The Education of Henry Adams

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The Education of Henry Adams

Introduction

The book of Henry Adams entitled The Education of Henry Adams have a number of things that are contradicting . First , the writer is Henry Adams and the character of the book is also him . But it is different from the other autobiographies that we have seen . In fact , we cannot say if it is really an autobiography because Henry Adams says in the Preface to the book that the book is not about his life . And this brings us to the

second point . Henry Adams says that it is not about his life , but the character of the book is him and he is narrating the experiences of this character in the book . If not his life , what then is the subject matter of The Education of Henry Adams ? And how do we understand these contradicting things ? Are there innovations in this book ? What does Adams have to say about the real subject matter of this book ? These are some of the questions that this resolves to answer

Preface , Fourth Paragraph

In the fourth paragraph of the Preface to the book The Education of Henry Adams , Henry Adams says that Jean Jacques Rousseau is the first educator because he effaces his Ego . This introduces the subject matter of the entire book which is not about the life of Henry Adams but about education

He uses the symbol of a manikin whose garments are changed every now and then . Adams wants his readers to look at him , the writer , as the manikin and education as the garments that are being fit to the manikin (Preface , Par . 4 .When he says that the object of study is the garment that is being fitted to the manikin and not the manikin itself , Henry Adams is telling us that the subject matter of the book that we will read is education and not about himself

He is doing this because it is easy for us to judge that the book will be about himself , an exercise to uplift his Ego . But in the preface Adams is quick to tell us that we should not think this way . He lets us understand that the subject matter of the book is on education : what aspects of education are beneficial and what aspects are not

In the chapter entitled Harvard College , for example , Adams says that the garment ' that is the formal education that he wore for four years does not fit ' him . He says that it is not beneficial to him . He feels that he does not develop in any way and that the four years that he spent in Harvard is just a waste of time

For the purposes of future advancement , as afterwards appeared , these first four years of a possible education were wasted in doing imperfectly what might have been done perfectly in one , and in any case would have had small value (Chapter IV , Par . 1

It does not mean though...