[This letter was added to the envelope after it was received, since the envelope was postmarked on Apr 11.]313 1/2 South Fifth Avenue,
Ann Arbor, Michigan
April 17, 1918.Dear Margaret ,
Please, one new course is all I can manage, and Miss Stevens says I may substitute for Miss Adams in English VIII next year. That will keep me happy and give me an opportunity to try out a hobby or so. For though primarily a writing course it involves - don't you think? - a pleasant amount of theory, psychological and aesthetic.
Then if, all things considered, your plan seems the wisest, we can try it the year after next. At present I cannot see it as you do. It seems like destroying a course about which there is no doubt in order to make one about which there would be doubt. You undervalue what you have done with Prose Style and what you only can do with it. I have always thought of it as one of our best and strongest courses.
Even if you were right about a change being desirable - which, mark you, I do not for a moment admit - surely net year is not the logical one in which to make it. There will still be major students under the old curriculum who have a right to the courses and instructors they counted upon having when they chose their major subjects.
So you see that on every count it is quite out of the question for next year. I am glad there will be no acting in haste and repenting at leisure, for I can't help feeling that you must repent, inevitably, parting from so delightful a running mate as Prose Style. This is no time of year to make
somomentousadecisions. One's faculty of judgment is not at its best in the spring time. I am therefore glad that we can't take the step.My love to you,
Helen Griffith