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Something has been torturing me for the last week, and I have finally got up enough courage to put it all before you, having, I believe, considered all the sides of the question. I tried to see the dean today to consult with her on it, but she will be busy for a week, and I can't wait. Whether this be an opportune moment or no, I'll try to explain. I expect you and Dad to be strenuously against it. So there.

Simply, Inc and I have been making some summer [[strikethrough]] plansN [[/strikethrough]] plans namely, to take summer school courses at Petersham, the [[strikethrough]] for [[/strikethrough]] Harvard "Forest" which has this year for the first time been opened to Freshmen--Undergraduates. There are three courses open, only two or perhaps one of which interest me; she would take three, in order to finish college more quickly and be able to do research work with Dex; furthermore, her father is willing to pay her college expenses only so long as she is not married, which will be this fall. We would live together in the dorm at a cost of $162 apiece, tuition being $50 a course. The courses are field courses [[strikethrough]] and [[/strikethrough]] with lab work, but mostly outdoors. Raup and Johnston teach them. I have consulted Dr. Easton and Dr. Raup and Mr. Weatherby and received hope that we would be accepted and enthusiastic reports of the place; Raup is an entirely different man when he is in the field, full of eagerness and joy. I would get some of the lab experience you think is so valuable, in addition, experience in outside observation which, from our Florida trip, you must think is sadly lacking--not so much experience as the intellectual curiosity to promote it, rather. The courses, to be specific, include plant (flowering) taxonomy, ecology, and forestry. No, not ecology, [[strikethrough]] fer [[/strikethrough]]- but "The problems and methods in the study of vegetation" a course "dealing with the recognition, description, and interpretation of the types of vegetation and plant communities found in New England." I could take only one. 
 
Now that I have presented the evidence in favor of such a scheme--if you consider it such--there are some awful obstacles--namely, you, [[strikethrough]] Dad [[/strikethrough]], and Dolores. You do not want to have me away, any of you; it would cost Dad a lot of money; it will hurt you and Dolores, I know. I have thought a lot about it, believe me, and know that certain things can scarcely be reconciled ever to our scheme--yes, another one of "those schemes" except that Ina is determined to do it anyway, though she has not made an issue of it yet to her parents. Money is no less important, I know; instead of my going to work to "buy an evening gown and help the family along", I would be spending a great deal on a study I shall probably never make use of. If it cannot be afforded, that will be an end to things right away. And there are all the plans we have made: swimming trips every Sunday that Dolores counts on dearly as well as you; painting occasionally in the afternoon; much necessary brush cleaning about Grandma's house; company for Grandma who may not see my smiling face much longer. These cannot be disregarded. And, more selfishly, all the books I planned to read, the newspaper experience I wanted to get, the freedom from study for a timm [[time]]. 

Then why do I persist in wanting to take it? There are a couple of reasons: first, I want to have experience in living--with other people, away from home. You will say at once that that is what I am here for, and that is what I am having wonderfully now, and in a way you are certainly