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FROM GRANT WOOD * NO. FIVE TURNER ALLEY * CEDAR RAPIDS * IOWA

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I received a letter from Christ-Janer yesterday saying that President Wood was leaving for the East the first week in May. He asked that I write you and see if you would get in touch with President Wood before he leaves Columbia and make arrangements for a meeting in the East. (I don't remember what Wood's initials are, but will look it up and add them at the end of the letter)

Stephens College is one of the oldest girls' schools in this country and President Wood has the reputation of being one of our most advanced educators. It is a preparatory school and gives only two years of work. The main disadvantage to you would be that you would be dealing with amateurs and would not have any one person with you long enough to make much of a professional showing on their work. On the other hand, the whole group at Stephens respect you and your work very much indeed and would make it very pleasant for you there. I would suggest that, if you talk to President Wood, that you insist on having your summers free for painting and that during the school year you put in not more than three days a week at the most at teaching, having the rest of your time free for your regular painting. I would cut the school time down less than that if, in talking with him, I found that I could. I myself, here at the University of Iowa, put in only three half-days a week.

I went from Kansas City out to spend the week-end with William Allen White at Emporia. Both Sara and I had a wonderful time, and are crazy about the Whites. My primary purpose in seeing him was to talk over the possibilities of your coming back to Kansas. He feels as I do that you should be back there but has found no definite opening so far. He had been thinking of approaching the University of Kansas but I think you yourself will agree with me that that seems a hopeless proposition as long as Block and Mattern are there. White then suggested that he try to get backing from either the Carnegie Foundation or from Mrs. Whitney to put you in somewhere, probably the Kansas Agricultural college, at a salary of, he suggested, 3,000 per year, to see what you could do there. He felt that the main thing was to get you back in the state and making a showing for the state. He is going to New York soon and I hope will take up the matter then.

White's plan is, of course, the better one but there is nothing definite about it yet. It is just a hope. I think that President Wood will be prepared to make you a definite proposition when you see him.