The Education of Henry Adams: An Analysis of "Proper" Education Joshua Henderson College

The liberal arts prides itself upon an education rooted in philosophy and literature, taking cues from the earliest subjects and forms of education within the Western Tradition. This tradition has been handed down through the course of over two-thousand years, and still continues to maintain popularity as an avenue of study for many university students. To Henry Adams, this kind of education means little in the modern world, in that one’s education is strictly relevant to the world in which they find themselves; the world in which Adams lived was 19th century America, a world reflected in Adams’ autobiography to be rapidly changing from agriculture to industry, from morality to apathy, and from humanity to technology.

Being a member of the Adams dynasty, Henry found himself from a young age to be afforded with what was considered some of the best educational opportunities. Even from his youth, Adams describes how this education was an inadequate preparation for the world around him: “the man of sixty can generally see what he needed in life, and in Henry Adams's opinion it was not school. Most school experience was bad. Boston at that time offered few healthy resources for boys or men.” () Instead of being educated upon things...