Emerson's Thoughts on Education ADA E. DAVIS, PALM BEACH SCHOOL FOR GIRLS, PALM BEACH, FLA. BANK:TRANSOME one has said that anything and everything S can be proved by statistics; the "wets" marshal figures to show that there has been more drunkenness since prohibition than before; the "drys" with equal fervor set out to prove the opposite; some claim that the United States has the most democratic system of free universal education in ►◆ the world, others shake their heads sadly at the lack of educational equality in our broad land. In approaching a writer like Emerson, whose mind availing itself of the resources of the Infinite has illuminated with beauty the common thought and has brought from the quarry of intelligence manifold new forms, one has the same sense that everything and anything can be said of Emerson, and with truth! His comprehensive survey of the outer world, Nature and Society, as well as of the life of thought, Intellect and Spirit, have laid him open to the criticisms of the impatient who have not read far enough to get not merely the thought but the decision of the man. In consequence he is charged with upholding inconsistency and radicalism,1 and by some he is accused of being devoid of all logic and coherence. Countless passages can be excerpted in which he quite contradicts himself. In one state of perception he says, college education is of little avail2; in another he says, "and yet I confess to a strong bias in favor of college"; from one angle of vision he sees man as "capable of nothing of himself," from another slant, "man is a God in ruins," but this cavilling over the contradiction of All references to Emerson's writings are to the Centenary Edition, Houghton, Mifflin Co., publishers, New York and Boston. 1 Self Reliance, v. 2, p. 58. 2 Culture, v. 6, p. 144. 3 Albee, Remembrances of Emerson, p. 4. 4 Nature, v. 1, p. 74. 5 Ibid., p. 71. the written word is trivial and captious. Failure to discriminate between a conception of the mind and its expression in form is responsible for the misunderstanding. The very inconclusiveness of Emerson's conception forbids its complete presentation at one time, hence expression is but partial and limited. To see the whole statue, one must go around to the rear! But according to his own specifications of sincerity which demands far more than mere consistency, Emerson measures up to the standard. "Trust thyself; no law is sacred to thee but that of thine own nature. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of contemporaries, the connection of events." Surely few men more steadfastly or persistently fulfilled their own genius than Emerson. I sometimes wonder what the great minds who have gone on to other spheres of existence think of the froth and the foam churned up by their critics and expositors! Amazement, doubtless, and pity. With full appreciation of the humorous inconsistency of my own situation I wish to state my thoughts on Emerson's ideas of education. Though Emerson's sweeping intelligence ranges over a vast field of ideas, there are certain ones, however, which form themselves into beliefs and make up his especial bias. Perhaps a perception of these beliefs may not be amiss before we consider our restricted topic of education. These beliefs run like cherished motifs through all his fabrics, whether he is weaving a tapestry of History, Self Reliance, Nature or Experience. These recurrent motifs are his belief in man's unlimited resources due to his relationship with God, hence, man's self or divine dependence; next, the purpose and character of the outer world, Nature and Society, and last the distinctly moral aspect of living. Scattered all through Emerson's writings are stirring challenges to man's proper conception of himself and God. "Who can set bounds to the possibilities of man? We learn that man has access to the entire mind of the Creator, is himself the creator, the creator in the infinite. This view admonishes me where the sources of wisdom and power lie." "Man is greater than he can see. Currents of the universal being circulate through me." "18 "The soul of the individual is but an emanation from the abyss of Deity and about to return from whence it came." "In all the magnificence and imperfection of our nature the man triumphs to remember that he bears about him a spark, which all beings venerate and acknowledge to be the emblem of God."10 And again Emerson states, "The foundations of man are not in matter but in spirit. The element of spirit is eternity."11 In magnificent conclusion he says: "Divine sentiments always soliciting us are breathed into us from on high, till we come to know that self reliance, the height and perfection of man, is reliance on God."12 As we pick out the patterns of the Nature motif from one aspect, we see that "Man is greater than he can see and the universe less because Time and Space relations vanish as laws are known."18 And again he states: "We must attribute necessary existence to spirit but we must esteem Nature as an accident and an effect."14 "I am somehow receptive of the great Soul, and thereby I do overlook the sun and the stars, and feel them to be fair accidents, effects which change and pass."15 But, regarding the other phase of his thought, he emphasizes Nature. "Nature answers to the Soul, part to part. One is seal, and one is print. Its beauty is the beauty of man's own mind. Its laws are the laws of man's own mind. Nature then becomes to man the measure of his own attainments. So much of nature as he is ignorant of, so much of his own mind does he not yet possess."16 Nature is placed thus in the whole scheme of things: "In the divine nature, intellect (of which man is an expression) is primary, nature secon 7 Nature, v. 1, p. 64. 