Letterhead
Brooklyn, N.Y. Jan. 28th, 1905.
Hon. Timothy L. Woodruff,
Syracuse, N.Y.
My dear Woodruff:-
Dr. Hitchcock - the head of the Pratt High School, has made a report to me concerning investigations among the three lower classes of that High School, to see where they are likely to go next year. The majority of the students in that school will go to the Manual Training High School, but Dr. Hitchcock regards it as certain that about thirty will enter Adelphi Academy if an arrangement can be made by which they can be admitted at a tuition rate not to exceed $100. a year. He says there are three or four who would come here any way at full tuition, but there are as many as twenty-four who have told him that they will in all probability enter here if the rate of tuition mentioned above can be agreed upon. He represents that eleven more are undecided as yet between entering Adelphi and some other school. He thinks that if the twenty-four above alluded to should come to the Academy, most of the eleven would come with them. He reports that there are twelve more who have made no plans whatever for next year, and say that they are not ready to make any. Among this whole number of students the proportion of girls to boys is about as two to one. It would appear therefore, that if Dr. Hitchcock's estimate is correct, that we might add at the rate of $100. per head, some $3,000. to our income next year, and as these students are evenly distributed among three classes, it would mean about $2,000. more for the year afterwards, and about $1,000. more for a third year. It is possible that we might admit that number of students to our present study room without any additional expense excepting that involved in setting up a few more desks. If we did so however, we would undoubtedly be unable to admit any applicant who might come to us ready to pay full tuition; the room for the next year would be filled to overflowing. It is a matter for debate whether it would be wise for us to shut off, for a year's time at any rate, all applicants who would come ready to pay full tuition. It may be a countervailing argument, that the transfer of thirty students in a body from the Pratt to Adelphi Academy would be an advertisement that would be worth something. If this course were adopted, and the whole company of perhaps thirty could be accommodated in our present study room, I doubt whether any additional teaching force would be needed for them, unless it would be possibly another teacher in mathematics. If we should undertake however, to keep the door open for admitting new applicants who are ready to pay full tuition, we would have to fit up a room somewhere in the buildings which would be large enough to hold all of our next fourth year Academy class, and we should have to put that class - which would be the graduating class - with a special supervisor, into that room by itself, and handle it as a separate study room through the year. This of course would mean for us the expense of fitting up another room with study room furniture, and it would mean the addition of another supervisor, a sort of Assistant Superintendent in addition to the probable need of an increase in the department of mathematics.
I should be glad to know what you think about all this.
Yours very sincerely,
Charles H. Levermore
[marginalia] Mrs. G. Refer to me.