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LETTER II

New-York University, Sept. 12th, 1853.

To his Honor, the Mayor

of the city of New-York.

Dear Sir, – I deem it my duty as a citizen of New-York, and a member of a literary institution, of which your Honor is ex-officio an officer, to apprize you of a fact of my personal history during the past winter, which as it is intimately connected with the maintenance of social order, should not for one moment be passed over by the authorities of the municipal corporation. I have for a number of years past been connected with the University of the city of New-York, first as a resident graduate and lately as the Professor of a modern language, and have ever since my connection with the institution resided in the building on Washington Square, spending most of my time in authorship and instruction in a room, which for several years I have occupied for that purpose. In consequence of some bad feeling towards me on the part of certain enemies of mine, who of late have done all in their power to annoy me, the quiet of my residence has been disturbed in a scandalous manner, by day and at all hours of the night, for weeks and months together, so as to inflict on me the torments of perpetual interruption not only in my work during the day, but of rest during the night, until my health was completely shattered; and in this miserable manner I have lost nearly the whole of last winter without accomplishing any of my purposes with satisfaction or comfort. This outrageous annoyance has been the source of severe loss to me not only in regard to my health, but also in a pecuniary point of view. My salary in the institution being altogether inadequate for my support, I have been engaged for a number of years past in preparing works for publication, and this winter the ruin of my health from the causes already mentioned has also threatened me with the ruin of my income. As this villainous business has proceeded in part from the institution itself, or rather from individuals personally hostile to me and to my purposes, I deem an address to your Honor so much the more in place, as I believe it to be officially your duty to interpose your municipal authority in matters of this kind, and to reprimand or punish men for the immorality of so flagrant a disturbance of the peace. As my ears have almost daily been wounded by disorderly noises, not only from students, but (and mostly) from other persons, who ought to blush for such base conduct, I cannot say, that I am unacquainted with the authors of the nuisance, and could easily designate to you at least half a dozen. Such cries as "Go on! Stop! – Out of the institution with that man! – Kill him!" besides multitudes of vulgar chuckles, screams and other horrid vociferations have been heard by me from well-known voices, until at times I felt as if I could support the vexation no longer. Numberless insults in the street and even menaces were constantly thrown out by a low gang, who were evidently hired for the vile purpose, and I have seen things, which I never witnessed before either in Europe or America. A certain firm of this city seems to have commenced the nefarious hostilities. I have suffered encroachments on my personal safety to which no American citizen ought for one moment to submit. As I cannot afford, nor feel inclined to lose my time and health any longer, I would respectfully submit to your Honor's consideration my claim to the protection of the laws of the city in this respect, to which as an American citizen I am entitled, and the necessity of a sterner maintenance of order by the police of the city. Disagreeable and painful as it is for any one to come into hostile collision with fellow-citizens, there are nevertheless cases, in which such enmities may be innocently contracted, and holding mine to be of such a nature, I may confidently expect the ready and effectual interposition of your Honor and of the honorable members of the Common Council, to whom the order and honor of the city must ever be dear, in a matter that seems to me to involve one of the most cherished principles of our republican freedom, viz., the personal safety and peaceable domicile of every member of our community, of every citizen of this vast republic.

To sum up my complaints briefly, they are as follows: – 1st, Personal hostility towards me in the institution itself; 2dly, Horrid footsteps, noises and loud conferences under my window by day and by night; 3dly, Menacing insults from low people in the street, without the slightest provocation on my part.

Trusting that your Honor may find an early occasion to give me an opportunity for finding my firm conviction true, that the majesty of the law is capable of being upheld by its representatives in the community, and that I may have a different tale to tell respecting the morality of the city and my own sense of personal safety,

I am your Honor's

most respectful and obedient servant.

G. J. Adler.

LETTER III. – (Answer to No. I.)

Rev. Dr. —

Dear Sir, – Understanding that you are a friend of Professor Adler, of this University, and know his brother, I take the liberty of calling your attention to his present condition. – During the last winter he gave various indications of a disordered mind, and these have become more decided during the past summer. I am distressed to see his haggard look, and have feared unhappy results. He is unfitted for the business of teaching, and his friends would do well to get him another institution, adapted to such, away from study. I think there should be no delay in the matter. – We all esteem Dr. Adler highly, and would be delighted with his restoration to the full use of his fine intellectual powers.

May I solicit your fraternal aid in this case, and please let me hear from you at an early day.

I am with great regard,

Yours,

University of the City of

New-York, Sept. 19th, '53.

} (Signed) Isaac Ferris.

EPILOGOMENA TO LETTER III

As the above letter was handed to my personal friends for the purpose of conveying the desired intelligence, and sent to me, when the report of my illness and mental derangement was found to be groundless and false, there can be no impropriety or breach of courtesy or justice in its publication. The serious consequences to which it gave rise, the deprivation of my liberty for six entire months, and the suspension of my functions as an academic instructor (though not of my activity as an author, which under the most inauspicious circumstances was still continued) alike demand, that it should be made known in connection with my own communications before and during my imprisonment. A comment or two will exhibit the contents of the Doctor's epistle in their proper light.