10 Journal, v. 1, p. 165. 12 Fugitive Slave Law, v. 2, p. 236. 13 Nature, v. 1, p. 49. 14 15 Oversoul, v. 2, p. 296. 16 Nature, v. 1, p. 87. dary. It is the memory of the mind. That which once existed in intellect as pure law, has now taken body as nature.”17 The world including Nature and Society, Emerson calls, "This shadow of the soul, this other me."18 And the use of the world is that man may learn its laws.19 Thus nature, the world and man are all expressions of intelligence, and nature and the world are "Merely means of arousing man's interior activity."20 This brings us to the persistently moral quality of the motif in the design. The purpose of this relation of man and nature and the world, according to Emerson, is distinctly a moral one, that is, its value is its result in man's conduct. "For the one thing in the world of worth, is the active soul."21 "Victory over things is the office of man. Of course, until this is accomplished, it is the war and insult of things over him. His continual tendency, his great danger is to overlook the fact that the world is his teacher, and the nature of the sun and moon, plant and animal, are only means of arousing him."22 "Thus man is ever invited onward into shining realms of knowledge and power by the shows of the world, which interpret to him the infinitude of his own consciousness."23 In Emerson's persistent design, then, we see that he was but saying in his writings and establishing in his life what Christianity had been teaching with its lips and not believing in its heart for nineteen hundred years. He saw man a child of God. "Our first experiences in moral, as in intellectual nature force us to discriminate a universal mind, identical in all men. It is the mind of the mind. We belong to it and it to us."24 Man's joy and value depends upon his realization of his divinity. Consciousness of divinity is a matter of growth depending on favorable environment. According to Emerson, that environment was those conditions which de 17 Method of Nature (oration), v. 1, 21 Nature, v. 1, p. 90. p. 197. 18 The Scholar, v. 1, p. 95. 19 Education, v. 10, p. 125. 20 Education, v. 10, p. 127. 22 Education, v. 10, p. 130. 24 Character, v. 5, p. 13. veloped man's faith in his Godhood, whether through Society, Solitude, contemplation of Nature, introspection or active life. "Out of our frivolous way of life, how can greatness ever grow? Come, now, let us go and be dumb."25 In contrast with the joys of solitude Emerson states: "The richest romance, the noblest fiction that was ever woven lies enclosed in human life."26 The way in which man is to establish his connection between God and himself, Emerson intimates in such passages as "Ineffable is the union of man and God in every act of the soul. The simplest person, who in his integrity worships God, becomes God."27 "There is a natural magnetism which is sure to select what belongs to it."28 "The transcendentalist believes in miracles, in the perpetual openness of the human mind to new influx of light and power; he believes in inspiration and ecstasy." "29 "Let man learn the revelation of all nature and all thought to his heart, this, namely, that the Highest dwells with him. But if he would know what the great God speaketh, he must 'go into his closet and shut the door,' as Jesus said."30 With the outlines of the ever-recurring motif in mind, the unity of God, man and nature, with emphasis on man's divinity and the essentially moral character of living, we may now trace the pattern of this thought in education. With characteristic sweep Emerson announces that education should be as broad as man. "Whatever elements are in him, that should education foster and demonstrate."31 "Only so much do I know as I have lived,"32 and weaving in again the favorite motif Emerson says: "A point in education that I can never too much insist upon, is the tenet that every individual man has a bias which he must obey, and that it is only as he feels and obeys this, that he rightly develops and attains his legitimate power in 25 26 Letters,v. 1, p. 177. 27 Oversoul, v. 2, p. 292. 28 Spiritual Laws, v. 2, p. 133. 29 The Transcendentalist, v. 1, p. 335. 30 Oversoul, v. 2, p. 294. 31 Education, v. 10, p. 134. 32 American Scholar, v. 1, p. 94. |