EDITOR'S PREFACE
THIS volume, written in 1905 as a sequel
to the same author's "Mont Saint Michel and Chartres," was
privately printed, to the number of one hundred copies, in 1906,
and sent to the persons interested, for their assent, correction,
or suggestion. The idea of the two books was thus explained at
the end of Chapter XXIX: --
"Any schoolboy could see that man as a force must be measured by
motion from a fixed point. Psychology helped here by suggesting a
unit -- the point of history when man held the highest idea of
himself as a unit in a unified universe. Eight or ten years of
study had led Adams to think he might use the century 1150-1250,
expressed in Amiens Cathedral and the Works of Thomas Aquinas, as
the unit from which he might measure motion down to his own time,
without assuming anything as true or untrue, except relation. The
movement might be studied at once in philosophy and mechanics.
Setting himself to the task, he began a volume which he mentally
knew as 'Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres: a Study of
Thirteenth-Century Unity.' From that point he proposed to fix a
position for himself, which he could label: 'The Education of
Henry Adams: a Study of Twentieth-Century Multiplicity.' With the
help of these two points of relation, he hoped to project his
lines forward and backward indefinitely, subject to correction
from any one who should know better."
The "Chartres" was finished and privately printed in 1904. The
"Education" proved to be more difficult. The point on which the
author failed to please himself, and could get no light from
readers or friends, was the usual one of literary form. Probably
he saw it in advance, for he used to say, half in jest, that his
great ambition was to complete St. Augustine's "Confessions," but
that St. Augustine, like a great artist, had worked from
multiplicity to unity, while he, like a small one, had to reverse
the method and work back from unity to multiplicity. The scheme
became unmanageable as he approached his end.
Probably he was, in fact, trying only to work into it his
favorite theory of history, which now fills the last three or
four chapters of the "Education," and he could not satisfy
himself with his workmanship. At all events, he was still
pondering over the problem in 1910, when he tried to deal with it
in another way which might be more intelligible to students. He
printed a small volume called "A Letter to American Teachers,"
which he sent to his associates in the American Historical
Association, hoping to provoke some response. Before he could
satisfy himself even on this minor point, a severe illness in the
spring of 1912 put an end to his literary activity forever.
The matter soon passed beyond his control. In 1913 the Institute
of Architects published the "Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres."
Already the "Education" had become almost as well known as the
"Chartres," and was freely quoted by every book whose author
requested it. The author could no longer withdraw either volume;
he could no longer rewrite either, and he could not publish that
which he thought unprepared and unfinished, although in his
opinion the other was historically purposeless without its
sequel. In the end, he preferred to leave the "Education"
unpublished, avowedly incomplete, trusting that it might quietly
fade from memory. According to his theory of history as explained
in Chapters XXXIII and XXXIV, the teacher was at best helpless,
and, in the immediate future, silence next to good-temper was the
mark of sense. After midsummer, 1914, the rule was made
absolute.
The Massachusetts Historical Society now publishes the
"Education" as it was printed in 1907, with only such marginal
corrections as the author made, and it does this, not in
opposition to the author's judgment, but only to put both volumes
equally within reach of students who have occasion to consult
them.
HENRY CABOT LODGE
September, 1918