New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-06-10
MEN AND EVENTS
The Lifework and the Opinions
of a Distinguished American.
II. G.. WELLS.
cHAR1rs rRAYcTs ADAMs. Isss.lols AZ Au

of a Distinguished American.
CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS: is35.lolS. An Au,
tobiogrAphy with a Memorial Address dehtered
uy Henry Cabot Lodge WIN porralL hoSsl
Svo. Up. *. - The H9ughion Miniin company
This is the self-told tale of a man Of
affairs. We use the phrase with apollo
gies and explanation. Usually the
man of affairs" is a sort Of sublimat-
ed Gradgrind He is business man,
devoted to practical" pursuits; skep-
tic of ideals and an advocate of the
utilitarian. Such is. indeed, a man Of
affairs; of that kind of affairs. But
there are other kinds. There are af-
fairs of the conscience as well as OF
the counting house, affairs of the in
tellectual as we'll as of the physical
and financial life. Why not call him
man of affairs who is conversant with
and efficient in the one kind as well as
the other? Why not recognize the man
of idealistic as well as OF materialistic
affairs?
Charles Francis Adams, the younger,
was a man of all kinds of affairs; or
actually of many and potentially Of all.
He was by far the most versatile, and
at the same time not the least thor
ough. of the distinguished line IN the
fourth generation of which he stood.
There was easily recognizable in him
something of his father, of his grand
father and of his great-grandfather,
and there was also something in him
which none of them possessed. He was
a soldier, he was business man, he
was a man Of letters. In each of these
three pursuits he attained what he
well deserved, distinction. But IN no
one of them was he a narrow special
list, nor did all three of them comprise
all the activities and all the achieve
ments of his singularly energetic and
efficient life.
lie was an educational reformer, who
left a deeper impress upon the aca-
demic life of his time and of succeed
ing time than most of the professional
educators who were his contemporaries.
He was a historian, with a controlling
passion. not for style nor for effect, but
for ascertainment, disclosure and dem
onstration of the truth, and some OF his
best work was done in unravelling tan
giles and in indicating facts which had
been concealed, distorted or Ignored
This he did for the pure sake Of the
truth, with-if we may use the phrase
a singular sngleness of mind, and with
a fine disregard of secondary results:
We may imagine that he welcomed and
rejoiced in a more complete reconcllla-
tion of the North and South, and that
similarly grateful to him was a more
just appreciation Of Anglo-American
l - 4 I,rtn
that those ends were perceptibly pro-
NOTED by his lucid and convincing mas
! terpieces on Robert +. Lee and on the
attitude and course of Queen Victoria
/ in our Civil War. Yet we must believe
/ that he would have pursued and demon
/ strated the truth just as faithfully If
/ its purport had been found to be the
/ unwelcome contrary Of what it was.
Those who were interested-as what
/ scholars of that time we're not?-in his
epochal college Fetch" must now be
/ again interested in his personal account
Of his own classical studies as a Har
ward undergraduate. Those were the
day of FELTON,, and Of that Evangelinus
| Apostolides Sophocles whose name
/ alone implied a liberal education in
/ both theology and the classics. Doubt
| less many who did not 90 TO Harvard
then have wished that they might have
had the privilege Of studying under
| those masters, in which case they
would, of course, have become fine clas-
steal scholars. But listen to Adams:
The methods Of instruction in
Greek at Harvard were simply be-
meath contempt. it was taught IN
thorough schoolboy fashion mel
Their philosophically nor elegantly;
a. -
and we were not initiated into
charming literature. We Numbered
along in class readers, a parcel Of
half-taught schoolboys. camo
within an ace Of being fair Greek
scholar. The slightest encourage
ment or assistance would have
made one Of me. But FELTON, and
Sophocles threw me off the track,
and they were, both Of them, ad-
mirably calculated so TO do.
A very little more and would have
acquired the faculty Of reading
Greek as living language I
read French and German. The
methods of instruction in use killed
the possibility and now |
can't even read the Greek charac-
tiers.
How many others. we wonder, haC
that same experience? And how large
! ly has that experience, collective anC
cumulative, induced college after col
lego to drop required Greek" and now
in one notable case only the othei
day TO drop required Latin" from the
curriculum. and TO bestow the bacca
laureate degree in arts upon those whC
even fall below Ben Jonson's accoun
of Shakespeare. and have no Latin anC
no Greek? Yet we should miss the rea