Education: Gene to Billy

Professor William Lyon Phelps of Yale received the following letter one bright morning last week:

Dear Professor Billy:—

There comes to every man during his life a few occasions when words, the medium of expression, are altogether inadequate to convey the deep feelings of his heart. I am now experiencing one of these occasions. Nothing has ever surprised me more or touched me deeper than the receipt of the lovely set of Shakespeare sent me by the boys of your Shakespeare Class. . . . Therefore, Billy, I wish you would read this to the boys or post it on a bulletin board that they may see by my words, though insufficient, how appreciative I am of their generous thought of me.

I wonder if the boys, who were as much a party to the shock given the public by the Boxing champion lecturing on Shakespeare as we were, got as great a kick out of the public’s reaction as I did.

With deepest gratitude to you and the boys for my most precious treasure (the autographed set of Shakespeare), and with kindest personal regards, believe me

Always sincerely,

GENE TUNNEY.

Two hundred and twenty students had signed the Yale edition of Shakespeare, seven of them with fictitious names. Professor Phelps erased the fictitious signatures before despatching the edition to Fisticuffer Tunney.