Recalling His Own Love of Ancient Cultures, President John Adams Laments That Few Americans Learn Greek and Latin

Adams was a lover of the works of Ancient Greece and Rome, and often compared the new Republic in America with the great and early Republics of Europe.  His letters speak to his feeling that American democracy descended directly from its Roman and Greek counterparts.  His speeches abound with classical references. 

Adams could read Latin and ancient Greek, and early in his legal career admitted that his lack of technical knowledge of the law might be aided by his familiarity with Greek and Roman authors. This is further shown in Novanglus, a treatise against British rule, wherein he references among others Aristotle, Plato, Livy and Cicero.  He referred to the First Continental Congress as "this Areopagus, Council of Amphictyons."  On Alexander Hamilton's death: "When Burr shot Hamilton, it was not Brutus killing Caesar in the Senate-House, but it was killing him before he passed the Rubicon."  He called Napoleon "a military fanatic like Achilles, Alexander, Caesar."  And in 1798 he likened the threats facing America to those that faced Greece: "…When foreign Nations interfere, and by their acts, and agents, excite and foment them into parties and factions; such interference and influence, must be resisted and exterminated or it will end in America, as it did anciently in Greece, and in our own time in Europe, in our total destruction as a republican Government and Independent power."

This was a flame that never went out.  In an 1813 letter to Thomas Jefferson, at 78 years old, he wrote of resuming the study of Greek, "one of the flames of my youth."  Latin phrases were his mottos, and his commentary in his own classical texts shows his life was in part guided by principals he read in these two languages.  Moreover, much of his vision for the new country over which he presided derived from his early classical studies.

He felt these skills vital for students.  In 1779, he re-read many of the classics as he helped his son, future President John Quincy Adams, study for entrance to Harvard.  The father and son read together from Aristotle, Plutarch, Lucian and Homer, as well as Horace, Virgil and Suetonius. This education and re-education bound father and son together.

In the summer of 1780, John Adams took over duties as U.S. Minister to the Netherlands, a position in which he would help negotiate Dutch recognition of the new American nation.  He arrived in Holland with few friends or connections, but he was quickly welcomed into a circle consisting of others sympathetic to the American' cause, among them Dutch patriot Francis Adrian Van der Kemp, who Adams described to Thomas Jefferson as "the most elegant writer in the Dutch language."  Adams spent time in the Golden Lion inn in Leyden, where he met many in the liberal and literary circles in Europe.  In 1781, Van der Kemp published A Collection of Tracts Relative to the United States, an espousal of the American cause, which earned him letters of introduction from Madison, Franklin, and Washington, among others.  In 1788, he left the Netherlands for America and settled in New York at Oldenbarneveldt, from where he met many of the great people of the era, among them Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton. He shared George Washington's interest in scientific agriculture after a visit to Mount Vernon.

On the national scene, Van der Kemp's opinions influenced many of the great leaders of America. John Adams credited him with a "vast view of civilization" and respected his advice. His warm friendship with John and Abigail Adams endured till their deaths, and John Quincy Adams continued the relationship.  He persuaded Thomas Jefferson to anonymously publish his religious work called a "Syllabus of an estimate of the doctrines of Jesus compared with those of others"

Among the men Adams and Van der Kemp knew in Leyden was Laurens von Santen, who both respected and who had written a Latin children's book, Carmina Juvenilia.  In 1799, Van der Kemp wrote to Adams, suggesting the publication of this work, recalling  von Santen and drawing on the President's interest in education and the classics. This letter is apparently unpublished and was not known to exist.

Autograph letter signed, as President, Philadelphia, February 22, 1799, to "Fr. Adr. Vanderkemp at Oldenbarneveldt. State of New York."  "Sir, I have just received your favour of the 20th of January: and am sensibly touched with the Remembrance of our learned and ingenious Friend whom I saw at the Red [Golden] Lyon in Leyden.  I thank you for his Poems.

"Whether you will find Purchasers for the Edition of his juvenile Poems you meditate I cannot say.  My countrymen I fear do not sufficiently attend to Greek and Latin after they leave Colledge – perhaps not there.  I am with much Esteem Sir your most obedient." 

This letter was once the property of the legendary autograph dealer ASW Rosenbach, who was active from the 1920s to 1951, and helped to build many of our nation's great libraries, among them the Huntington, Morgan, and Widener. The letter comes in his folder. It has remained in the family of the collector to whom Rosenbach originally sold it since then, and only now appears again on the market.