
Very sincerely yours,
AES/G
Creator
Alfred E. Stearns
Publisher
Phillips Academy
Date
July 8, 1927
Rights
All Rights Reserved by Phillips Academy
Language
English
Type
Correspondence