St. College Correspondence Collection (1900)

Overview

The St. College Correspondence Collection consists of a single digitised handwritten letter scanned as a JPEG image ( 383 KB ) and accompanied by machine‑read OCR text. The material is dated to the spring session of 1900 (April 1900) and is catalogued by the Arke Institute as a “Collection” of correspondence concerning college administration and ethical practice. Although the collection contains only one item, it is presented as a discrete archival unit because it exemplifies the concerns of students and faculty at St. College at the turn of the twentieth century.

Background

The letter’s author is unidentified; the creator field in the source metadata is listed as “Unknown.” The document originates from the archives of St. College, an educational institution whose records have been deposited with the Arke Institute. The correspondence was entered into the institute’s PINAX repository in 1900 and is accessible via a public URL. The period was marked by debates over academic standards, the legitimacy of diplomas, and the conduct of faculty, themes that are reflected in the letter’s content.

Contents

The collection includes:

* Scan _1.jpg – a high‑resolution image of the original handwritten letter. * OCR transcription – the extracted text reads, in part:

“…I cannot permit myself to be a party any more to the grade‑striving or incapacitants… I shall never sign an invalid diploma… the faculty immutably proceed to do wrong… a reconstruction of regulations… may be devised….”

The OCR reveals several key entities identified in the accompanying relationships.json file:

* st_college – the institution addressed. * faculty – the body whose conduct is criticised. * invalid_diploma – the document the writer refuses to endorse. * the_cause – the writer’s commitment to ethical reform. * concern, reconstructionofregulations – the writer’s proposed remedies.

Subject headings assigned to the item include Correspondence, Education, College Administration, Diplomas, and Ethics.

Scope

Geographically the material pertains to St. College (location unspecified). Temporally it is confined to the 1900 academic session, specifically April 1900. The collection’s thematic coverage is limited to internal college correspondence that addresses ethical concerns, the validity of academic credentials, and proposals for regulatory change. No additional documents, such as responses or administrative records, are included, making the letter a singular but illustrative witness to early‑20th‑century debates over academic integrity at St. College.