18th Harvard Studies & John Quincy Adams

 

John Quincy Adams returned to the newly independent United States of America in 1786 after having spent fully six years with his father in Europe. His father's insistence that he attend Harvard brought him back. After some refresher work in Greek he took the admission exam for Harvard.

"Adams was asked to construe three stanzas from Horace and a passage from the Iliad, then quizzed on the works of Locke, on Euclid, and on geography" and "p  Hresident Willard asked him to translate several English sentences into Latin." Geography, geometry, political science, and Greek . . . maybe we should try a little more of that. I don't think many would muster the necessary skills to get by that entrance exam these days. However, it does beg the question what skills should a student have to advance study at college? We might all agree on crossing out the Greek and even the political science. It may have been included due to the founding struggles of politically putting the new nation together. Well, on second thought, given the recent strains on our political structures, maybe Locke should be included. Given the struggles that more have with writing in English perhaps some foreign language study would help with that as well.

He was admitted, tuition free in recognition of his father national service, but admonished not to wear a hat when crossing the Harvard yard except in inclement weather. Adams graduated second in his class and delivered an English oration on "the necessity of public faith to the well-being of a community," something that many today could benefit from listening to.

John Quincy Adams - One of our Finest!

https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/releases/national-portrait-gallery-acquires-earliest-known-photograph-us-president

The above photo is of John Quincy Adams, our sixth president (1825-29), and the first to be photographed. This photo was taken in 1843.  It was acquired in 2017 by The National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C.  for $360,500 (Big Frank's favorite D.C. museum - when in the capital do not miss going there). This particular photo is the first/earliest known photograph of a U.S. president. 

Adams was 76 years old when he had it taken. The photograph of President John Quincy Adams is a unique daguerreotype and was produced by artist Philip Haas just four years after Louis Daguerre’s radical invention was revealed to the world. The portrait has been on view in America’s Presidents since 2018.

In March 1843, Adams visited the Washington, D.C., studio of Haas for a portrait sitting, becoming the first U.S. President to have his likeness captured through the new medium of photography. This sitting took place nearly 15 years after Adams had served as the nation’s sixth President (1825–1829). At the time, he was serving in Congress as a U.S. Representative from Massachusetts.

Adams meticulously maintained a diary from 1779 until his death in 1848. He noted in his diary the taking of this portrait session in March 1843. He wrote that he walked to the photographer Haas’ studio at 9 o’clock in the morning “my hands in woolen lined gloves bitterly pinched with cold. Found Horace Everett [U.S. Congressman from Vermont’s third district] there for the same purpose of being facsimiled. Haas took him once, and then with his consent took me three times, the second of which he said was very good—for the operation is delicate: subject to many imperceptible accidents, and fails at least twice out of three times.

Adams' diary writing was begun at the urging of his father, John Adams. He urged his son to keep a journal of  "the events that happen to me, and of object that I see, and of characters that I converse with from day to day." What a great prompt for a journal. It obviously inspired Quincy Adams for he started in 1779 at the age of 12 and continued for the rest of his life. On the front of the first journal, a small sheaf of papers bound by a string was written "JOURNAL BY ME." As he progressed Adams later bought five-hundred-page hard-bound volumes. By the end of his life, he had filled up 51!

Below is a cleaned up version of his portrait that can be found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Daguerreotype of Quincy Adams by Philip Haas, 1843

Southworth & Hawes - The Metropolitan Museum of Art

John Quincy Adams. Copy of 1843 Daguerreotype by Philip Haas. This is apparently a copy by Southworth & Hawes of a lost original daguerreotype by Phillip Haas (active 1839-57), ca. 1843. Oliver (1970a) discusses the Metropolitan Museum dagurreotype as by Southworth & Hawes and two related prints that clearly attribute it to Haas. Marder and Pierce (1995) correct the attribution of the Metropolitan's piece to Haas and describe it as a copy. Newhall (1977) describes a related plate signed by Haas, which Newhall donated to the Metropolitan Museum.