Dear Miss [Addams].
A few years ago I wrote to you from Germany asking you the [favor] to give me your book "Twenty years in Hull House." I was teaching girls in one of our boarding schools then and your book translated in German has been read and talked over with real enthusiasm. The original in English and a few very kind words from your own hands have been so welcome to me and to my friends. The last reader to whom I [borrowed] it was a Jesuit father in charge of spiritual help for fallen girls in the district of the American occupation army and he appreciated the book as a wonderful leader into social studies and practice and to the source of vice.
Since I have been moved to Holland for my health -- (we have a few hospitals here) and while regaining new strength I am nursing sick and poor people of this town. I am missing your book dear Miss [Addams], which I could not take with me when I left Vallendar because I should have deprived our German students of so valuable a friend for their young minds. But here I am meeting the same calamity -- there is an immense ignorance of social conditions [of life of] the low and poor people from the part of [page 2] young ladies who could help them. I inquired about your book -- no one knows it -- I know there is no book of that kind in our own literature -- The value of your book seems to consist in the teaching to see misery, to reflect upon it and to awake the sense of responsibility in the soul of the girl and woman of better conditions of life. There are many books trying to give direction to social workers or to those devoted to works of charity -- there is so much theory and so very little practical view. You show the way down to the cause of misery. I don't believe there is a book equal to your "Twenty years." Why don't they make more propaganda whenever there is a really helpful book? I want so much to hand it over to young women and to anyone with an open and emotional and active will to so some good in this world.
Don't you think me most arrogant for renewing my request for another "Twenty years." I feel very confused in so doing but I feel urged by the horrid conditions which I am facing here, the low people of this little town being so dirty, so rotten, so immoral and rude, the wealthy people being so indolent, so blind and dull as to these things, the religious congregations and the clergy being very undeveloped for practical social assistance and very unconscious of the necessity to start the way to God by the use of natural means according to the principle that in a sane and healthy body there will be a healthy soul. [page 3]
If I could I would ask the book from a library, but there it is unknown. I could not pay it in dollars neither -- poor German nun as I am. I feel urged to ask you for it and at the same time I would be glad to know how you are.
I feel like knowing you. Your book "Newer Ideals of Peace" ([alas] how true you were!) "the children of the city street" and the [autobiography] gave me such a clear idea of you and I enjoy looking up to you.
It is still for another reason that I am writing to you [today]. Some relation of mine has asked me to inquire about a lawyer in Canton Ill. Mr. [Burnett M.] Chiperfield congressman. Would it be asking you too much when I beg you to tell me if he is a gentleman absolutely trustworthy in everything. I have been told that he has business in Chicago too and as I know no one but you dear Miss [Addams] I take the liberty to ask you in all discretion for a few words of information. One can't send over to your country young people without knowing absolutely sure that they are in good hands.
Let me thank you for the good your books have done to myself. Let me send you my wishes that they may go on doing much good all over the world. It is a work that must please God as it is so very conform to the spirit of Christ. I suppose God is blessing you everyday for the wonderful use you [page 4] made of the broad and generous heart he gave you. It must be so good to think that the seed which you laid down in your book will be multiplying and growing [alls over] the world and for so many generations to come. I already told you that I consider it to be a most religious book for kids underfed love of mankind and its helpfulness in real practical clarity. [Isn't] it the expression of the love of God such as it ought to be in every one of us. I feel like being your pupil, happy to be learning from you. When I entered convent -- in 1901 -- there was no idea of social work and social views and problems given to me before -- I owe to convent-life and to all the misery I met amongst the poor in our care, and to all the high-minded social workers which I met since -- that I am able to appreciate to a very high degree what you dear Miss [Addams] have done and taught.
It is a [favor] for which we cannot be grateful enough towards Providence to meet leaders like you. Life then seems to bring new lights and it is so sunny and bright and warm for us when being able to do some good.
You have my prayer that God may bless you -- it is the only the way to express my gratitude and my respect. Believe me, dear Miss [Addams]
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