The Education of Henry Adams
Excerpt
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
and XXXIV, the teacher was at best helpless, and, in the immediate
future, silence next to good-temper was the mark of sense. After
midsummer, 1914, the rule was made absolute.
The Massachusetts Historical Society now publishes the "Education"
as it was printed in 1907, with only such marginal corrections as
the author made, and it does this, not in opposition to the
author's judgment, but only to put both volumes equally within
reach of students who have occasion to consult them.
