Lincoln writes to his son Robert's friend, George C. Latham, whom Harvard University denied admission. Lincoln writes, "I know not how to aid you, save in the assurance of one of mature age, and much severe experience, that you can not fail, if you resolutely determine, that you will not. . . . In your temporary failure there is no evidence that you may not yet be a better scholar, and a more successful man in the great struggle of life, than many others, who have entered college more easily. Again I say let no feeling of discouragement prey upon you, and in the end you are sure to succeed." Abraham Lincoln to George C. Latham, 22 July 1860, CW, 4:87.