Study Guide to The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams

Intelligent Education

• Publisher: Influence Publishers
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781645424192
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Study Aids
• Subtopic: Study Guides

A comprehensive study guide offering in-depth explanation, essay, and test prep for Henry Adams’ The Education of Henry Adams, an autobiography from a great-grandson of the second president of the United States John Adams. As an autobiography of the late 19th century, Adams’ book gives readers interesting perspective on educational theory and practice and Aristocracy leading into the turn of the century. Moreover, his life gives a glimpse at the immense weight of tradition in political families, as well as insight into the long-standing question of whether these families will know the values of liberty and choice. This Bright Notes Study Guide explores the context and history of Adams’ classic work, helping students to thoroughly explore the reasons it has stood the literary test of time. Each Bright Notes Study Guide contains: - Introductions to the Author and the Work
- Character Summaries
- Plot Guides
- Section and Chapter Overviews
- Test Essay and Study Q&As The Bright Notes Study Guide series offers an in-depth tour of more than 275 classic works of literature, exploring characters, critical commentary, historical background, plots, and themes. This set of study guides encourages readers to dig deeper in their understanding by including
essay questions and answers as well as topics for further research.

INTRODUCTION TO HENRY ADAMS

HENRY ADAMS: 1838-1918

Birthplace

Henry Adams was born in Boston on February 16, 1838. Even at his birth the child seemed destined for greatness, at least as far as inheritance could provide greatness: his great-grandfather was John Adams, one of the writers of the Declaration of Independence and the second President of the United States, and his grandfather was John Quincy Adams, a brilliant statesman and sixth President of the country. If America had an aristocracy in the early nineteenth century, then surely the Adamses were a significant part of it; and if there was a cultural center in the nation, then that center was Boston. The family had a distinguished tradition of honorable, active service to their country, and all seven members of Henry’s generation were expected to take their places in this tradition. The Adamses had wealth, power, ability and education, but not one of them would have considered using these assets for purely personal gain.

Quincy

Henry was a member of a large, closely knit family. Some of his earliest memories deal with his grandfather, John Quincy Adams, who lived in nearby Quincy and who was then serving as a member of Congress. Henry and his brothers and sisters spent many summers in the big family house at Quincy, and they became steeped in the atmosphere of politics which was so prevalent there. The table talk, which the children were allowed at times to partake in (and which they always listened to), often consisted of the conversations of prominent historians, orators, politicians and educators. Many of these prominent men became friends of young Henry as well as of his father, and correspondence with some of them, notably the orator Charles Sumner, continued well into Henry’s young manhood. It was taken for granted that at least one of these young Adamses would serve his country in a high capacity; one of young Henry’s vivid memories, in fact, is of an Irish gardener who remarked to him, “You’ll be thinkin’ you’ll be President too!” This comment, which Adams includes in the Education, impressed the child strongly. He grew up trained in a tradition and expecting to serve this tradition. He was to contrast these easy assumptions of his youth with the doubts which assailed him later: “...no one suggested at that time a doubt whether a system of society which had lasted since Adam would outlast one Adams more.” Of course this society did not “outlast one Adams more” - Henry - and this is the source of much of the stoical acceptance which one finds in the writings of Henry Adams.

Boston

If his father’s family was singularly well versed in the arts of statesmanship, his mother, too, contributed a significant inheritance. When Henry was ten years old his grandfather Adams died; when he was eleven his mother’s father, Peter Chardon Brooks, died and left what was popularly believed to be the largest estate in Boston to his children. After Henry’s eleventh year the Adams family life centered more in Boston than in Quincy, for the Brooks family was very prominent there. The relationship between Henry and his Brooks cousins was close; without giving the matter any thought, the boy went to the “right” grammar school and the “right” church, and took his place in the most youthful segment of Boston society.

Schooling

One of the most important experiences of any young Bostonian was his schooling. Henry attended classes, of course, but his own testimony states that the most important part of his education was that which he acquired at home. Literary and political interests dominated the Adams family, and their father was fond of reading Longfellow, Tennyson, and other contemporary poets. Henry learned French, read eighteenth-century history, and in general acquired a fairly broad liberal education while still very young.

