From John Adams to George Chapman, 3 December 1785

To George Chapman

Grosvenor Square Decr. 3. 1785.

Sir

I received in due Season your Letter of the 20. July, with a Copy of your Treatise on Education. As I was much engaged at that time, I was not able to read it, but Mrs Adams, who read it carefully through, admired it so much, that she took the first Opportunity to send it to a worthy Clergy man in America, Mr shaw of Haverhill, who is much concerned in the Education of Youth.1 There is no Subject so interesting to the United States of America, who ought to consider themselves, not merely as forming a rising Generation of Freemen but as filling up a new World capable of containing & nourishing Some hundreds of Millions of Inhabitants. As such a Trust is peculiar to them, they ought to be very carefull, that no bad Principles or degrading Habits or Institutions, be found in that Country. I have found with much Pleasure in the various Parts of Europe, that the Men of Letters in general who are possessed of the best Hearts and most virtuous Principles, are anxious to assist Us in the great Work We have to do. And I hope Sir, that your sentiments on Education may contribute their share, towards the formation of a free and virtuous Race, on that side of the Atlantic. I have the Honour to be / sir your obliged &c

LbC (Adams Papers description begins Manuscripts and other materials, 1639–1889, in the Adams Manuscript Trust collection given to the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1956 and enlarged by a few additions of family papers since then. Citations in the present edition are simply by date of the original document if the original is in the main chronological series of the Papers and therefore readily found in the microfilm edition of the Adams Papers (APM). description ends ); internal address: “Mr George Chapman / Inchdrewer near Banff / N. Britain.”; APM Reel 111.

1. The letter from George Chapman (1723–1806) has not been found. Chapman, a Scottish schoolmaster and educational writer, was the author of A Treatise on Education, with a Sketch of the Author’s Method, Edinburgh, 1773 (DNB description begins Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee, eds., The Dictionary of National Biography, New York and London, 1885–1901; repr. Oxford, 1959–1960; 21 vols. plus supplements; rev. edn., www.oxforddnb.com. description ends ). The volume sent by Chapman may have been the third edition, to which an appendix had been added, published at London in 1784. AA indicated in her 15 Sept. 1785 letter to her sister Elizabeth Smith Shaw that she had sent the book to Shaw’s husband, Rev. John Shaw, who was then preparing JQA to enter Harvard College (AFC description begins Adams Family Correspondence, ed. L. H. Butterfield, Marc Friedlaender, Richard Alan Ryerson, Margaret A. Hogan, and others, Cambridge, 1963– . description ends , 6:362).

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Source Project: Adams Papers
Title: From John Adams to George Chapman, 3 December 1785
Author: Adams, John
Recipient: Chapman, George
Date: 3 December 1785

Reference

Cite as: “From John Adams to George Chapman, 3 December 1785,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-18-02-0004. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Papers of John Adams, vol. 18, December 1785–January 1787, ed. Gregg L. Lint, Sara Martin, C. James Taylor, Sara Georgini, Hobson Woodward, Sara B. Sikes, Amanda M. Norton. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016, pp. 4–5.]