Page:When You Write a Letter (1922).pdf/141

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the test, and knowing this he did not go. His work at the present time, I said, was not good. If the father wished to withdraw his son, I suggested, that his own state university was an excellent institution. The tuition was somewhat higher than in our own, but the college was nearer his home and he might there find conditions and methods of instruction which would better satisfy him. I think my answer was not what he expected, though it must have been satisfactory to him, for he did not withdraw his son, and when later he visited him he called on me, and we had a very placid interview.

A great many people seem to object to the use of the personal pronoun "I" in business letters. I have never understood why, for it is as good a pronoun as there is in the language, and it expresses as clear and direct a meaning as any word in use. I have known men to go far out of their way to say "we" or "the writer' when they really meant "I." In addition to failing to say what they actually wanted to say, they lost a good deal in directness and in personal appeal. Of course, if one writes as the representative of a firm or a