1From John Adams to George Washington Adams, 20 February 1825 (Adams Papers)
Your letter has given me great pleasure, and so have those of your brother John—they are lively, animating and cheerful, and at the same time judicious and prudent, which to me is of more importance than all the rest. This great nation appears to me to be as well satisfied as so great a nation can be and in their satisfaction I sincerely rejoice. What obligations does this event impose upon...
2From John Adams to George Washington Adams, 3 February 1823 (Adams Papers)
yours of the 26th. January is received. I pray you to attend as much as possible, to every Court, and every scene in which law questions are discussed or mooted. Observe patiently and critically the conduct of Judges Counsellors, Jurors parties, Witnesses and spectators. And by no means fail to provide yourself with an ample apparatus for writing, a pocket ink horn, plenty of ink, good pens...
3From John Adams to George Washington Adams, 12 January 1823 (Adams Papers)
I have received your favour of the 5th. instant full of wise reflections philosophical and moral. I am glad you think so much and so prudently. You must be very happy all of you together I wish I could be one of your family circle during the vacations notwithstanding all the silly trécasseries of the times. Your Fathers notice of General Smyth was brought to me last night and read to me by Mr....
4From John Adams to George Washington Adams, 17 December 1822 (Adams Papers)
yours of the 9th. is received, you do not give me any account of your Studies as formerly—Mr. Smith and your Aunt have been very fortunate in escaping the Plague at Pensacola, please to give my love to them. I hope the Mexican Ambassador and his eight Gentlemen companions have brought with them plenty of Milled dollars, and Mexican Bullion, and after teaching our Merchants and Manufacturers...
5From John Adams to George Washington Adams, 1 December 1822 (Adams Papers)
I have received your letter of the 18th. November—your comparison of the horse race with the presidential race is happy. I believe that the partisans, of the cavalry are more zealous than those of the presidency. I rejoice that the discussion has begun so early. Characters will now be sifted, and the decision will show the national character” Know thyself ought to be the motto of this nation....
6From John Adams to George Washington Adams, 10 October 1822 (Adams Papers)
I have received your letter of the 23d ulto. & your father’s letter & octavo volume mentioned in it The book will answer for itself wherever it goes & I hope will satisfy the world. If you take the “Old Colony Memorial” you will see some ancient documents concerning the fisheries, if you do not take that paper I hope you will subscribe for it, for it is of great importance to the history of...
7From John Adams to George Washington Adams, 20 September 1822 (Adams Papers)
Your beautiful letter of the 8th has given me great pleasure I call it beautiful because the style is handsome and handwriting marvellous for you. You cannot be in a better school than when writing for Your Father. You will return to Your Studies with greater pleasure after having written for him George! I have read I believe in Anacharsis a law of one of the democratic republics of Greece I...
8From John Adams to George Washington Adams, 27 July 1822 (Adams Papers)
I have mislay’d your letter and therefore cannot refer to it. I hope Mr Russell has his fill, your Father’s rejoinder is as some of the Southern papers express it, like the waters of the Mississippi, without “o’er-flowing full” There is but one vocce in this part of the world, and that is of disapprobation of Mr Russell’s conduct. The testimony’s of Mr. Brent and Mr Bailey are clenchers, and...
9From John Adams to George Washington Adams, 11 July 1822 (Adams Papers)
I agree with you in your number 34. that the quarterly is guilty of damning Stuart, and Reid, with faint praise, or rather with insidious praise; but they may say what they will, they can never destroy the reputation of either, as a profound investigator of the science of the human mind; both have added to the stock of human knowledge, and cleared up many perplexing points and questions; They...
10From John Adams to George Washington Adams, 24 June 1822 (Adams Papers)
Your No 33. has pleased me much and I beg you to continue your observations on the cavilling and chicanery of the quarterly review. I grow more and more every day in love with Stuart and the Scottish school. I have had read to me three volumes of Browns lectures on Metaphysics and ethics and I recommend them to your careful perusal as well as to your brothers. They are a rich mine and mass of...
