The Education of Henry Adams

The Education of Henry Adams is an autobiography that records the struggle of Bostonian Henry Adams (1838–1918), in his later years, to come to terms with the dawning 20th century, so different from the world of his youth. It is also a sharp critique of 19th-century educational theory and practice. In 1907, Adams began privately circulating copies of a limited edition printed at his own expense. Commercial publication of the book had to await its author's 1918 death, whereupon it won the 1919 Pulitzer Prize. The Modern Library placed it first in a list of the top 100 English-language nonfiction books of the 20th century.

Subject

The Education is much more a record of Adams's introspection than of his deeds. It is an extended meditation on the social, technological, political, and intellectual changes that occurred over Adams's lifetime. Adams concluded that his traditional education failed to help him come to terms with these rapid changes, hence, his need for self-education. The organizing thread of the book is how the "proper" schooling and other aspects of his youth was time wasted, thus, his search for self-education through experiences, friendships, and reading.

Many aspects of the contemporary world emerged during the half-century between the Civil War and World War I, a half-century coinciding with Adams's adult life. An important theme of The Education is its author's bewilderment and concern at the rapid advance in science and technology over the course of his lifetime, sometimes now called Second Industrial Revolution, but incarnated in his term "dynamo". The Education mentions the recent discovery of X-rays and radioactivity, and shows a familiarity with radio waves in his citation of Marconi and Branly. Adams purchased an automobile as early as 1902, to make better use of a summer in France researching Mont Saint Michel and Chartres. He correctly predicted that the 20th century would have even more explosive changes. Adams repeatedly laments that his formal education, grounded in the classics, history, and literature, as was then the fashion, did not give him the scientific and mathematical knowledge needed to grasp the scientific breakthroughs of the 1890s and 1900s.

Two aspects set The Education apart from the common run of autobiographies. First, it is narrated in the third person; second, it is frequently sarcastic and humorously self-critical.

The Education repeatedly mentions two long-standing friends of Adams, the scientific explorer of the Far West, Clarence King, and the American diplomat, John Milton Hay.

The Education does not discuss Adams's marriage, and the illness and 1885 suicide of his wife, Clover; it skips 20 years from 1872 to 1892. Adams, splendidily reflective and self-critical in so many other ways, did not articulate what, if anything, he had learned from these sobering experiences. He did, though, reference his marriage in indirect ways. For example, he lamented how the memorial he had constructed for his wife had become something of a tourist attraction. More generally, his outlook clearly changed after her death.

Context

Henry Adams' life story is rooted in the American political aristocracy that emerged from the American Revolution. He was the grandson of the American President John Quincy Adams and great-grandson of President and founding father John Adams. His father, Charles Francis Adams, had served as ambassador to the United Kingdom during the Civil War, and had been elected to the United States House of Representatives. His brother Brooks Adams was also a historian and social critic of note. Henry Adams had received the finest formal education available in the United States, enjoying many other advantages, as well. This social context makes The Education so important, but the trappings of success did not mean much to a restless individualist such as Adams. Rather than take advantage of his patrician name, he sized up this and other advantages and found them wanting.

Congress

In chapter 17 (1869), while serving President Grant, a Cabinet officer informed Adams: "You can’t use tact with a Congressman! A Congressman is a hog! You must take a stick and hit him on the snout!", whereupon Adams asked the Secretary "If a Congressman is a hog, what is a Senator?".

Assessment

The Education is an important work of American literary nonfiction. It provides a penetrating glimpse into the intellectual and political life of the late 19th century. The Modern Library placed it first in a list of the top 100 English-language nonfiction books of the 20th century.[1]

Author and historian Garry Wills has suggested The Education contradicts much of Adams' earlier work and opinions, and has biased assessments of Adams' earlier historical works.[2]

Quotations

In his novel, V., Thomas Pynchon likens his protagonist Herbert Stencil to Henry Adams in the Education as they both refer to themselves in the third person.

References

  1. ↑ "The Modern Library's Top 100 Nonfiction Books of the Century". The New York Times Company. 1999-04-30. Retrieved 2010-07-29.
  2. ↑ Wills, Gary. Henry Adams and The Making of America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co, 2005.

Further reading

Recent collections of interpretive essays include:

Charlotteville: Massachusetts Historical Society;Distributed by the University of Virginia Press, 2005.

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