File:M. J. Sherman to Alice Mary Longfellow, 26 February 1889 (d06bbcee-c176-4562-8acb-c42135e58171).jpg

Manuscript letter

Archives Number: 1007.001/002.003-001#033

[printed letterhead: Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute]
Hampton, Va, February 26, 1889.
Dear Miss Longfellow, -
I send you to-day a letter from Rebecca Jones, the colored girl whom you have so kindly aided.
Rebecca is a good, quiet girl, not so bright a scholar as some, but apparently earnest in her work. She will probably have to spend another term of her Junior studies before she is qualified to enter the Middle studies. Lelia did not return. If I remember rightly she was unfortunate in not securing a school last year, but is teaching now.
Thanking you for your interest in Hampton, I am
Very truly yours,
M. J. Sherman
[verso, printed letter:]
To Contributors of Scholarship Gifts of Seventy Dollars, already made or hoped for.
Please find enclosed a letter of acknowledgment, original and uncorrected, from a student who has been assigned this year as your beneficiary, and who writes to express her [handwritten word on blank] appreciation, and to give some account of herself [handwritten word on blank]. While free tuition is thus provided, the student is responsible for board, books and clothes, the cost of which is chiefly worked out in the labor departments,
No reply is expected, yet an answer would be greatly enjoyed. Much good has resulted from the relations established by these letters.
Unless a definite promise has been made, no one is considered as pledged ahead for a scholarship contribution.
Since students, especially new comers, need several months' training in expression by language and writing, scholarship letters are not sent till February, and then, that the work of sending over three hundred may be done with the least interruption to teaching and study, they are all, or nearly all, prepared and sent at once. Hence the response to a scholarship gift is not always prompt.
S. C. ARMSTRONG,
PRINCIPAL.
Hampton N. & A, Institute, February, 1889.

• Keywords: long archives; document; alice m. longfellow papers (long 16173); organizations; hampton institute; education; correspondence; Manuscripts (1007.001); (LONG-Subcollection); Correspondence (1007.001/002); (LONG-SeriesName); Scholarship Student Correspondence (1007.001/002.003); (LONG-SubseriesName); Letters to Alice Longfellow (1007.001/002.003-001); (LONG-FileUnitName)