on the 19th of the preceding July
was more impressive than usual. "The two famous English
scholars, the royal physician, Mr. Pringle, and Mr. Benjamin
Franklin, from Pennsylvania, who happened to be at that time
in Goettingen on a trip through Germany, took their seats as
members of the society."

Cf. the account by Dr. E. J. James (_The Nation_, Apr. 18,
1895, p. 296), reprinted in B. A. Hinsdale's article _Foreign
Influence upon Education in the United States_, published in
the _Report of the Commissioner of Education_, 1897-98. Vol.
I, pp. 604-607.

Cf. also, L. Viereck, _German Instruction in American
Schools_, ibid., 1900-1901. Vol. I, p. 543.]

[Footnote 5: Adams wrote also an account of his journey to
Silesia in July, 1800. This was in the form of twenty-nine
letters to his brother, written during the trip, and thirteen
more added after his return to Berlin. Although they were
private communications, the editor of the _Port Folio_
secured them for his magazine and printed them anonymously,
without suppressing personal references, as the author would
have done, had he known of the publication.

"Whether these passages ever came under the observation of
the persons affected is not certain. So long as they remained
confined to the columns of an American publication of that
day, the probabilities would favor the negative. But they
were not so confined. Again, without the knowledge or consent
of the author, an individual, unknown to him, but fully aware
of the facts in the case nevertheless took the collection
from the _Portfolio_ to London, and there had them printed
for his own benefit, in an octavo volume, in the year 1804.
From this copy they were rendered into German, and published
at Breslau the next year, with notes, by Frederick Albert
Zimmerman; and in 1807 a translation made into French, by J.
Dupuy, was published in Paris by Dentu.

"Thus it happened that these letters, originally intended as
purely familiar correspondence, obtained a free circulation
over a large part of Europe without the smallest agency on
the part of the author, or any opportunity to correct and
modify them as he certainly would have done had he ever
possessed the power."

_Memoirs of John Quincy Adams_, Edited by Charles Francis
Adams. 12 vols., Philadelphia, 1874.