The Educational Philosophy of Ralph Waldo

Emerson

LESLIE D. ZELENY.

SCH HE old New Englanders taught their children to learn and reverence this poem:

T

"Speak when you're spoken to,

Do what you're bid,

Shut the doors after you,

And you'll never be chid."

To a person who thinks little and has made a failure of handling children, this poem appeals. To a thinking man who bases his thinking on natural common sense, this poem expresses a fallacy and it is upon this fallacy that millions of children in America have been educated. We regret to say, that this fallacy has not by any means altogether disappeared today.

We are to discuss the educational philosophy of Emerson. It is my aim in this article to point out the fundamental educational ideas of Emerson, and to make it evident that this philosopher had more and better ideas than are expressed in the above poem.

According to the advice given by departments of rhetoric, this essay should be constructed in a logical form. It should obey all the laws of unity, coherence, and emphasis. Were I writing about Edmund Burke this would be possible-but Emerson-well, he refused to use unity, coherence and emphasis. Says he, "The moment it (logic) would appear as propositions and have separate value, it is worthless." Emerson wrote when he felt like it, and he wrote what came to him. Holmes says, "He was a man of intuition and a poet with a tendency to mysticism." In regard to Emerson's hesitancy to put everything in logical order, Gray says, "But all this, so far as it was not mere modesty, came from a wise

caution, and an almost morbid horror of stifling truth by forming it into set and definite terms." Richard Garrett says, "He could announce, but he could not argue. His intuitions were his sole guide; what they revealed appeared to him self-evident; the ordinary paths by which men arrive at conclusions were closed to him. To those who are in spiritual sympathy with himself he is not only fascinating, but authoritative, his words authenticate themselves by the response they awaken in his breast. The reader who will have reasons gets none, save reason to believe that the oracle is an imposition.

We see that Emerson is a man who recorded what we may call his "inspirations." He cared not to argue, to prove or to write a literary masterpiece or to convince the whole world. He told what he believed was the truth. He believed in his intuitions. Above all, he was a profound thinker. Woodberry says, "I feel in his work the presence of a great mind. His is the only great mind that America has produced in literature."

Emerson approached all philosophy with a profound religious attitude, and "the blood of eight generations of ministers flowed in his veins." Once he went into the ministry to find that his ideas were too liberal to be accepted by any American congregation. So, finally, he settled himself in the little town of Concord where he produced much of his philosophy and where he also took an active part in the life of the community.

He served for many years on the school committee of the village, and in later years he served on the Board of Overseers of Harvard College-"admiring rather the administrative ability of others than the taking of an active part."

Now, this man Emerson, whom we have been talking about, produced some philosophy of education. Students, perhaps, are not taught much about him in courses in the history of education; but there is a wonderful fascination in Emerson's ideas of education. His thinking as expressed in his writings

still remains ahead of many present practices. "His essay, Education," says Edwin D. Meade, "is the most vital, pregnant and stimulating word upon general education which has been written by an American." Emerson was observer and thinker enough to notice that education in America in his day was a crime against the divine nature of the pupils. He may not have been a psychologist, but he had the rare gift of common sense which is more valuable than any psychology alone. Also, his philosophy was instrumental in bringing about his philosophy of education. Listen to Gray

"So strongly does Emerson insist upon superiority of instinct over culture (XII, 34), of genius over talent (II, 270) which are alike merely the transcendence of the reason over the understanding, that one sometimes feels with Sadler (Ed. Rev. 26. 459) that he neglected the side of discipline, even upon a child. This did seem to Emerson a going beyond one's just prerogative. The child, he always believed, would instruct the teacher as to the best method of procedure, and this, of course, could never be coercion, but accuracy, system, drill these were by no means omitted from Emerson's educational scheme."

I think that Emerson believed in the socialized recitation to some extent. He certainly preached strongly against the old, time-worn custom of assigning pupils so many pages to read and then quizzing them on it. He also believed in some kind of project method. I find no definite statement where he uses the words "socialized recitation" and "project method," but read the quotation below. See for yourself if his ideas, although modestly stated, do not harmonize with the most advanced practice and with the educational philosophy of such educators as Pestalozzi and John Dewey.

"I advise teachers," says Emerson, "to cherish mother wit. I assume that you will keep the grammar, reading, writing and arithmetic in order, 'tis easy and of course, you will. Smuggle in a little contraband wit, fancy, imagination, thought. If you have a taste which you have suppressed

because it is not shared by those about you, tell them that. Set this law up, whatever becomes of the rules of the school; they must not whisper, much less talk; but if one of the young people says a wise thing, greet it, and let all the children clap their hands. They shall have no book but school books in the room; but if one has brought in a Plutarch or Shakespeare or Don Quixote or Goldsmith or any other good book, and understands what he reads, put him at once at the head of the class. Nobody shall be disorderly, or leave his desk without permission; but if a boy runs from his bench, or a girl, because the fire falls, or to check some injury that some little dastard is inflicting behind his desk on some helpless sufferer, take away the medal from the head of the class and give it on the instant to the brave rescuer. happens to show that he knows any fact about astronomy, or plants, or birds, or rocks, that interests him and you hush all the classes and encourage him to tell it so that all may hear, then you have made your schoolroom like the world. Of course, you will insist on modesty in the children and respect to their teachers, but if the boy stops you in your speech, cries out that you are wrong, and sets you right, hug him!"

If a child

What a revolutionary statement this was for Emerson's time! I'll wager that many school teachers who read this were mightily shocked and disgusted. Youngsters were little devils, they believed, and they were to obey every order of the teacher. Children were not supposed to learn and understand-they were to memorize, memorize, memorize, or the wrath of the schoolmaster would descend upon them via the switch or stick. "Silence, you brats, you are here to obey," might have been in order as good pedagogy in Emerson's day.

The ideas above concerning Emerson's educational philosophy are taken chiefly from his essay on "Education." Now let us see what Emerson had to say about college education. His ideas on this topic are given in his essay, "The American Scholar." "The American Scholar," says Holmes, "is our intellectual Declaration of Independence." In this Emerson

pleads for an American scholarship. "Perhaps the time will come," says Emerson, "when the sluggard intellect of this continent will look from under its iron lids, and fill the postponed expectation of the world with something better than the exertions of mechanical skill. The millions that around us are rushing into life cannot always be fed on the sere remains of foreign harvests. "The scholar," says Emerson, "is in the right state Man Thinking. In the degenerate state, he tends to become a mere thinker, or, still worse, the parrot of other men's thinking."

The parrot of other men's thinking! The parrot-of other men's thinking. These words have a peculiar significance to me. My college days are nearing a close-but I thank God every day that I did not take four consecutive years of college right after high school. I am thankful that I have been away from the college halls-long enough to see that I am getting only part of the truth of life here. In order to meet the requirements for graduation I have been compelled to learn about what has been done in the past. I have studied English literature and reproduced on examination papers what the teacher told me and passed high; I have studied various kinds of history and reproduced what I read on the examination and passed high; in 130 of my 180 credits I have been able to pass the grade by reproducing what the professor said or the book recorded. The university has done its best to make me the parrot of other men's thinking-to mold me into a creature like the scholars who have gone before me to fit me to write an essay telling what this man said and that man said, and producing long bibliographies which it is presumed I have studied-so that I can present a mixed blend of what the authorities have said. Who are these authorities? Why, they are parrots of somebody else!

So here I am again, writing the usual long paper-spending a perfecly good holiday reproducing for my professor nice sayings about our friend Emerson. I shall pass the grade, as I have done many times before. Truly, I am sorry for