Diary of John Quincy Adams, volume 2
1786-03-30
My Trunks, which I have been so long expecting, came, at last this morning, from Haverhill. White, and my Brother, went to Boston; this day our Class finished reciting in Euclid. A Lesson was set us in Gravesande,1 for next Quarter; when we go, in to Mr. Read. It would have been best to have gone in to Gravesande 12before Mr. Williams, began his Lectures; but the Class was considerably delayed last year, by Mr. Howard's2 going away, as he was the mathematical Tutor. Mr. Cranch stopp'd here, on his Return, from Lincoln. Weather fair and pleasant all day. The freshmen, are still very high. Sullivan, one of the Seniors had a Window broke, by one of them this Evening.
Willem Jacob van's Gravesande, Mathematical Elements of Natural Philosophy, Confirmed by Experiments, Or, An Introduction to Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy..., transl. John Théophilus Desaguliers, 2 vols., London, 1720–1721. When JQA requested JA to purchase a copy for him in England, he asked for the octavo edition because it was the one “studied here. They are very scarce in this Country, as they can neither be bought, nor borrowed out of College” (JQA to JA, 21 May–14 June, Adams Papers).
Bezaleel Howard, Harvard 1781, tutor 1783–1785, had been minister at Springfield, Mass., since 1785 (Heman Howard, The Howard Genealogy: Descendants of John Howard of Bridgewater, Massachusetts, from 1643 to 1903 [Brockton, Mass.], 1903, p. 54;
Harvard Quinquennial Cat.
).
1786-03-31
No reciting, this day. I was not in at Prayers, in the morning. Mr. Williams gave us, his second Lecture, upon those Properties of Matter, which though not essential to it, was in a greater or smaller degree common to all. Such were Attraction, which was of 2 kinds, Cohesion, and Repulsion, and Gravitation. The Substance of the Lectures I have taken down on Separate Paper,1 so that I shall not repeat it here. I attended the Junior tea-Club, and signed the Regulations, as I was admitted to it, Last Evening. A Nephew of the President, by the same Name, was this day examined, and admitted, as a Junior Sophister.
None of JQA's Harvard lecture notes has been found.