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1800s education in america
1800s education in america
ralph waldo emerson the american scholar thesis
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The American Scholar is one of the speeches given by Ralph Waldo Emerson on August 31, 1837 to the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge (World Largest Essay, 2014). People are not born with perfection, everyone learns through trials and errors. Mistakes are lessons not yet learnt. Therefore, you should try and make use of the knowledge and wisdom. Emerson’s speech tries to determine the real American culture and ask his citizen to prevent the essence of the real American culture. Sixty years after declaring independence, American culture was still heavily influenced by Europe. The main purposes of Emerson’s speech are to create their own American identity through writers, artists, and philosophers, without regard to European because America was colonized by European till July 4, 1776 (Happy Birthday America, 2014). The sole propose of Emerson’s speech is to give awareness to the students and make them learn to be independent. Learning and creating, not just copying others as just copying does not make people civilized. It is how an individual makes use of the opportunities offered to them. Appreciate and utilize what we have, never compared with others knowledge. Learn from other but never copy from them. He was trying to change the American scholar’s attitude rather than the education system of American during that time. He was insisting American scholars to explore one’s knowledge and ideas and to be independent scholars. He says they should be “Man thinking not mere thinker”, as it should have to be based on an inner spirit of self-reliance and during the time of his speech many man have lost efficiency among them self, the world began with a single man and that man was divided into several other men so that a work can be comp... ... middle of paper ... ...ld ultimately determine their identity and independence. Therefore, Emerson is very much concerned about the identity and independence of America and he wanted to achieve that through independent and self created literature. Thus, he is trying to spread his influence over his fellow mates and scholars to create their own literature by studying nature, by referring to past and by being action oriented and actively involved to get experiences. Works Cited 1. Emerson.R.W, (1837). The American Scholar. 2. Goldberg.P, (2014). Happy Birthday American. Retrieved from www.just4kidsmagazine.com/beacon4god/july4.html 3. The declaration of independence and the American constitution of the United States, US Citizenships and immigration services (m-654/rev.07/08) Retrieved from www.uscis.gov/sites.
I agree with the statement Benjamin Anastas makes about Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “self-reliance” of how it is “the most pernicious piece of literature in the American canon” (Anastas 602-603). One reason why I agree with Anastas is that Emerson believes the people are timid and apologetic and do not have opinions of their own. Another reason why I stand alongside Anastas is that Emerson thinks people are afraid of each other and the truth(s) that others have are but quotes from a saint or sage. My final reason that I believe Anastas is correct is due to Emerson believing our society does not gain anything new that makes life worth living.
“We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds…if the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him.” (Emerson 179). He believed that Americans were relying too much on the ideas of our British ancestors and our ideas should instead come from the culture and history of the United States. “We have listened too long to the courtly muses of Europe.” (Emerson 178). Emerson believed that the best men throughout history have been the men who come up with their own beliefs and their own ideas and this is what the people of America must do
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s purpose in his article is to persuade the reader that children should not be force fed knowledge but should instead simply be taught the tool with which to learn. He emphasizes that children should be taught to be inquisitive and to seek knowledge out of enthusiasm and curiosity. One thing Emerson does that is effective is he goes chronologically through a person's lifetime for the most part. A young child and works his way to a college student and then touches on the teacher himself or a grown man.
Three ideas that Emerson shares is that people need to have more self-trust, people need to stop being fake and also that society plays a big factor on peoples decision making. Thoreau also shares three ideas with us, he says people should stay true to their heart’s desire and ignore what society thinks, be themselves and not act like someone they’re not, and last but not least, people should stay true to their own thoughts and not let others convince them that their thoughts are incorrect. I believe that people in today’s world try too hard to be someone they’re really not and also that they
In The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson touches on the topic of “individualism” and saw freedom as “an open ended process of self realization by which individuals could remake themselves and their own lives.” He wanted the people to make their life their own especially scholars because they were still connected to European life. He says, “The scholar is the man who must take up into himself all the ability of the time, all the contributions of the past, all the hopes of the future.” He places the responsibility on the individual to accomplish certain tasks, in this case the scholar is the
The works of Emerson that I have been exposed to follow a unique, precise, and oftentimes eloquent train of ...
