|
The Education of Henry Adams, by Henry Adams
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: --
-
advertisements -
|
 |
"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.
HENRY CABOT LODGE
September, 1918
|
Table of Contents
