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The Education of Henry Adams

THE EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS

CONTENTS
EDITOR'S PREFACE
PREFACE
I. QUINCY (1838-1848)
II. BOSTON (1848-1854)
III. WASHINGTON (1850-1854)
IV. HARVARD COLLEGE (1854-1858)
V. BERLIN (1858-1859)
VI. ROME (1859-1860)
VII. TREASON (1860-1861)
VIII. DIPLOMACY (1861)
IX. FOES OR FRIENDS (1862)
X. POLITICAL MORALITY (1862)
XI. THE BATTLE OF THE RAMS (1863)
XII. ECCENTRICITY (1863)
XIII. THE PERFECTION OF HUMAN SOCIETY (1864)
XIV. DILETTANTISM (1865-1866)
XV. DARWINISM (1867-1868)
XVI. THE PRESS (1868)
XVII. PRESIDENT GRANT (1869)
XVIII. FREE FIGHT (1869-1870)
XIX. CHAOS (1870)
XX. FAILURE (1871)
XXI. TWENTY YEARS AFTER (1892)
XXII. CHICAGO (1893)
XXIII. SILENCE (1894-1898)
XXIV. INDIAN SUMMER (1898-1899)
XXV. THE DYNAMO AND THE VIRGIN (1900)
XXVI. TWILIGHT (1901)
XXVII. TEUFELSDROCKH (1901)
XXVIII. THE HEIGHT OF KNOWLEDGE (1902)
XXIX. THE ABYSS OF IGNORANCE (1902)
XXX. VIS INERTIAE (1903)
XXXI. THE GRAMMAR OF SCIENCE (1903)
XXXII. VIS NOVA (1903-1904)
XXXIII. A DYNAMIC THEORY OF HISTORY (1904)
XXXIV. A LAW OF ACCELERATION (1904)
XXXV. NUNC AGE (1905)

EDITOR'S PREFACE

THIS volume, written in 1905 as a sequel to the same author's
"Mont Saint Michel and Chartres," was privately printed, to the
number of one hundred copies, in 1906, and sent to the persons
interested, for their assent, correction, or suggestion. The idea
of the two books was thus explained at the end of Chapter XXIX:
--

"Any schoolboy could see that man as a force must be measured
by motion from a fixed point. Psychology helped here by
suggesting a unit -- the point of history when man held the
highest idea of himself as a unit in a unified universe. Eight or
ten years of study had led Adams to think he might use the
century 1150-1250, expressed in Amiens Cathedral and the Works of
Thomas Aquinas, as the unit from which he might measure motion
down to his own time, without assuming anything as true or
untrue, except relation. The movement might be studied at once in
philosophy and mechanics. Setting himself to the task, he began a
volume which he mentally knew as 'Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres:
a Study of Thirteenth-Century Unity.' From that point he proposed
to fix a position for himself, which he could label: 'The
Education of Henry Adams: a Study of Twentieth-Century
Multiplicity.' With the help of these two points of relation, he
hoped to project his lines forward and backward indefinitely,
subject to correction from any one who should know better."

The "Chartres" was finished and privately printed in 1904. The
"Education" proved to be more difficult. The point on which the
author failed to please himself, and could get no light from
readers or friends, was the usual one of literary form. Probably
he saw it in advance, for he used to say, half in jest, that his
great ambition was to complete St. Augustine's "Confessions," but
that St. Augustine, like a great artist, had worked from
multiplicity to unity, while he, like a small one, had to reverse
the method and work back from unity to multiplicity. The scheme
became unmanageable as he approached his end.

Probably he was, in fact, trying only to work into it his
favorite theory of history, which now fills the last three or
four chapters of the "Education," and he could not satisfy
himself with his workmanship. At all events, he was still
pondering over the problem in 1910, when he tried to deal with it
in another way which might be more intelligible to students. He
printed a small volume called "A Letter to American Teachers,"
which he sent to his associates in the American Historical
Association, hoping to provoke some response. Before he could
satisfy himself even on this minor point, a severe illness in the
spring of 1912 put an end to his literary activity forever.

The matter soon passed beyond his control. In 1913 the
Institute of Architects published the "Mont-Saint-Michel and
Chartres." Already the "Education" had become almost as well
known as the "Chartres," and was freely quoted by every book
whose author requested it. The author could no longer withdraw
either volume; he could no longer rewrite either, and he could
not publish that which he thought unprepared and unfinished,
although in his opinion the other was historically purposeless
without its sequel. In the end, he preferred to leave the
"Education" unpublished, avowedly incomplete, trusting that it
might quietly fade from memory. According to his theory of
history as explained in Chapters XXXIII

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The Education of Henry Adams