On June 17, 1774, the officials from Maryland and Virginia held a talk with the Indians of the Six Nations. The Indians were invited to send boys to William and Mary College. In a letter the next day they refused the offer as follows:
1774年6月17日，马里兰和弗吉尼亚的官员与六国的印第安人举行了会谈，邀请印第安人把男孩们送到威廉玛丽学院。在第二天的一封信中，他们拒绝了这一提议，理由如下：
We know that you have a high opinion of the kind of learning taught in your colleges, and that the costs of living of our young men, while with you, would be very expensive to you. We are convinced that you mean to do us good by your proposal; and we thank you heartily. But you must know that different nations have different ways of looking at things, and you will therefore not be offended if our ideas of this kind of education happen not to be the same as yours. We have had some experience of it. Several of our young people were formerly brought up at the college of the northern provinces: they were taught all your sciences; but when they came back to us, they were bad manners, ignorant of every means of living in the woods – they were totally good for nothing.
我们知道，你们大学里教授的学习有很高的评价，但如果和你们在一起，我们年轻人的生活成本对你来说会非常昂贵。我们相信，你的建议对我们有益；我们衷心感谢你。但你必须知道，不同的国家看待事物的方式不同，因此，如果我们对这种教育的想法与你们的想法不一样，你们不会被冒犯。我们有一些经验。我们的几个年轻人以前是在北方省份的大学里长大的：他们被教授了你们所有的科学；但当他们回到我们身边时，他们很不礼貌，对森林里的一切生活方式都一无所知——他们完全没有好处。
We are, however, not the less obliged by your kind offer, though we refuse to accept it; and, to show our grateful sense of it, if the gentlemen of Virginia will send us a dozen of their sons, we will take care of their education, teach them all we know, and make men of them.
然而，我们对你方的好意也非常感激，尽管我们拒绝接受；为了表达我们的感激之情，如果弗吉尼亚的绅士们能送我们十几个他们的儿子，我们会照顾他们的教育，把我们所知道的都教给他们，让他们成为男子汉。
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