Henry David Thoreau was testing transcendental values when he took up residence at Walden Pond in 1845. During his time of simple living at the pond, he studied nature and applied those observations to humans and everyday life. He was always learning from the woods, pond, meadows and animals in the natural world around him. Nature was his classroom and everything was an opportunity to learn. In Thoreau’s book, Walden , written at the pond, he theorized that education could come through an intimacy with nature and the end of education would come with death.
Even while Thoreau was young he never agreed with a traditional classroom setting. Attending Harvard corrupted his belief of the current education system. In his eyes, school, “prevents learning rather than fosters it.” (Bickman) There are many aspects of traditional schooling Thoreau does not agree with. For example, punishment was unacceptable. After studying at Harvard, while teaching at a small college prep school, he was told his class was unruly and should resort to corporal punishment more frequently. This caused Thoreau to quit the school because of his strict opposition to that type of reprimanding. Amos Bronson Alcott, a 19th century teacher, also frowns upon corporal punishment and looks up to Thoreau’s education values. Alcott, in Correspondence, writes, “[He] chooses to see education not simply a means, a preparation for something else, but as intrinsically valuable.” Despite his opposition to schooling, Thoreau and his brother opened The Concord Academy, which created, “a working dialectic of thinking and doing, of transmitting old cultural forms and creating new ones, and of democratic schooling and the pursuit of excellence.”(Bickman). At his schoo...
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... developing alternate methods of teaching. Schools that use the outdoors as a backdrop to science and natural history education have been recognized as not only acceptable alternatives to traditional classroom education but often will make the difference between success and failure for some students. Many students cannot tolerate a traditional setting and benefit from alternate learning. Thoreau can be credited with creating a movement that incorporates nature as the learning tool to inspire thought and acceptance of lifelong learning. His ideas have provided a broad foundation for educational research. His abhorrence to corporal punishment and rejection of the memorization of facts as a real education has influenced our educational system. Transcendental thinkers such as Thoreau many people are inspire by nature to learn in the workings of nature and man.
Henry Thoreau uses specific rhetorical strategies in Walden to emanate his attitude towards life. With the use of many strategies Thoreau shows that life should be centered around Nature. People live their lives not ever taking a second glance of what Nature does and has done for humanity and Thoreau is trying to prove his point. Humanity owes Nature everything for without it humans would be nothing.
Henry David Thoreau, a Harvard graduate, did not exceed in his professions he studied. Thoreau studied the art of teaching and when he returned to teach in his home town of Concord he quit within the first two weeks because he would not conform to the
Thoreau after graduating from Harvard College began to keep a journal that he filled with the many thoughts and observations that came to him on his daily walks about Concord (Richardson 7). These Journals would spawn into the many books that he wrote, the most prominent being Walden. Thoreau was a self-taught naturalist, who spent much of his time systematically studying the natural phenomena almost exclusively around Concord (Witherell and Dubrulle). His Journal contains these careful observations, such as the cycles of plants, of local water levels, and many other natural phenomena (Witherell and Dubrulle). These Journals help to impress the love that he held for nature. It is this feeling that has propelled him to be considered by many to be the leader of the environmental movement (Buell 171).
To conclude, Thoreau believed that people should be ruled by conscience and that people should fight against injustice through non-violence according to “Civil Disobedience.” Besides, he believed that we should simplify our lives and take some time to learn our essence in the nature. Moreover, he deemed that tradition and money were unimportant as he demonstrated in his book, Walden. I suggested that people should learn from Thoreau to live deliberately and spend more time to go to the nature instead of watching television, playing computer games, and among other things, such that we could discover who we were and be endeavored to build foundations on our dreams.
Walden represents a religion of nature not yet fully formed. While Thoreau tries to immerse himself in poverty, he becomes ineffectual when he is hypocritical. Barring the contradictions, Thoreau emphasizes the beauty of nature that the less observant miss. With observing eyes, Thoreau captures the parallels of man and beast that can inspire, if not divinity, more humanity in viewing nature.
Henry David Thoreau was a great American writer, philosopher, and naturalist of the 1800’s who’s writings have influenced many famous leaders in the 20th century, as well as in his own lifetime. Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts in 1817, where he was later educated at Harvard University. Thoreau was a transcendentalist writer, which means that he believed that intuition and the individual conscience “transcend” experience and are better guides to truth than are the senses and logical reason (Prentice Hall 1174). Thoreau is well known for writing Walden Pond, Excursions, The Maine Woods, Cape Cod, and A Yankee in Canada. In 1849 Henry David Thoreau wrote an essay called Civil Disobedience which little did he know would influence great leaders such as Mohandas Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and US civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
While Emerson never truly factored his transcendentalist ideals into his daily life, Thoreau made a point out of living out his days as a man free from society and connected to nature. In 1846, he refused to pay his poll tax to the government because he believed the war was unjust and did not want to support the government. In doing this, he showed that he remains strong in his own beliefs and will not agree with something just to conform to society. He also showcases Emerson’s philosophy on learning by forming beliefs based on his own life and morals, which were based in nature, receiving instruction from Emerson’s ideas on self-reliance, and taking action against something he believes is unjust. In an excerpt from one of Thoreau’s books, he says, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived” (Thoreau 16). What he is saying through this is that he wants to evaluate himself in the context of nature and understand what life is like in its purest and fundamental form. He hoped to gain a knowledge of the world and explore what nature had to offer and learn from his experience. Also, Thoreau is letting his readers know that connecting with nature is essential in finding yourself and
When Thoreau returned home his family noticed a change in his personality. He was no longer accepting people’s opinions as facts but would shock people with his own independent and unconventional opinions. He desired to live his life with the freedom to think and act as he wished. He obtained a local teaching job and refused to Flog children as punishment. Instead he would give moral lectures. The community objected to this method of punishment and forced Thoreau to flog his incorrigible children. That day Thoreau flogged six students and then turned in his resignation. He did so believing that physical punishment should have no place in education.
