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- GLC#
- GLC03876
- Type
- Letters
- Date
- 22 July 1860
- Author/Creator
- Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865
- Title
- to George C. Latham re: encouraging Robert's friend to reapply to Harvard
- Place Written
- Springfield, Illinois
- Pagination
- 2 p. : + blank Height: 20 cm, Width: 13.4 cm
- Primary time period
- National Expansion and Reform, 1815-1860
- Sub-Era
- Age of Jackson Lincoln
Lincoln writes to his son's friend, who had been rejected by Harvard. He writes a letter of encouragement: "It is a certain truth, that you can enter, and graduate in, Harvard University; and having made the attempt, you must succeed in it. 'Must' is the word. [....] In your temporary failure there is no evidence that you may not yet be a better scholar, and a more successful man in the great struggle of life, than many others, who have entered college more easily. Again I say let no feeling of discouragement prey upon you, and in the end you are sure to succeed." According the Lincoln's editor, Roy P. Basler, this document is Lincoln's greatest personal letter.
Basler, Roy P. The Collected Works Of Abraham Lincoln. (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), Vol. IV 1860 - 1861,
p. 87.
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