Even after nearly four decades, an embarrassing memory makes me blush.

    In an English class at university, the professor made a passing reference to "The Education of Henry Adams." Eager student that I was, I raised my hand and asked, "Sir, who wrote 'The Education of Henry Adams?'" The professor stared at me for a moment, blinked, and answered slowly, "Henry Adams." Oops.

    In fact, Adams (1838-1918) was a relatively-well-known historian. His "Mont Saint Michel and Chartres" is a personal examination of those two French sites, and exhibits a sweeping understanding of medieval art, architecture, and daily life.

    But he is best remembered for "The Education." It won the Pulitzer Prize for 1919. Nearly 80 years later, in 1998, The Modern Library (an American publisher) named it the best nonfiction book of the 20th century.

    It begins as a fairly conventional autobiography of an unconventional man. You see, Adams was the grandson of one president (John Quincy Adams), and the great-grandson of another (John Adams, one of the most illustrious Founding Fathers). His father, though never president, was nonetheless a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and was sent by President Lincoln to England as ambassador during the U.S. Civil War.

    And Henry, at 23, accompanied his father as his private secretary. It was a family tradition, and signified that his father had chosen Adams to "follow in his footsteps." But it was not to be.

    As the narrative unfolds, we discover that Adams was the epitome of the true intellectual. As such, he was uncomfortable with the role he would have had to play in public life. In "The Education," he writes that "Practical politics consists of ignoring facts."

    He also criticizes the education he had received in school, as it did not prepare him for the rapid changes taking place in the latter half of the 19th century. Thus, he felt he had to take on a project of self-education, the theme of the book.

    An eloquent writer and a deep thinker, Henry Adams is someone I should have known about, and I'm grateful to that professor for correcting my ignorance.

    Vocabulary: Which word above means:

    1. respected, admired

    2. take up his profession

    3. says negative things about

    4. broad, wide-ranging

    5. men who started the United States

    6. usual, common

    7. lack of knowledge

    8. official representative from one country to another

    9. perfect example

    10. book about one's own life

    ANSWERS: 1. illustrious 2. follow in his footsteps 3. criticizes 4. sweeping 5. Founding Fathers 6. conventional 7. ignorance 8. ambassador 9. epitome 10. autobiography