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Note on the text:

Like his peers, JQA kept letterbooks, volumes into which he (or a secretary) copied all of his correspondence. Since in this case the letter he sent is not available, the document imaged below is from his letterbook.
Those selections students are instructed to read appear below in color.
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John Quincy Adams to Charles Adams

Paris June ye 6 1778

I often envy you the pleasure you enjoy in being at a place where you with pleasure look around you upon the rugged rocks & homly pastures & what is of more Consequence you can Converse with Mamma Sister & brother. these are pleasures that are not exceeded by all the gaiety & riches of europe. your business & mine are upon the Same foundation to qualify ourselves to be useful members of Society & to get a living in the world, & I am Convinced from experience that your opportunities for this are as good as mine by the advice of a most excellent mother & the use of a valuable Library. after all the distresses & dangers I have gone through to obtain them you have one advantage over me & that is that you are less exposed to vice & folly, but I hope I shall never be tempted by them. we are Sent into this world for Some end. it is our duty to discover by Close study what this end is & when we once discover it to pursue it with unconquerable perseverance

I am &c.

John Quincy Adams

Adams, John Quincy. Letter to Charles Adams, June 6, 1778. Adams Family Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society. Published in Adams Family Correspondence, Volume 3: April 1778 - September 1780 (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1973). Pages 33-34.