DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, THE CITY OF NEW YORK
When one writes a book, dear lady, she speaks to every reader known or unknown and, I hope, by that she warrants a reply. I want to make mine brief and direct and, knowing what a weight of correspondence accumulates upon you, I want to write a note that is itself a reply so that you will not have any answer to make.
"Twenty Years of Hull House" has been the biggest inspiration of the year to us. There are two hundred and eleven of us in the teaching corps of the school. We pass the message from hand to hand, mark passages in it, and quote from it in our meetings. The oneness of the race gets startling proofs when we find you, as for instance in the sixth chapter; "subjective necessity", saying things that so many of us have mistily thought and felt but never formulated. It's a great book, madam, a tonic. You really must let yourself be thanked for it. We are in a definite way your beneficiaries here. You may have forgotten your letters when we were getting our building under way. We used your message, Miss Anne Morgan and some other helpers took it with other suggestions to Mayor Gaynor. We got everything, almost, we asked for. There are over six thousand girls now using the place, day and night. [page 2] We don't need anything now except what ourselves can furnish and, believe me, the suggestions of such a book as yours are among the most effective helps to us, ourselves, to live up to the municipal Hull House foundation which the powers that be have provided for us.
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