For four years
each student had been obliged to figure daily before dozens of
young men who knew each other to the last fibre. One had done
little but read papers to Societies, or act comedy in the Hasty
Pudding, not to speak of regular exercises, and no audience in
future life would ever be so intimately and terribly intelligent
as these. Three-fourths of the graduates would rather have
addressed the Council of Trent or the British Parliament than
have acted Sir Anthony Absolute or Dr. Ollapod before a gala
audience of the Hasty Pudding. Self-possession was the strongest
part of Harvard College, which certainly taught men to stand
alone, so that nothing seemed stranger to its graduates than the
paroxysms of terror before the public which often overcame the
graduates of European universities. Whether this was, or was not,
education, Henry Adams never knew. He was ready to stand up
before any audience in America or Europe, with nerves rather
steadier for the excitement, but whether he should ever have
anything to say, remained to be proved. As yet he knew nothing
Education had not begun.
CHAPTER V
BERLIN (1858-1859)
A FOURTH child has the strength of his weakness. Being of no
great value, he may throw himself away if he likes, and never be
missed. Charles Francis Adams, the father, felt no love for
Europe, which, as he and all the world agreed, unfitted Americans
for America.
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