quote · Legacy record
The habit of looking at life as a social relation — an affair of society — did no good. It cultivated a weakness which needed no cultivation. If it had helped to make men of the world, or give the manners and instincts of any profession — such as temper, patience, courtesy, or a faculty of profiting by the social defects of opponents — it would have been education better worth having than mathematics or languages; but so far as it helped to make anything, it helped only to make the college standard permanent through life.
The habit of looking at life as a social relation — an affair of society — did no good. It cultivated a weakness which needed no cultivation. If it had helped to make men of the world, or give the manners and instincts of any profession — such as temper, patience, courtesy, or a faculty of profiting by the social defects of opponents — it would have been education better worth having than mathematics or languages; but so far as it helped to make anything, it helped only to make the college standard permanent through life.
Approximate author period: c. 1878 AD · industrial
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- Author or tradition
- Henry Adams
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1878 AD · industrial
Approximate author-period evidence for Henry Adams: life dates 1838 to 1918. Wikidata Q458390, inspected 2026-10-08. Not a quotation composition date or independent verification of attribution. Source: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q458390 (accessed 2026-10-08).
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 49720; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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