The American Scholar

The title of Emerson’s lecture, “The American Scholar,” announces his aim to define a new, American type of intellectual. There are several characteristics of his ideal scholar that we can recognize as distinctly American. To begin with, Emerson explicitly declares his wish to break away from a European model of intellectualism. As he states near the end of his lecture: “We have listened too long to the courtly muses of Europe” (Paragraph 43). Here and elsewhere in the lecture, he rejects an old and static model of intellectualism in favor of a new and forward-thinking one. He cautions against an overly dutiful and intimidated attitude towards ancient classic works of scholarship. He also urges the American scholar to think of himself as the potential author of classics rather than to sequester himself away from the world studying dead writers: “Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given; forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries when they wrote these books” (Paragraph 13).

Emerson’s model of the ideal American scholar is also an implicitly democratic one. In government as well as in literature, he rejects the idea that there are only a few born leaders—“great m[e]n”—whom everyone else must follow: “In a century, in a millennium, one or two men; that is to say, one or two approximations to the right state of every man. All the rest behold in the hero or the poet their own green and crude being […] and are content to be less, so that may attain its full stature” (Paragraph 34). Instead, he counsels “self-trust” (Paragraph 32) in the American intellectual, and the cultivation of a resistance to social pressures, whether of a mercantile or a literary nature. He believes in the power of the individual over that of the herd, while also believing that every individual is potentially powerful and noble. He emphasizes the equal nobility of a tradesman with that of a statesman. He also believes in the importance of an intellectual who is an actor in the world and who has a wide and democratic social circle:

Life is our dictionary. Years are well spent in country labors; in town; in the insight into trades and manufactures; in frank intercourse with many men and women; in science; in art; to the one end of mastering in all their facts a language by which to illustrate and embody our perceptions (Paragraph 25). 

Emerson’s belief in the individual can be seen as inherently religious. It is a religiousness that is different from blind piety and worshipfulness; rather, it springs from the idea that “the divine” is in all of us, and that we simply need to cultivate patience and attention to see this. He refers in his lecture to “One Man” (Paragraph 4), by which he means the original man who was created in God’s image; he believes that modern man has been splintered off into so many specialized roles and trades that they no longer have a sense of their godly origins: “The state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputations from the trunk, and strut about so many walking monsters—a good finger, a neck, a stomach, an elbow, but never a man” (Paragraph 4).

For all of this, however, Emerson is optimistic about the future of American scholarship: an optimism that can also be seen as distinctly American. He declares: “This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it” (Paragraph 38), a statement that shows his belief in the power of consciousness to mold reality and his lack of attachment to tradition and received opinions. The statement also shows that while Emerson can be perceived as forward-thinking and progressive, he is also thinking in a kind of eternal, ecstatic present. His belief in the inherent divinity of man makes him see individual spirits as more resilient than social institutions, and even in a certain way immortal: “Patience,—patience; with the shades of all the good and great for company; and for solace the perspective of your own infinite life; and for work the study and the communication of principles […] the conversion of the world” (Paragraph 43).