I Am A Soldier

In some real-life irony, last night I attended a fantastic dinner by The Harbour League, a Maryland think tank dedicated to government financial transparency, honoring Herb London; the feature speaker was Norman Podhoretz, who was excellent. One of the lines THL's Chairman Eli Gold used when describing London was a President John Adams quote:

"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."

This morning, as I was going through my feeds, there was an article on Freakonomics in their "Quotes Uncovered" series where someone asked about the quote, wondering if it was Washington. It's odd that I'd never seen the full quote before (the concept of it I have heard), and then suddenly to have heard/seen it twice in 24 hours.