Papers of John Adams, volume 16

John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 8 September 1784 Adams, John Waterhouse, Benjamin

To Benjamin Waterhouse

Dear Sir Auteuil near Paris Septr. 8. 1784

I received your friendly Letter of the 19. June, by my dear Mrs Adams, with great Pleasure and Shall ever be obliged to you for a Line when you have Leisure.— I am very glad our University has so able a Professor of Physick, and I doubt not you will soon Silence all Opposition.1 I should be obliged to you for your two orations.2

All Paris, and indeed all Europe, is at present amused with a Kind of Physical New Light or Witcraft, called Animal Magnetism. a German Empirick by the Name of Mesmer, has turned the Heads of a multitude of People. He pretends that his Art is an Universal Cure, and wholly Superseeds the Practice of Physick and consequently your Professorship, so that you will not, I hope become his Disciple.

The Thing is so Serious that the King has thought it necessary to appoint a Number of Phisicians and Accademicians, with your Friend Franklin at their Head to enquire into it. They are all able Men And have published a Masterly Report, which Shews very clearly that this Magnetism can never be usefull, for the best of all possible Reasons viz because it does not exist. one would think the Report Sufficient to annihilate the Enthusiasm but it has not yet fully Succeeded, on the Contrary it has Stirred up a Nest of Hornets against the Authers of it, and Mesmer has the Boldness to apply to Parliament by a Public Process, to have his Art examined anew. What may be the Consequence I dont know: But I think the Phrenzy must evaporate.3

The Professors of the Art have acquired sometimes a Surprising Ascendency over the Imaginations of their Patients so as to throw them into violent Convulsions, only by a few odd Gestures. All this the Commissioners ascribe to Imagination and I suppose justly, but if this Faculty of the Mind can produce Such terrible Effects upon the Body, I think you Physicians ought to study and teach Us some Method of managing and controuling it.—

I am, sir with great Esteem, your Friend / and humble servant

John Adams 315

RC (MHi:Adams-Waterhouse Coll.); internal address: “Dr Waterhouse”; endorsed: “Adams”; notation: “J. A. / on Mesmerism.”

The letter from Waterhouse, who since 1782 was the Hersey Professor of the Theory and Practice of Physic at the Harvard Medical School, has not been found ( AFC , 5:66).

In the left margin is a notation, possibly by Waterhouse, keyed to the text at this point. It reads, “Latin inaugural Oration. & […] Introductory Med. oration.” The first almost certainly was Waterhouse’s “Oratio inauguralis,” given at the opening of the Harvard Medical School in 1783 but not published until 1829. The second may be his paper “Of Epidemic Diseases,” given at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and published in the Boston Continental Journal on 5 and 12 June 1783.

German physician Franz Anton Mesmer arrived in Paris in 1778 and caused a sensation with demonstrations of animal magnetism. Positing that a magnetic fluid flowed from the stars through all living things and that disease resulted from obstructions in its circulation, Mesmer claimed the ability to manipulate the fluid and cure illness. By 1784 French authorities considered Mesmer and his theories a threat to Enlightenment rationalism and national dignity. That spring Louis XVI appointed a commission combining physicians from the Faculté de médecine de Paris with members of the Académie royale des sciences to investigate and put Benjamin Franklin in charge of the effort. The report of the commissioners was read on 4 Sept. and published on the 24th as Rapport des commissaires chargés par le roi de l’examen du magnétisme animal, Paris, 1784 (Claude-Anne Lopez, “Franklin and Mesmer: An Encounter,” Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, 66:325–331 [July–Aug. 1993]).

John Adams to Joseph Willard, 8 September 1784 Adams, John Willard, Joseph

To Joseph Willard

Sir Auteuil near Paris Septr. 8. 1784.

I have received, by Mrs Adams, the Letter you did me, the Honour to write me on the eighth of June last, together with a Vote of the President and Fellows of Harvard College of the first of April 1783, and a Diploma for a Doctorate of Laws elegantly engrossed and the Seal inclosed in a Silver Box.1

This Mark of the approbation of So respectable a University does me great Honour and is more especially acceptable to me, as it comes from a Society, where I had my Education, and for which I have ever entertained the highest Veneration. Let me pray you, Sir, to present my best Respects, and most hearty Thanks to the Corporation, and to accept the Same for the polite and obliging manner, in which you have communicated their Resolution and Diploma.—

Your Design, Sir, of visiting the Universities of Europe to become acquainted with their Laws, Customs and modes of Education, is a very wise one. The Reflections you would make and the Correspondences you would form, would amply compensate the Trouble and Expence, although I can give you no Encouragement to hope, for the Smallest pecuniary Advantage. it is the general Sentiment, in Europe, even of those who are not professed Ennemies to America, 316 that there is already in that Country, Wealth and Knowledge enough, and too many Advantages for acquiring more, to make it necessary for them to contribute any of theirs to our Assistance.

If you come, Sir, while I remain in Europe you may depend upon any Assistance, which a Residence of near Seven Years abroad, in France, Holland and England, may enable me to give you, in obtaining Introductions to Such Characters as you wish to See.

After all, the System of Education at your University is so excellent that I Should not wish to See it, essentially changed, much less conformed to the Models in Europe, where there is much less Attention to the Morals and Studies of the Youth. in this Sentiment I am So fully fixed as to be very desirous of giving my own Son an Opportunity to Study with you. He has travelled with me and Mr Dana, for near Seven Years, and has Seen the most of Europe, but he has not neglected his Studies. He has been matriculated in the University of Leyden, and Studied there Sometime, and might have a Degree there, with the Attendance of a few Months more.2 He is advanced in Age and I flatter myself in Literature So far as to render it impossible for me to offer him, at Harvard Colledge as a Freshman: But if the Laws will admit him, after an Examination And upon the Payment of a Sum of Money, for the Benefit of the Society, with the Class of the fourth or third Year, I Should chose to Send him to you, rather than to Leyden. I Should be much obliged to you for your Sentiments upon this Subject.3

With the greatest Respect and / Esteem I have the Honour to be, Sir / your most obedient and / most humble Servant

John Adams.—

RC (MH-Ar:Corporation Papers, UA I, 5.120); internal address: “The Reverend Joseph Willard / President of the University / at Cambridge.”; docketed: “John Adams / while in Europe.” Dft (Adams Papers).

Willard’s letter has not been found. For the 1 April 1783 vote of the president and fellows of Harvard College ordering that the honorary doctorate conferred upon JA on 19 Dec. 1781 be engrossed, see vol. 14:381; for the diploma and seal, see same, p. xiii–xiv, 382–383.

On 18 Dec. 1780 JA sent both JQA and CA to Leyden to study Latin and Greek with private instructors and to attend lectures at the university there. JQA was matriculated in the university in Jan. 1781 but remained only until the following June when he left Leyden and then the Netherlands to accompany Francis Dana to Russia ( AFC , 4:34–35; JA, D&A , 2:452; JQA, Diary , 1:75).

For JQA’s admission to Harvard College and the terms of his attendance, see Willard’s reply of 14 Dec. 1784, below. For JA’s further comments on JQA’s education at Harvard, see his 23 April 1785 letter to Benjamin Waterhouse, JA, Works , 9:530–531 (misdated there as 24 April).