John Adams: The Value of a Classical Education, in his Own Words

Elizabeth Z. Hall (Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts)

John Adams, the second president of the United States, was a key leader in our nation’s struggle for independence. He spoke out boldly in favor of separation from Great Britain at a time when many colonial leaders still held out hope for reconciliation. He signed the Declaration of Independence, and played a leading role in its adoption. He was our first vice-president, under George Washington; and as our second President, he was the first chief executive to live in the White House. During his long political career, he was frequently unpopular with his colleagues and constituents, and historians often dwell on his stubbornness, vanity, bluntness, and quick temper.

On the other hand, Adams had tremendous perseverance and a fine mind, and exemplified the New England virtues of hard work, honesty, and frugality. His diary, autobiography, and many personal letters survive, including his voluminous correspondence with his wife Abigail, which give us insights into his passions and interests. His writings reveal a striking, life-long love of Latin and Greek, and the great writers, heroes, and values of classical antiquity.

From childhood through old age, in good times and bad, Adams sought encouragement, inspiration, instruction, and solace in the works of a host of classical authors, including Terence, Horace, Pliny, Vergil, Tacitus, Justinian, Homer, Demosthenes, Plato, and Thucydides. Above all, he loved Cicero: one of his earliest and most treasured possessions was a small textbook of Cicero’s Orationes, in which he inscribed “John Adams Book 1749-50” no less that six times on the title page! Near the end of his life, he corresponded with Thomas Jefferson and other friends on Cicero, remarking that he had read the De Senectute so often over his seventy years that he almost knew it by heart.

Throughout his long life, Adams used his classical education as the basis of his thought in all aspects of his life, both public and private. It informed his views on politics and political theory, on government, on the law, and on public education. He constantly tried to improve his mind and character by setting up reading programs for himself, both prose and poetry, in which Latin authors figured prominently. His own classical education and the value he placed on it were reflected in the program of studies he established for his son, John Quincy Adams. Even his affectionate correspondence with Abigail, during their courtship and after their marriage, was liberally sprinkled with classical allusions; his favorite nickname for her was “Portia,” after the virtuous wife of Brutus, Roman senator and assassin of the tyrant, Caesar. Adams was not averse to seeing himself in the role of Brutus, either.

In John Adam’s eighteenth century world, he knew quite a number of classically educated men; indeed, if one had a good education in that day, it was bound to have strong Latin and Greek elements. More than most, however, Adams treasured his: he constantly sought to broaden it, and to become a better person through it. In the best “classical tradition,” he made it a part of his every-day life from childhood to the grave.