School’s Restrictions

If Henry enjoyed his ability to select the finest writers and thinkers at home, however, he never felt the same fondness for school. “If school helped, it was only by reaction,” he said in the Education. He explained that he disliked school so much that it became a positive, rather than a negative emotion. He disliked school because he was learning in a crowd rather than as an individual; he was forced to memorize things which seemed irrelevant to him; he was pressed into competing for prizes which he didn’t want. Henry longed for time in which to grow at his own pace, developing with material of his own choice. Schoolmasters were constantly hurrying him, and forcing their own tastes on him.

What He Did Learn

Much as he hated school, he conceded that the experience gave him a usable acquaintance with mathematics and with languages, notably French, German and Spanish. Even so, he insisted that private study could have taught him more about these subjects than classroom work did. But these were the subjects which eventually proved useful to him.

Reading

If Henry’s school experiences were unproductive, his independent reading was not. “Books were the...source of his life,” and he read the major writers of his time - Thackeray, Dickens, Tennyson, Macaulay, Carlyle, Scott. He also partook in the social activities of the time, being especially fond of winter sports like sleighing and skating, but reading was the primary interest of his youth.

Harvard

For any intelligent and educated young man of Henry Adams’ stature, the logical college had to be Harvard - and it was to Harvard College that Henry went in the fall of 1854. In his Education the Harvard years are called a waste of time, a “blank” period. This is usually considered an old man’s recollection of the follies of youth, however, for evidence from his college years indicates that Henry must have enjoyed himself immensely. As usual, he was surrounded by the sons of famous men, and men who were to become famous in their own right. These friendships, apparently, were more of an education for him than his classes were.

Activities

Adams was a member and an officer of the Hasty Pudding Club, an undergraduate organization much interested in drama. Adams both wrote and acted in the plays which the club produced, and on several occasions gave orations for his fellow members. He also printed several articles in the Harvard Magazine, on books, politics and other topics of general student interest. In his senior year he won the Bowdoin Prize Competition for an essay. He was not an honor student, however; it seems apparent that his literary and social endeavors kept him from the highest honors in his classroom work. But his fellow students, if not his teachers, recognized his abilities, and he was chosen Class Orator for his senior year, an honor which he considered flattering and touching. He graduated in 1858, and if he considered Harvard a waste of time when he was an old man, apparently he did not while young; he commented, upon his graduation, that he “did not believe it would be possible to pass four pleasanter years.”

Germany

After graduation from Harvard, Henry and a friend sailed for Germany, intending to study law in Berlin. He discovered that his knowledge of German was not up to the task, however, and instead of studying began to wander about as a tourist. He and his friends enjoyed the atmosphere, the beer, and the music, both classical and popular, which Germany offered; they took walking tours and tried to acquire some knowledge of the language. Eventually, however, Henry’s sister convinced him that he was learning nothing practical in Germany, and he went to Italy with her for a few months.

Italy

The trip to Italy became Henry’s first really practical writing experience, for he suddenly found himself a newspaper correspondent. The Italian rebel-patriot Garibaldi was coming to power just at that time, and Henry sent home records of the fighting which was going on. They were published in the Boston Courier and other papers in the area, and made some little reputation for their young author.

Home Again

Henry again answered the call of family, however. In 1860, though he was very much enjoying his stay in Europe, he came home to help serve his father, who was deeply involved in the turmoil of American Civil War politics. Eventually he went to England as an aide to his father, who was serving as Minister to the Court of Saint James, a position of great importance in those troubled times. These seven years which he spent in England were a revelation to the young man; his account of them is one of the most significant portions of the Education, and he himself called them the most important years of his life.

Literary Activity

Henry did not wish to discontinue his writing, even though he was deeply involved in political activities. He wrote anonymous comments on the goings-on in London, and sent them to the New York Times, whose editor received them gladly. This activity was ended, however, when the authorship was identified and Henry’s activities were used in criticisms of his father. The writing stopped, then, except for official work, but Henry spent his spare time another way - he began extensive historical research, and later published several significant articles in the historical reviews. When he returned to America in 1868 he went to Washington, where he again took up journalistic activities. His first book, a collection of historical articles written by himself and his brother Charles, appeared in 1871; it was titled Chapters of Erie and Other Essays.