1st, The Dr's. letter is itself a contradiction and an egregious symptom of insanity on his part, which is, moreover, confirmed by his previous conduct from his first entrance into the institution. In comparing the University with the Lunatic Asylum, I find that the former during the winter of 1852-'53 (I may add, ever since my return from Europe in 1850) was a far more disorderly and irrational place than the latter, where the occasional confusion or the perpetual (sane and insane) perversity of men is the lamentable, but natural and necessary (consequently irresponsible) result, of an internal physical or intellectual disorder or defect, which is moreover susceptible of classification and of a psychological exposition, while in the former it was "got up" for the particular purpose of subjugation or of expulsion, and where consequently it was the result of responsible perversity and malice, susceptible of moral reprobation.

2d, The allegation of my being "unfitted for the business of teaching," and of the propriety of finding me "another institution, adapted to such, away from study," is an absurd and a libelous perversion of the truth, which it is scarcely worth while to refute. From the year 1839, the year of my matriculation at the institution, to the present hour I have had no other profession, except that of having appeared in the additional capacity of an author. Even during my undergraduate career I taught successfully the various disciplines of our academic course, with the approbation and to the satisfaction of the Faculty, members of which examined and admitted to promotion several of my private scholars, who had been expressly referred to me for tuition in the Classics, in Mathematics, in Philosophy, &c. – Of my courses of instruction since my official and regular connection with the institution (which dates from the year 1846) in the language and in the literature which I was more especially appointed to profess, it is not necessary to speak here, the University itself having offered but little inducement and no emolument or honor to the cultivation of the modern languages. In all the professional services, however, which I have had occasion to render to the institution of late years, my qualifications and my efficiency could never have been honestly or honorably questioned. I have prepared my own text-books, which have found their way into most of the literary and educational institutions of this continent to some extent into Europe even. One of them was begun at the very time, when "the indications of a disordered mind had become more decided," and was completed with scarcely a day's intermission of my work at the lunatic asylum, where I subsequently improved my leisure (as far as my shattered health would permit) by zealously engaging in some preliminary studies for a history of modern literature. – It is equally needless to expatiate on my extensive acquaintance, direct and indirect, with academic men and methods both in the United States and in Europe, where within a few years past I spent an entire year in the pursuit of literary and philosophical studies at two of its most prominent Universities. —To my morality, both private and social, and to my religion, no one but a hyper-puristic religionist or a calvinistic tyrant could possibly object.– The real objection, and the cause of my being unfitted for the business of instruction must therefore be looked for elsewhere. From various indications and from several catastrophes in my personal history, brought about by sectarian jealousy and fanatical intrigue, from certain significant changes in the faculty of the institution, and from innumerable efforts to subject me to a creed, or to the social control of certain religious parties, I should infer that it manifestly and palpably resided in a mistrust of what is vulgarly termed "the soundness of my views" on certain questions, never discussed in respectable literary institutions, and beyond their jurisdiction, or in other words in a suspicion of heresy. – I claim, however, in opposition to all these pretensions, which I deem an absurdity, my right (which is inalienable and imprescriptible) to my moral and intellectual culture, commenced under the auspices and fostering care of my Alma Mater herself (during a former administration) and continued and perfected by years of serious and earnest effort in America and Europe, since. I recognize no sectarian guidance or control whatever in any of the independent sciences, cultivated from time immemorial at academic institutions, much less in the science of sciences, the very law and indispensable condition of which is absolute freedom from all external authority or restraint. The law of intellectual freedom, of which the Reader will find a short exposition in the concluding document of this pamphlet (which I have extracted and translated from a distinguished authority on the "Philosophy of Right") is recognized by the spirit and the letter of the Constitution and by the political and social history of the United States, by the Revised Statutes of the State of New-York, by all the leading universities of Protestant and Catholic Europe, and by a number of similar institutions in America, among which stands, "professedly" at least, the University of the city of New-York. The attempts of certain parties in connection with the institution and ab extra to "smother" (to use one of their own cant words) and to crush my independence by gravely endeavoring to coerce me into an alliance with a questionable religionism, which is abhorrent to my ideas, my habits and my sentiments, and by fomenting internal disorders for the purpose of effecting an exclusion, are an unconstitutional, an unjust, an iniquitous invasion of my most sacred rights as a man, an American citizen, a scholar and a professor. I repel, therefore, Dr. Ferris' insinuation as a maliciously astute and as a false one, which of itself declares the Dr. incompetent to decide upon the merits of a real scholar, and utterly unfit for the important trust of presiding over the interests of any other but a sectarian institution of the narrowest description, of the most painfully exclusive moral perversity.