11From John Adams to George Washington Adams, 15 June 1822 (Adams Papers)
I am well pleased with your No. 31 & 32 I hope you will continue the subject. I see nothing in the quarterly reviews but the Johnsonian antipathy to Scotland. That Mr Locke has had greater influence on the intellectual moral & political world than any man of the last century I believe; but to deny that Reid, and Stuart, have made no improvements, upon Locke appears to me uniniquitous...
12From John Adams to George Washington Adams, 12 June 1822 (Adams Papers)
I am well pleased with your No’s: 31. 32 & hope you will continue the subject. I see nothing on the quarterly review but the Johnsonian antipathy to Scotland. That Mr. Locke has had greater influence on the intellectual moral & political world than any man of the last century I believe; but to deny that Reid & Stuart have made no improvements a upon Locke appears to me an iniquitous partiality...
13From John Adams to George Washington Adams, 3 June 1822 (Adams Papers)
Some of Jobs afflictions and some of Jobs comforts have prevented my answering your letters, as far as no 30. I hope you will persever in stud y ing Barbaracque. I hope you will critically study his Notes and his quotations in latin and Greek from the Ancients. Endeavour to pick and search out their meaning.— Mr Russells letter and your Fathers remarks are arrived and running the round of...
14From John Adams to George Washington Adams, 30 May 1822 (Adams Papers)
Some of Jobs afflictions & some of Jobs comforters have prevented my answering your letters as far as No 30. I hope you will persevere in studying Barbaracque. I hope you will critically study his notes & his quotations in latin & Greek from the Ancients. Endeavour to pick & search out their meaning. Mr Russells letter & your fathers remarks are arrived and running the round of conversation &...
15From John Adams to George Washington Adams, 15 May 1822 (Adams Papers)
I will not trouble you to read a history of my pains and aches, as an apology for neglecting to acknowledge your letters, which I have regularly received—I am now better and thank you for your punctual attention. I preserve all your letters in a bundle—hec olin meminisse juvabit—Your observations upon Congress, and its members, are as they ought to be, candid cautious and prudent; It is an old...
16From John Adams to George Washington Adams, 14 May 1822 (Adams Papers)
I will not trouble you, to read a history of my pains and aches, as an apology for neglecting to acknowledge your letters which I have regularly received as far as No 28. I am now better and thank you for your punctual attention. I preserve all your letters in a bundle—hæc olim meminisse juvabit—your observations upon Congress, and its Members, are as they ought to be, candid cautious and...
17From John Adams to George Washington Adams, 26 March 1822 (Adams Papers)
I am delighted with your number 22. It is not too free. It is modest enough. It is wise learned and ingenious. I have sometimes the feelings of Theophrastus who at 115 as I learn from casauban, thought it hard to die when he had just learned to live. Never was I more ardently interested in historical and political studies or Amusements. Hobard Johnson Morton, Winslow Bradford and a hundred...
18From John Adams to George Washington Adams, 10 March 1822 (Adams Papers)
I have received your No 19, 24, Feby. When I recollect the freedom of speech, which I indulged, and in which I was indulged, and which I fear I sometimes abused in congress from 1774, to 1778, I ought not to be very severe upon Mr Randolph, or on Mr M. Durfee, I must say however that the liberty I claimed I always granted to others, and my pertness was plentifully retorted upon me. I think...
19From John Adams to George Washington Adams, 5 March 1822 (Adams Papers)
Did you send me a pritty address of the President of Columbia College, which I received this Morning. Who is this Revnd. Dr William Staughton, is he a native American, or a foreigner, was he Educated in Rhode Island College, Is he a Baptist, or of what denomination; he appears to me an amiable Man and a good scholar.—He says that Man on his enterance on existence, is unconscious of danger and...
20From John Adams to George Washington Adams, 26 February 1822 (Adams Papers)
I received this Morning your No 18—It is a universal complaint that the english Language furnishes no word to express the feeling of ennui in french. why will not inoccupation, or unemployment or idleness or leisure, or lassitude, or vacancy, answer the end. When I can write or read, or hear any one read, whether in Sermons or Romances, in Philosophy or Frevolity. I never feel ennui; It is...