Back To Harvard

All of this writing had not gone unnoticed, either by the general public or by the scholars. Charles Eliot, then president of Harvard, was interested in the young Adams; after a considerable effort, he managed to persuade Adams to accept a job teaching history at Harvard. It was a position, then as now, which included a great deal of scholarly prestige, but Adams was not easily persuaded to accept it. He still disapproved of the teaching system, even as he had disliked it when a student, and he took the job on the condition that he might use some of his energies in a teaching reform, particularly in the teaching of history.

Teaching And Writing

If Adams intended to instill new life into the dusty business of teaching and studying history, he seems to have been more than successful. A significant number of his pupils eventually became historians of note, and they have been extravagant in their praise of Adams as a teacher and as an inspiration of their independent efforts. Along with his classroom work, however, Adams was still involved in writing. He was now editor of the North American Review, a magazine which assumed great prominence under his guidance. He printed articles by such literary men as Henry James and William Dean Howells, nearly doubled the circulation of the review, and increased its reputation both in scholarly circles and with the reading public. One of his students, Henry Cabot Lodge, was for a time co-editor with Adams, and eventually gained great prominence as a statesman and historian.

Marriage

But all was not scholarship and history with Adams. In 1872 he became engaged to Marian Hooper, a young Bostonian who had for some time been a friend of the family. They were married that year, and honeymooned in Europe. The marriage of Marian Hooper and Henry Adams has been considered unusually happy; both were intelligent, interesting, and much involved in the society of their fellows. Adams himself was lavish in his tributes to his wife, often asserting that whatever success he achieved in life was in large part due to her influence.

More Writing

The 1880’s were years of great writing activity for Adams. He wrote his first novel, Democracy, An American Novel, in 1879, and it was published anonymously the next year. A biography, John Randolph, followed in 1882, and a pseudonymous novel, Esther, in 1884. During these years of creativity he was planning still another work, the massive and monumental History of the United States of America During the Administration of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.

The History

This work has been considered one of the major contributions of nineteenth-century writing in America, and certainly holds first rank with histories of any nation. Adams chose the period, from 1801 until 1817, because he considered these years to be a significant unit in the history of the country. Jefferson ended the Revolutionary era, Adams felt, and had molded the future of the country in a manner which was to be felt for generations. The History includes all the characteristics which Adams’ prose at its best exhibits - wit, irony, detachment, the feeling of complete objectivity. Completed in 1890, it will always be considered a significant milestone both in American literature and in history.

Travels Again

In 1886 Adams and a friend, the artist John LaFarge, had left for a tour of the South Seas and Japan. This experience, too, had literary significance for Adams, resulting in interesting memoirs and letters. In 1900 he visited the Paris Exposition and confronted the huge dynamo, whose silent power inspired what is perhaps the best-known section of the Education, “The Dynamo and the Virgin.” The trip to Paris was also largely responsible for another of his most famous works, Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres, published in 1904. This work, which Adams called “a study in thirteenth-century unity,” is often considered a parallel piece to The Education of Henry Adams, which was published in 1907. In the Education, which he termed a “study of twentieth-century multiplicity,” he takes up problems of the modern man, and predicts much of what the twentieth century has actually experienced - the loneliness, isolation and lack of values which has often been marked. Chartres is perhaps richer in feeling and color, less cynical and skeptical than the Education; both, however, are admirable documents of the thought of two vastly different eras.

The Death Of His Wife

If Adams’ last works are colored by cynicism or near-despair, the fact can be in part accounted for by a personal tragedy which had occurred in 1885, the suicide of his wife. She had been the victim of states of depression for some time...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• 1) Introduction to Henry Adams
• 2) Introduction to The Education of Henry Adams
• 3) Textual Analysis
• 4) Essay Questions and Answers
• 5) Bibliography