Ralph Waldo Emerson's The American Scholar

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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.

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