Metadata
Title
Sarah Josepha Hale to David E. Hale
Creator
Hale, Sarah Josepha Buell, 1788-1879
Date
1829-10-05
October 5, 1829
Medium
Manuscripts
Language
eng
Type
text
Collection
Sarah Josepha Hale Collection, The Athenaeum of Philadelphia
Identifier
46-M-128
Rights
http://www.philaathenaeum.org/rights.html
Text
Boston Oct 5, 1829
My dear Son,
I was very much gratified by
your last letter, more indeed than you can
understand. You are yet ignorant of the
fervent and engulfing affection which a parent
feels for a child. The love of a mother,
especially of a widowed mother, who enters her
thoughts and builds her hopes of future earthly
happiness only on the merit and success
of her children is, of all human feelings, perhaps
the most intense and exhaustless.
I rejoice therefore for myself as well as
you [DE: that] at your prospect of taking an honorable
station in your class. Indeed I should
been disappointed had you not been in
the first section, at least, in one branch
of study. I know your advantages of attending
schools, academies [etc.?] have not been equal
to what scolars [scholars] usually enjoy - but you have
had an education that has fitted you to depend
on yourself. you are familiar with
studying alone, and that you will find
no small benefit.
Your course of study has but just commenced, and
tho' you obtain a station in the first section you
must not forget the price by which only it can be
retained. Application (I understand there is no favoritism
or shuffling allowed in the examinations at West
Point. what a pity our Colleges are not on a similar
rigid system) only can ensure you a continued
elevation in your class. I need not tell you how
anxious I am that you should be among the
five. I believe you will endeavor to be; and there
are but few things, among the possible, which determined
industry and perseverance cannot achieve.
You allude to Larnedd [Larned] as if you supposed I thought
his marks of demerit were all incurred for moral
offenses, or at least for mental dulness [dullness], or indolence.
I had no such idea. I expected many, if not most,
were incurred for neglect of military requirements.
My son, I do not esteem such faults trivial. When
he entered the Academy did he not agree to submit
to the arrangements, and discipline which had
been there established? It is not for the students to
question the utility or the wisdom of those rules.
[DE: ? ? have been] The rules were prepared by our legislators and
experienced officers, they doubtless gave none
which they considered would be "more honored in
the breach than the observance." The strictness
of discipline necessary to retain an army of men in proper
[?]bor [?] requires that faults, which the civil law
would hardly recognize as pecadillos [peccadilloes], should be
punished as crimes. It was probably with the
idea of imbuing the young men, who we considered
as the future officers of our army, with
somewhat of the precision of military etiquette
that so much account is made of those trivial
offenses. - And those who expect to command should
first learn to obey. - I should be very sorry to
have you incur marks of demerit for neglect of
military duty- I should be more grieved if you
failed in your recitations - but [DE: more] severe
would be my regret should you be guilty of crime.
In short, I am anxious to have you one of the first
and best in all things.
I had a safe journey to Newport, found all the
children well - Horatio is in the printing office
at [N.?] and boards with Mr.[?], Martha Ann
& Sarah [ED: hole in paper] boarding with Mrs. Eds and will pas[?]
the winter [?]nder [under] hers & Mr Edes' instruction. Little
Willy I brought with me to Boston - I could not
bear the separation longer. He has grown
some, but his health is not very good. He says
- 'Tell David I love him and want to see
him very, very much.
You must write to Horatio and your sisters,
You can write to them all in one letter. They
are anxious to have a letter from you.
I shall send you newspapers occasionally,
and the first opportunity some books.
Write soon, and tell me how you get on in
your studies. Do you have sufficient pay to support
you? Yours through life
Sarah J. Hale
Cadet David E. Hale
West Point
N. York.
My dear Son,
I was very much gratified by
your last letter, more indeed than you can
understand. You are yet ignorant of the
fervent and engulfing affection which a parent
feels for a child. The love of a mother,
especially of a widowed mother, who enters her
thoughts and builds her hopes of future earthly
happiness only on the merit and success
of her children is, of all human feelings, perhaps
the most intense and exhaustless.
I rejoice therefore for myself as well as
you [DE: that] at your prospect of taking an honorable
station in your class. Indeed I should
been disappointed had you not been in
the first section, at least, in one branch
of study. I know your advantages of attending
schools, academies [etc.?] have not been equal
to what scolars [scholars] usually enjoy - but you have
had an education that has fitted you to depend
on yourself. you are familiar with
studying alone, and that you will find
no small benefit.
Your course of study has but just commenced, and
tho' you obtain a station in the first section you
must not forget the price by which only it can be
retained. Application (I understand there is no favoritism
or shuffling allowed in the examinations at West
Point. what a pity our Colleges are not on a similar
rigid system) only can ensure you a continued
elevation in your class. I need not tell you how
anxious I am that you should be among the
five. I believe you will endeavor to be; and there
are but few things, among the possible, which determined
industry and perseverance cannot achieve.
You allude to Larnedd [Larned] as if you supposed I thought
his marks of demerit were all incurred for moral
offenses, or at least for mental dulness [dullness], or indolence.
I had no such idea. I expected many, if not most,
were incurred for neglect of military requirements.
My son, I do not esteem such faults trivial. When
he entered the Academy did he not agree to submit
to the arrangements, and discipline which had
been there established? It is not for the students to
question the utility or the wisdom of those rules.
[DE: ? ? have been] The rules were prepared by our legislators and
experienced officers, they doubtless gave none
which they considered would be "more honored in
the breach than the observance." The strictness
of discipline necessary to retain an army of men in proper
[?]bor [?] requires that faults, which the civil law
would hardly recognize as pecadillos [peccadilloes], should be
punished as crimes. It was probably with the
idea of imbuing the young men, who we considered
as the future officers of our army, with
somewhat of the precision of military etiquette
that so much account is made of those trivial
offenses. - And those who expect to command should
first learn to obey. - I should be very sorry to
have you incur marks of demerit for neglect of
military duty- I should be more grieved if you
failed in your recitations - but [DE: more] severe
would be my regret should you be guilty of crime.
In short, I am anxious to have you one of the first
and best in all things.
I had a safe journey to Newport, found all the
children well - Horatio is in the printing office
at [N.?] and boards with Mr.[?], Martha Ann
& Sarah [ED: hole in paper] boarding with Mrs. Eds and will pas[?]
the winter [?]nder [under] hers & Mr Edes' instruction. Little
Willy I brought with me to Boston - I could not
bear the separation longer. He has grown
some, but his health is not very good. He says
- 'Tell David I love him and want to see
him very, very much.
You must write to Horatio and your sisters,
You can write to them all in one letter. They
are anxious to have a letter from you.
I shall send you newspapers occasionally,
and the first opportunity some books.
Write soon, and tell me how you get on in
your studies. Do you have sufficient pay to support
you? Yours through life
Sarah J. Hale
Cadet David E. Hale
West Point
N. York.