One element of the text in particular struck me as interesting. I was really intrigued by how Adams describes his siblings and himself as fortunate to have escaped the issues connected to their New England/Bostonian education. (See, "By some happy chance they grew up to be decent citizens..." pg. 26). He makes it seem like they were lucky to have emerged unscathed. I don't feel that he ever clarified what evils they escaped-- complacency? Submersion in aristocratic Boston society? An obsession with politics? The only clarification I can find is on page 25:
"The children reached manhood without knowing religion, and with the certainty that dogma, metaphysics, and abstract philosophy were not worth knowing. So one-sided an education could have been possible in no other country or time, but it became, almost of necessity, the more literary and political."
So I guess I understand that he feels his education was too cut-and-dry, but I'm confused about how this could have tainted him; in a way, he seems to say that a Bostonian education spoils good minds and people. So what changes is he proposing? What problems is he saying are innate within such a "literary and political" education?
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