I recently read that the sixth President of the United States, John Quincy Adams, is apparently tweeting from the grave. This is a nice use of technology to try to get younger people interested in history, but I’m not sure that it’ll be that effective. If people generally aren’t interested in comments about the weather, they’re probably not going to be interested in comments about the weather from two hundred years ago. But who knows?
Seeing the story reminded me of one of my favourite quotes by his father, John Adams, the second President. (Yes, American political dynasties have existed long before the Bushes, the Clintons, or even the Kennedys.) The quote goes like this:
The Science of Government it is my Duty to study, more than all other Sciences: the Art of Legislation and Administration and Negotiation, ought to take Place, indeed to exclude in a manner all other Arts. I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine.
I found the original quote, including a scan of the handwritten letter to his wife Abigail in which it appears, here on the web site of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
What’s interesting is that the scan preserves his editorial process as he wrote the letter. He had originally written “that my sons may have liberty to study Painting and Poetry”, before crossing out the last three words and expanding on the idea to create the final version quoted above.
I wonder what he thinks his great grandchildren ought to study — and what his descendants are actually studying today?
– davinci 11743
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