In a letter to his wife, John Adams, America’s second president, wrote: “I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine.”39 The progression goes from the hard and practical to the constructive and exploratory and eventually to the artistic and self-expressive.
