Henry Adams, the grandson and great grandson of two Presidents, wrote an “autobiography” on his education. The book more properly functions as a history of man, and the world.

A strong theme of the book is a feeling of almost hopelessness as modern man is cut off from permanancy and cast adrift in modernity. His only solace was found in the cult of the Virgin of Chartres. Whether or not he became a Christian is open for speculation, but the idea of the Virgin seemed to be his only comfort against the forces of modernity, as it gave him something to “cling” to.

Henry Adams was also the first professor of history at Harvard.