Introduction

“The American Scholar” is a speech by Ralph Waldo Emerson to the members of Harvard’s Phi Beta Kappa honor society in August of 1837. As such, the piece combines elements of an essay with the style of oral delivery, which directly addresses the audience, drawing listeners into the argument while holding their attention through shared knowledge and some surprising twists. Emerson seeks both to describe the situation of the American scholar (in his individuality and relation to other people) and to persuade his hearers to adopt certain attitudes and actions.

Emerson was part of the nineteenth-century Transcendentalist movement, which viewed the human experience through an idealistic lens. Humans are innately good and united to each other and the whole of creation through something of a single, universal mind. Inspiration and insight are important to Transcendentalists like Emerson, much more so than logic, although reason, too, holds a place in their worldview. These ideas appear in “The American Scholar,” which has been anthologized many times as an example of Emerson’s ideas about humanity and learning.

Summary

Emerson begins his lecture “The American Scholar” with a call for a renewed appreciation of intellectual activity among Americans and the development of a particularly American scholarship. After all, he maintains, “there is One Man,” a unity of humanity in which all men must share and to which all men must contribute. Scholars have their own special place in that scheme, such as “Man Thinking.”

The scholar turns to the past for instruction, carefully observes the present, and looks toward the future with excitement. Emerson proceeds to explain the primary influences of the American scholar. First, scholars allow the natural world to impress itself upon their minds. Humans are closely united with nature, and it has much to teach about God, humanity, and the world. The more scholars learn about nature, the more they learn about their own minds and lives.

Second, scholars turn to the past for knowledge and inspiration, and Emerson maintains, “Books are the best type of the influence of the past.” Books allow access to truth and “immortal thoughts,” but they are imperfect. Scholars must carefully discern what they find in books to avoid accepting everything in them without critical assessment and independent thinking. Books, Emerson asserts, must be secondary to scholars’ minds and observations and approached through a creative reading that makes the books’ ideas scholars’ own ideas.

Third, scholars must learn from the world around them. They cannot isolate themselves from everyday life and other human beings, for everyone is connected. Therefore, scholars must know what is happening in the world, even down to the smallest things, for there is true wisdom in what is often considered insignificant. Scholars must also actively participate in the world, for this completes the task of thinking and contributes to the ideal of all men working together to improve life and culture.

Next, Emerson turns his attention to the duties of scholars. “The office of the scholar,” he says, “is to cheer, to raise, and to guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances.” Scholars are to discover and present the truth. The scholar is “the world’s eye” and “the world’s heart,” striving to raise people up through insight and reason.

To do this, scholars must be “free and brave,” and they must always trust in themselves. They must recognize their value and the free strength of their minds and reject all fear, which “springs from ignorance.” Scholars should also embrace self-confidence, knowing they present universal ideas to the rest of humanity, drawing others up into truth and consistently promoting the “dignity of man.”

Emerson ends his reflections with a brief discussion of the Classic, Romantic, and Reflective ages and a recommendation to combine all three to reach the highest level of truth. Also, there is nothing wrong with introversion and deep reflection, which can lead to expressions of genius. Scholars are called to that genius for the sake of themselves and others and for “the conversion of the world” to a higher way of life and thought in conjunction with “the Divine Soul which also inspires all men.”