Viewing page 157 of 172

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

to employ my summer vacation in that way.  But what I really hope is, that Harvard can give me a permanent appointment which will relieve me of the drudgery of teaching and allow me to devote the rest of my life to scientific work.  I am pretty well equipped right now and shall be still better prepared before next summer & could do good service.  I am strongly in hopes that my Report will convince both you and the Harvard authorities that I am a competent man, capable of accomplishing valuable work and worth the investment of a permanent salary.  I could spend the summers and falls among the Indians and my winters & early springs at home, working up what I had collected.  I have become so interested in this work that I can't let it alone.  Yet I can't do even as much as I have been doing without more or less neglect of the interests of my school, by which I carve my bread and butter.  I hope your influence will be able to relieve me of the latter. -- Enough of the [[underlined]] Ego [[/underlined]].  I hope you have let up a little on your over-exertion and that I shall soon have you at my house for a week, at least.  My regards to Miss Gay.
Yours cordially & sincerely,
J.C. Fillmore