Martin, William James
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Chapel
Hill
July 13th / 67
To the Board of Trustees
University of No. Ca.
Gentlemen,
I beg leave to tender my resignation as Professor in the University,
& to ask its immediate acceptance at your hands.
Under ordinary circumstances I would not essay to leave my post without the
customary notice, but the times are peculiar & I throw myself upon your
generosity for an immediate release.
I have most reluctantly & painfully come to the conclusion that I must
leave the
University at all. I have steadily refused
hitherto all overtures to go elsewhere; but
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the
present condition of the
College is so
gloomy, & its prosperity in the immediate future so precarious that I
do not feel justified in any further effort to weather the storm. Of the
ultimate success & the future bright career of the
University I have no more doubt than I have of its former
extraordinary popularity. But I cannot afford to await the change. If I must
leave at all, my poverty utterly precludes the possibility of my giving the
required six months notice. If I were to give that notice now, at the end of the
time I might, & probably would, find myself without a place &
without "visible means of support." Remunerative places are
not one
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to ten to the applicants for them. My
only chance then is to provide a new home before I leave the old one. Absolute
poverty leaves me no other course, & as it is, I shall be compelled to
borrow the money that is to carry me to my new field of labor.
I write by the same mail that carries this to the Trustees of the Columbia (Tenn)
High School to say that I will accept their offer, and I hope you will not
consider me unreasonable in asking you, under all the circumstances, to grant my
dismissal.
I beg to remain
Your very Ob't serv't
W. J.
Martin
Prof. Chem. &c
Univ. N.
C.
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