Much of Henry David Thoreau’s work was affected by his early life and education. Henry David Thoreau was born into a normal middle class family in Concord Massachusetts on July 12, 1817. Thoreau’s family were shopkeepers and later operated a small but profitable business making pencils and selling graphite that later turned out to be very prosperous (Sattelmeyer 1). The fact that Henry’s family had money made it possible for him to get a good education. Instead of following the family business which could have been a prosperous decision, Henry went to better his education in high hopes of making something of himself. This decision marks the starting point of Thoreau’s educational adventure.
...ing Henry David Thoreau into a prominent American Romantic writer. Such elements include his writings about life in Nature having great solitude; he became friends with the surrounding plants and animals. Secondly, he wrote about what was occurring day to day at Walden’s Pond which showed him as being individualistic. Moreover, there was the idea that God can only be found in nature, and pantheism was constant idea in his book. Finally, Thoreau wrote about intuition as a means of obtaining knowledge, and his use of senses as a tool for building intuition. These ideas time and time again show the various aspects of Thoreau being portrayed as an American Romantic which has lead to a great historical achievement as a writer that he well deserves.
In the book Walden, or Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau, written in 1854, there is portrayed a strong philosophical theme on transcendentalism. This view on the world was a prominent New England philosophy during the author’s life, and had a great effect on him. This view has a very simple idea. It shows that people, men and women equally, have a knowledge about the world around them, as well as themselves, that goes beyond what they can they can see, smell, taste, touch, or feel. This knowledge is acquired through imagination and intuition. People are able to trust themselves by their own authority, and what they individually think is right. Transcendentalism is shown through Thoreau how he regrets materialism, uses scripture, and how he accepts all faiths and philosophies.
Henry David Thoreau’s Walden encompasses a variety of themes and elements which cultivate an astounding work of American literature. “Spring” is focused on the changing of the season from winter to spring, and Thoreau’s analysis of Walden Pond and the area surrounding the pond. Thoreau looks at the pond from a spiritual aspect, describing the relationships between life and nature with an abysmal passion. Without Thoreau’s incorporation of precise literary elements, and integration of the themes of solitude, newness of life, and transcendentalism to clearly outline the spiritual revelations he obtained from his retirement at Walden Pond, the readers of his work would not be able to completely grasp the concepts Thoreau presents.
In act one while Thoreau is still a teacher he says this to Ball, “I said ‘No.’ I do not believe in corporal punishment.” (pg. 21) In this time flogging is the way teachers punish students, but Henry knows this is wrong as well and will not conform to their methods for the sake of his job. Henry then, quits his job and starts teaching with his brother using untraditional methods, in an untraditional “classroom”. John, Henry’s brother, shares his brother’s mindset on this topic, and you can see that when he says, “A school doesn’t need a School Committee. Or Trustees. Or Governors. Or Lumber. Or approved textbooks. All a school needs is a mind that sends, and minds that receive.” (pg.
Thoreau and Emerson both believe that to transcend and achieve this oneness with nature, man must educate himself mentally and spiritually. While both writers recognize the importance of books and reading as a precursor to spiritual growth, they also both feel that one ca...
Henry David Thoreau’s early life began in Concord, Massachusetts on July 12, 1817. He was baptized as David Henry Thoreau later reversing his middle and first names. He was raised with his older siblings John and Helen and his younger sister Sophia. His father managed a local pencil factory, and his mother rented out rooms in the family’s house to boarders. His mother encouraged his love of nature. As a young boy, every morning he would go out for a walk in the woods to seek inspiration and admire the natural beauty. When Thoreau started school, he attended Concord public schools and later, his mother insisted that all the children go to a prestigious private Concord Academy. A bright student Thoreau entered Harvard College in 1833. Unfortunately, for financial reasons Thoreau had to drop out and began teaching a small school in Canton, Massachusetts. In 1838, he left to start his own school with the help of his brother John and it prospered for a while. However it eventually collapsed a few years later when his brother grew ill. Thoreau went back to help his father in the pencil making business. After college, Thoreau met Ralph Waldo Emerson and shortly after they beca...