Presidential Biographies | John Q. Adams Administration - Education

Education

John Quincy Adams was, arguably, the most intelligent and, for his time, the best prepared president that the country ever had. His education began at home, where he learned reading, writing, and arithmetic from his parents. He also read history and literature, and became proficient in Latin, Greek, and French. In Europe with his father between 1778 and 1780, Adams studied at private schools in Paris, France, Amsterdam, and at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. Returning to the United States, he enrolled as a junior at Harvard College in 1785 and graduated with a baccalaureate degree in 1787. Following in his father's footsteps, Adams studied law in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and was admitted to the bar in 1790.