48 ANDREW J. SHIPMAN MEMORIAL 



his wife when she shot at him ; he admits that Ferrer's 

 personal character as to sex relations was such as we could 

 not tolerate in a teacher or professor in any school ; he admits 

 that Ferrer was an anarchist, or, as he calls it in politer terms, 

 an "acratist," which he tells us means merely that Ferrer 

 was "anti-religious, anti-monarchical, anti-patriotic, anti-mili- 

 tarist and anti-capitalist." If there be any other "antis" — 

 such as those relating to family and marriage, quite apart 

 from religion — he must have inadvertently omitted them. 

 But Mr. Archer frankly says that Ferrer would not be per- 

 mitted to carry on his schools in the United States or Eng- 

 land for, "there are very few countries in which teaching so 

 openly hostile to the existing form of government and to the 

 whole social order would be endured." 



He then proceeds to make a distinction to the effect that 

 Ferrer himself was not an "anarchist of action"; that per- 

 sonally he did not favor the bomb, the torch, and the rifle; 

 that he did not directly advocate arson and murder, although 

 he and his subordinate teachers taught anarchy, revolution 

 and rebellion openly in his schools and text-books and care- 

 fully prepared the immature minds of children and half-taught 

 men and women to do the deeds which he personally feared 

 to advocate with his own utterances. Certainly, no one read- 

 ing the admissions which Mr. Archer was compelled to make 

 about Ferrer can help conceding that Ferrer was nearly all 

 that his opponents have painted him. The summary of what 

 Mr. Archer has given is the picture of a man who has care- 

 fully set the springs of human action so that they will do 

 the most diabolic work, and thereupon stands aside to wit- 

 ness the result, and when it has been accomplished, saying 

 smugly and cowardly: "I never raised my hand to that work, 

 for it cannot be shown that I took part, for I was most care- 

 ful to keep away." This is the utmost to which Mr. Archer 

 can carry his investigation, confined as it seems to have been 

 to Ferrer's friends and present-day advocates. 



Certainly one may well doubt the truthfulness and correct- 

 ness of assertions in Mr. Archer's article, undertaking now 

 to overturn the results of a trial of one year ago, when the 

 very facts in front of him, mathematical, obvious facts, are 

 wholly mis-stated. It does not argue well for the thorough- 

 ness of his research, or the honesty with which he states facts. 



