John Harrison Wilson, The life of Charles Henry Dana

It appears that early in May of that year the student had begun to feel the necessity for help, for on the 12th, C. C. Felton, professor of Greek, wrote him a letter which he kept all his life. It runs as follows:

I hasten to answer your letter which reached me last evening. Upon receiving it, I immediately conversed with the president on the subject, and ascertained what I supposed was the fact, that there is a fund which is loaned on easy terms to young men desirous of availing themselves of it. I do not know precisely how large it is, but I presume you would find no difficulty in meeting your college expenses with what you might thus obtain, added to what you might earn by teaching school during the winter.

I advise you by all means to return to college, for with your abilities and honorable purposes it is impossible you should fail of success, and this I should have said to you before had I known that you were about to leave the college. It was some time after the beginning of the present term when I was first informed that you had left your class, and I received the intelligence with much regret. Had you consulted me I should have strongly dissuaded you from the step.

You need have no gloomy forebodings for the future. Industry, talent, and elevated principles, all of which I doubt not you possess, are sure of accomplishing their aims sooner or later. Relying upon these as your best supporters, I earnestly counsel you to resume your studies at the earliest possible moment.

This letter sheds a flood of light upon the condition and character of Dana, as well as upon the consideration in which he was held by his professors. Coming as it did from one of the most learned and influential members of the faculty, afterwards for two years its honored president, it makes it clear that Charles Dana was even at that early day no ordinary person, but one who arrested the attention