Ronald Reagan stuck it to millennials: A college debt history lesson no one tells

[pangaia]

5. John Adams and educatrion in America.

First, please remove that photo. It makes me sick.

Moving on.


After his early years as a farmer in Braintree, MA, graduating from Harvard with a degree in law and practicing in New England for several years, including successfully defending the British soldiers in the ‘Boston Massacre,’ serving as a delegate from Massachusetts to the Continental Congress, being one of the primary writers of the Declaration of Independence, serving as an American representative to the court of Louis XVI during the War for Independence, and joining Thomas Jefferson and John Jay in crafting the Treaty of Paris that ended that war, serving as the first US Ambassador to the Court of St James, where he was introduced as such to George III, having read and studied the ‘classics’, Greek, Roman, French and English- in their original languages - he sent his eldest son, John Quincy, who had been with his father in Europe for some 6-8 years, to Harvard. Interestingly enough John Quincy was at first denied admission, and told to study up on his Greek! (Oh if only that were a problem these days, eh!)

This is some of what John wrote to his son in Boston who, like his father, had an insatiable appetite for knowledge.. and is taken from “John Adams” by David McCollough –

“He must not study too hard, Adams cautioned kindly. 'The smell of the midnight lamp is very unwholesome. Never defraud yourself of sleep, nor your walk. You need not now be in a hurry.’ What was essential, Adams advised, was an inquisitive mind. John Quincy must get to know the most exceptional scholars and question them closely. ‘Ask them about their tutors, manner of teaching. Observe what books lie on their tables… Ask them about the late war…or fall into questions of literature, science, or what you will.’

"The more Adams thought about the future of his country, the more convinced he became that it rested on education. Before any great things are accomplished, he wrote to a correspondent,
‘a memorable change must be made in the system of education and knowledge must become so general as to raise the lower ranks of society nearer to the higher. The education of a nation instead of being confined to a few schools and universities for the instruction of the few, must become the national care and expense for the formation of the many.’ “


(Any mistakes in quoting are my own.)