1777 Letter Concerning Dartmouth's Abenaki Students
Mr. Gill
Sir. These come by your son Anthony who seems to have desire to go home and I think it best for him and for you. Yet he should go. I have faithfully done the best I could for him, and the school masters have taken much pains with him - but he dont love his books, but loves play and idleness much better. I hope you will know better than I do what to do with him and for him. I should be willing to so him and you a kindness to carry him through a course of college learning. But unless he should make better proficiency than he has done he will not get through in ten years in which time I can with the same expence educate __ who will esteem the privilege which has been offered him to be very great, as it really is. If you have another son which you desire I should make tryal of, and will send him to me, I will make a faithful tryal of his disposition and abilities, and do for him accordingly as shall appear best for him, and you shall be wellcome to my labor and expense for him as you are to what I have done for Anthony. But if you or any of your friends shall have a desire to send your sons here for an education it will be best they should be well instructed in the business of farming before they come, or else be told that they must learn it here, as they will have opportunity to do without any interruption or disadvantage to their studies at all and yet only by improving part of the vacation of the school on the farm with my labors. This will be safest and best for them for if they should not be able in future life to get their living by the business of a learned profession, and wild game should be all gone from the country, as they likely will be within a few years, your sons will be in a very unhappy state if they should not know how to get their living by farming. So we think and so all wise men here practice with their own sons unless they have a good estate to support them and so I think it would be best to do by yours. Some of your children appear to love play very much and if I would let them would do nothing else thro a whole vacation of the school for three or four weeks together and think hard if I send them into the field with my laborers to learn every branch of labor, if it be only for a few days. And I hear the sons of yours say they had not come here to work and it is best to let you know fully that yours come here to learn everything that will be every way wisest and best for you. It is but a small part of the time that is proposed for them to work in, nor more than will be best for their health and to fit them for their studies. All the vacations in a year in __ make but 9 weeks, unless they labor and study so hard that theri health requires more.
Benedict did not get the English tongue so easie as some do and is not so forward in reading and writing as I could wish.
Joseph and Montuit have done very well. Joseph entered college last August and bids fair to make a good schollar. Montuit will be fit to enter college as soon as he is old enough. I hope these two will be wise learned and useful men, and do much good in the world if their fathers are wise enough to let them go through their learning and not take them away to spoil them as some have done. I pray God to grant all prosperity to you and your family.
I am
Your hearty friend and well wisher,
Eleazar Wheelock
(Letter to Sachim Gill, Nov., 1, 1777, Dartmouth College Ms. 777601.) - as found in Dawnland Encounters, Colin Calloway
