I have received the Letter you did me the Honour to write me the fourteenth of December, with the Resolution of the President and Fellows of the University of the Sixteenth of November, which, as well as the Concurrence of the Board of Overseers, does me great Honour and demands my most grateful Acknowledgements.1

My Son, John Quincy Adams, for whom this favour is intended will have the Honour to deliver you this Letter, and I beg leave to recommend him to the kind Protection of the Corporation, and the candid Friendship of his fellow Students.2 He has wandered with me in Europe for Seven Years, and has been for the last Eighteen 34Months my only Secretary, So that it may be easily conceived, I Shall part with him with Reluctance. But the Necessity of breeding him to some Profession, in which he may provide for himself, and become a usefull Member of Society, and a Conviction that no American can be any where So well educated as in his own Country, have induced me to relinquish the Pleasure of his Company and the Advantage of his Assistance. I think I do not flatter him nor myself, when I Say, that he is a Studious youth, and not addicted to any Vice: of his Advancement in Literature and the Sciences you will form an Estimate from his Examination, which would probably be more for his Ease and Safety if it could be in French, with which Language he is more familiar than his own. But as this is not to be expected, an allowance will naturally be made [on] Account of his long absence from home.

It is somewhat delicate to give Advice upon the Point of your Travels to Europe.3 There is no doubt but considerable Advantages might be obtained, but considering the Time, the Expence and the Risque I think if I had the Honour to be a Member of the Corporation or the Overseers, I Should estimate these as probably So much more than the others, as to advise my Countrymen as they are so happy as to have a good President, to preserve him carefully at the Head of his University.

Our Commercial Negotiations, Sir, which your public Spirit naturally enquires after, proceed so slowly and to so little Effect, that I wish myself on your side the Water, and whether any other Plan would Suceed better is too uncertain to excite any Sanguine Hopes. All the Ports of Europe, however are open to our Vessells, those with whom We have no Treaties as well as the others.

I have the Honour to be, with the Utmost / Esteem and Respect, Sir Your / most obedient and most / humble Servant

This Letter will be delivered you, by your old Acquaintance, John Quincy Adams, whom I beg Leave to recommend to your Attention and favour. He is anxious to Study Sometime, at your University before he begins the Study of the Law which appears at present to be the Profession of his Choice.

He must undergo an Examination, in which I Suspect he will not appear exactly what he is. in Truth there are few who take their Degrees at Colledge, who have so much Knowledge, but his Studies having been pursued by himself, on his travells without any Steady Tutor, he will be found aukward in Speaking Latin, in Prosody, in Parsing, and even perhaps in that accuracy of Pronunciation in reading orations or Poems in that Language, which is often chiefly attended to in Such Examinations.1

It seems to be necessary therefore that I make this Apology for him to you, and request you to communicate it in confidence to the Gentlemen who are to examine him, and Such others as you think prudent. If you were to examine him in English and French Poetry, I know not where you would find any body his Superiour. in Roman and English History few Persons of his Age, it is rare to find a youth possessed of So much Knowledge. He has translated Virgils Æneid, Suetonious, the whole of Sallust, and Tacituss Agricola, his Germany and Several Books of his Annals, a great Part of Horace Some of Ovid and Some of Cæsars Commentaries in Writing, besides a number of Tullys orations.2 These he may Shew you; and altho you will find the Translations in many Places inaccurate in point of Style, as must be expected at his Age, you will See abundant Proof, that it is impossible to make those translations without Understanding his Authors and their Language very well.

In Greek his Progress has not been equal. Yet he has Studied Morcells in Aristotles Poeticks, in Plutarch’s Lives, and Lucians Dialogues, the Choice of Hercules in Xenophon, and lately he has gone through Several Books in Homers Iliad.

in Mathematicks I hope he will pass muster. in the Course of the last year, instead of playing Cards like the fashionable World I have Spent my Evenings with him. We went with some Accuracy through the Geometry in the Præceptor the Eight Books of Simpsons Euclid, in Latin and compared it Problem by Problem and Theorem by Theorem with Le Pere Dechalles in french, We went through plain Trigonometry and plain Sailing, Fennings Algebra, and the Decimal Fractions, arithmetical and Geometrical Proportions, and the Conic Sections in Wards Mathematicks. I then attempted a Sublime Flight and endeavoured to give him some Idea of the Differential Method of Calculation of the Marquis de L’Hospital, and the Method of Fluxions and infinite Series of Sir Isaac Newton3 But alass it is thirty years Since I thought of Mathematicks, and I found I had lost the little I once knew, especially of these higher Branches of Geometry, So that he is as yet but a smatterer like his Father. however he has a foundation laid which will enable him with a years Attendance on the Mathematical Professor, to make the necessary Proficiency for a Degree. He is Studious enough and emulous enough, and when he comes to mix with his new Friends and young Companions he will make his Way well enough. I hope he will be upon his Guard against those Airs of Superiority among the Schollars, which his larger Acquaintance with the World, and his manifest Superiority in the Knowledge of Some Things, may but too naturally inspire into a young Mind, and I beg of you Sir, to be his friendly Monitor, in this Respect and in all others.4

With great Esteem I have the Honour / to be, sir your most obedient and / most humble servant