Ethel Bedient Gilbert letter to Emily Howland

[Letterhead]
Fisk University
Nashville, Tennessee
THOMAS E. JONES, PRESIDENT

September
22
1928

Miss Emily Howland
Sherwood, Via Aurora
New York

My dear Miss Howland:

School is just opening after the summer vacation and
I find upon looking thru the files and seeing your letter
that accompanied your generous check that you need added
acknowledgement of that gift and letter. Fisk is very far
from rich indeed. It is true that we have en endowment of
a million dollar but of course, the earnings on that are
only between fifty and sixty thousand dollars a year. The
cost of education is growing each year and Fisk students
are far from ready to bear the complete cost of their [education].
This means that every year fifty or sixty thousand
dollars must be raised just to balance our current expense
budget. In addition to this the buildings have not been
thoroughly repaired or brought up to date in twenty five
years.

If you were shocked by our appeal, you would be very
much more shocked at the delapidation here. Fisk has been
one of my major interests for a good many years but it was
not until last year that I was able to be of any real [service].
I came down last spring full of enthusiasm for what
I truly believe is one of the finest enterprises in [America]
and that is not said because I am not on the staff at
Fisk but rather because I have believed it so thoroughly for
so long that I have always hoped to be able to say it as a
member of the Fisk staff. I came down with Fisk music
ringing in my ears, with the intimate acquaintance of a
great many Fisk students who had made good and with a belief
in Fisk as one of the most powerful forces in our inter-ractial
problems. I lived in a state of shock for weeks after
I came.

#2 Miss E Howland 9/22/28

and the musicianship of the members of the Music faculty.
There just is not anything [handwritten: material] adequate. The pipe organ is
a wheezy delapidated instrument that gives out completely
upon occasions so that the organist would not even dare
attempt using it during our excellent commencement [program].
There are no practice organs. There are not enough
pianos. There really isn't anything except marvelous [enthusiasm]
on the part of the teachers and such methods of
teaching it as could not be secured in most conservatories
at anything like what our teachers are paid. I am telling
you these gruesome details, Miss Howland, only because I
know your deep interest in Fish and kindred pieces of work.

Your record shows that you have given $2550.00 in [annual]
Subscriptions since 1923. It is the regularity of
your giving and the sort of letters that accompany your
gift that prove to me your real distress upon learning that
Fisk is not rich. I do not know to what bequest you refer
because Fish has never had a large bequest.

I was very much interested in seeing the article about
you in a recent magazine. I was in New York at the time and
felt very much like taking the train to Aurora as that [reporter]
did and talking with you about Fisk as much as you
wish.

This is really a Quaker enterprise in some respects
at the present time. The president and his wife, the [Comptroller]
and his wife, the Dean of Women, a new member of
the faculty, are all Quakers and I believe that the Quakers
all over the country are watching with a great deal of
interest the success of this administration.

I had a talk with Mr Wilbur K Thomas just a month ago
and was really surprised to hear how well informed the
leaders of the Friends are about what is going on here. I
hope you will follow our work as closely as you can in the
next few years and that we may be permitted to feel that
you want Fisk to succeed in every way, materially and
scholastically but more especially spiritually. Because,
Miss Howland, I am sure you feel as I do that Fisk is much
more than a school but it is a force of tremendous importance
in this would be Christian world.

Sincerely yours,
Ethel B Gilbert
Mrs Ethel Bedient Gilbert
KGB/AFU Director of Publicity and Finance