Vis Inertiae Henry Adams On Education Analysis

In The Education of Henry Adams, the author Henry Adams elaborates on his life in three important periods of time, in the short stories of “Harvard College”, “The Dynamo and the Virgin”, and “Vis Inertiae”. At the beginning of the collection of short stories, Adams presents us with the “Preface” which gives the reader insight on the central idea in his short stories- education. Adams uses a metaphor to describe the relationship between a student and his teacher and this explains how he believes education should be taught. In each short story, Adams depicts a change in his opinion on how viable education is in a person’s life . In "Harvard College", Adams completely frowns upon how he was taught and claims that he wasted four years at Harvard …show more content…
In “The Dynamo and the Virgin”, Adams is more ambitious to learn and to be educated. He is thirsty for knowledge but helpless because there is so much information he does not know. Adams still struggles to find a use for education and also struggles to be informed, still having trouble channeling his efforts into learning in the correct paths. Adams comes to the realization that the more he learns, the more there is to learn. “Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts” (42). Adams is ambitious to become more informed, but he realizes that he will never be informed enough, and this is a constant struggle for him. He also comes to the realization that after 40 years, he still has no use for anything he learned at Harvard. At this moment, Adams is giving an effort to become informed but is helpless because he has no efforts from a teacher. Adam’s struggle, like the struggle between the science and religion, can also be found in“Vis Inertiae”. This chapter is not as much focused on school and informatic education like the others, but rather in the education of the superiority and struggle of women and their role in society. Adams speaks highly of women, stating that if women are more senseful than men but that the reason for their failures to become more in society are due to their physical strengths and weaknesses, like reproduction and the stereotype of staying at home. Adams says the only way for women to become powerful is: “So far as she succeeded, she must become sexless like the bees, and must leave the old energy of inertia to carry on the race.” (55). The power women receive if they become sexless is what they are craving for. Adams tells the reader that women are powerful in way like their reproductive superiority but are inferior to men when it comes to having a role in