21From John Adams to George Washington Adams, 22 February 1822 (Adams Papers)
Do not the cannon which have thundered this morning in honour of your Namesake, in flame a holy Ambition in your breast to imitate his Virtues talents and qualities? you have received, no doubt Alexander Everetts Europe. It has been read to me. It discovers attentive observation, Sedulous inquiry and profound reflection. But it wants in many points the maturity of Judgment which is only the...
22From John Adams to George Washington Adams, 10 February 1822 (Adams Papers)
Thanks for your No 15—Your Father advised wisely to the Abbe Condilla. I knew him personally. He was an intimate friend of the Abbe De Mably and either by blood of Monastic order, a Brother. His course of Study, for the Prince of Parma is a learned and valuable work.—With the character of his metaphisical works you already know much from Stuarts philosophy of the Mind, and will know more from...
23From John Adams to George Washington Adams, January 1822 (Adams Papers)
Tell your Father that I have found the old circular pedigree which looks like so many wheels within wheels of Boules de savon and that Miss Abigail and Miss Elizabeth have undertaken to copy it, and as they yesterday had the courage to go to Boston without a beau I presume they will be able to accomplish this enterprize. We are all well or convalescent. / Your affectionate / Grandfather. MHi :...
24From John Adams to George Washington Adams, 27 January 1822 (Adams Papers)
The splendid account we receive from you and others of the dinners parties and balls from Washington almost persuade me to give you an account of the splendour of my family In addition to those which you know very well, we have Mr Shaw Mr DeWint and his lady & two servants. Your two brothers who by the way are very studious & skate, cut & saw wood no more than is beneficial to their health....
25From John Adams to George Washington Adams, 13 January 1822 (Adams Papers)
I am glad to learn by your No. 12—that you are reading Burlamaqui and as he is sound in philosophy morals and Religion, I hope that you will not only read, but study him. Make an abstract or analysis of him, for I inculcate on all my young friends the maxim “studium—sine calamo, somnium.” My early patron Mr Gridley of whom you have so often heard me speak with veneration, who educated more...
26From John Adams to George Washington Adams, 6 January 1822 (Adams Papers)
A cold frosty snowy morning. I have received your No 11. I am glad you have got through the spirit of laws. You ought to read the Persian letters, the temple of Gnidus, and the other works of Montesquieu. But before you proceed further, I advise you to read, again, your father’s lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory, and that with close attention, steady care, and keen discernment—for although you...
27From John Adams to George Washington Adams, 27 December 1821 (Adams Papers)
I have mourned with your mourning in your No. 9 of the 16th Dec. for the loss of Colonel Trimble, and laughed through your gaiety concerning the Ball at the English Ambassador’s. The transitions from grave to gay and from gay to grave are very frequent in this mingled world and we ought to make sober reflections on them all. But I must transide from the letter to a former one.— You are reading...
28From John Adams to George Washington Adams, 9 December 1821 (Adams Papers)
The information in yours of the 30 Nov. & that we have from Susan of the health & spirits of you all is a cordial comfort to me. I am glad you have read Blackstone. As you say you are not yet informed what you are to read next with submission to your more learned preceptors I would advise you to read Sullivans lectures but above all I pray you to make it as a perpetual maxim “petere...
29From John Adams to George Washington Adams, 25 November 1821 (Adams Papers)
Thanks for your No 5. I have now finished reading and hearing read the Four volumes of Hallam’s middle ages. It is a great work and deserves to be kept constantly in your view. It has a good Table of contents and an ample Index, without which accommodation, a book after the first reading, is commonly a useless piece of Lumber. I esteem it the greatest work of the 19th Century. He has made good...
30From John Adams to George Washington Adams, 15 November 1821 (Adams Papers)
I thank you for your letter of the 4th. November I am very glad to hear that you are so nearly through Hallams Middle Ages.—I am travelling through the same country from the benevolence of your friend Quincy.—who after travelling through it himself gave me a lease of it for a term.—It is a valuable compendium and I am very glad to find that he gives so great a character of MU RATORI, whose...