It instead promotes the use of more unnatural things to try and simplify life. New England is a significantly more industrial community today than it was during his lifetime. He would say that this distracts people from all that is around them, and makes them less ambitious; it is harder to have the drive to do something when you know that there is a machine that could do it faster. People today are very dependent on technology. They no longer take the time to go outside and see the true beauty of nature. Emerson claims in his work that: “to speak truly, few adult persons can see nature...The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child” (Emerson 7). Many students today fail to connect with the true beauty of nature outside. They spend their time focusing on looking into the false light instead of the true beauty of nature and the brightness of the real sun. Emerson would say the simplicity of children is what makes them spiritually more peaceful. He was a strong believer in self-reliance. It would anger him to see how dependent the students of La Salle are on their electronic devices, phones, and social networking. These devices have become almost another appendage to modern people. They care more about what is going on with other people, and fitting in then the beauty around
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” Emerson is a firm believer of maintaining self-reliance and values rather than following the crowd. He also explains that in order to be truly successful in life, a person must make decisions and trust in his or her judgment. In today’s society, teenagers are more likely to not be self-reliant because the teens feel they will be judged for having different beliefs. People today need to realize that they should not conform to be like the rest of the world, they must not depend on the judgment and criticism of others, and people must refuse to travel somewhere in order to forget their personal problems. Through Emerson’s piece, readers are able to reflect on how people in the world today must try to be independent of others and uphold their personal opinions and philosophy.
After reading both “Self Reliance,” by Ralph Waldo Emerson and “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave,” by Frederick Douglass, one might notice a trend in what both writers regard as the key to happiness or self-fulfillment. Emerson and Douglass both imply that acquiring knowledge is what people should strive for throughout their lives. However, their perceptions on the kind of knowledge should be attained is where their ideas diverge; Emerson is the one that encourages one to develop the soul whereas with Douglass, it is the mind.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, nineteenth century poet and writer, expresses a philosophy of life, based on our inner self and the presence of the soul. Emerson regarded and learned from the great minds of the past, he says repeatedly that each person should live according to his own thinking. I will try to explain Emerson’s philosophy, according to what I think he is the central theme in all his works.
Emerson and Thoreau have the same idea of being individual but they wrote different essays on different views. Emerson in The American Scholar, (1837) wrote essay on “Self Reliance” which means man is responsible for his own life and Government should work for the people and should not control the lives of people and either Government should not be po...
In closing: Emerson wanted to inspire the people who sat in the room that day, he felt that Americans needed to develop their own cultural tradition instead of depending on Europe. These men were the leaders of tomorrow but they possessed stagnant ideas, he wanted them to look inwards and be more than a Scholar more than a teacher. Emerson wanted them to start a revolutionary of inspirational proportions. This conclusion is reflective in respects to the way I want to live my life, I am one of those people who rarely take an opportunity and run with it. I do much better when I have a motivator, in a sense Emerson's speech was just that, motivation.
“What I must do, is all that concerns me, not what the people think.” (Emerson, 552) demonstrates that Emerson wants individuals to discover their true self that have unique way of thinking and should have a strong sense of self; The strong sense of self is also presented by “A great man is coming to eat at my house. I do not wish to please him: I wish that he should wish to please me.” (Emerson, 555) while stating that nobody’s ideas should be less valued. Through “The one thing in the world of value, is, the active soul, --the soul, free, sovereign, active.” (Emerson, 539) he shows his preference of resisting influences thinkers in past brings because he believes individuals nowadays can come up with better ideas and reading old ones will hold creativity back. In case that Emerson sticks with the stand that everybody can look into themselves carefully and bring up brand new and great thoughts to contribute to the world, he has no compassion toward poor people. If each individual has ability to be self-reliant, and then the only reason why poor people are poor is that they do not even try to manage their destiny. Therefore, unlike Franklin, Emerson questions “Are they my poor?” (Emerson, 552) to blame poor people.
Emerson in his speech states that scholars should observe nature and write originally on their own and not memorize or copy the form of writings of other writers. In the American scholar (1837) he states that "Men of talent, that is who start wrong, who set out from accepted dogmas, not from their own sight of principles." This means that even if a person is intelligent but starts his thoughts in the wrong way such as collecting ideas from a text written by other scholars, h...
Emerson was a good writer where every people appreciated his piece of work because his writing is more about a system of th...