Education

To be completely honest, I’m not quite exactly sure what to say in this essay. What I do know is that I will be arguing Emerson’s point of education (through Divinity School and Self-Reliance) with present day examples. I believe that Emerson is trying to expound upon the idea of education as an individual concept. His writings lead me to believe that education or academics are achieved only when one does not conform to the “fathers” complete beliefs “So to regard the young child, the young man requires, no doubt, rare patience: a patience that nothing but faith in the remedial forces of the soul can give... If he has his own vice, he has its correlative virtue. Every mind should be allowed to make its own statement in action, and its balance will appear.” Emerson is not against the idea of formal education, but rather against the idea of the normality of all of the trivial and petty do’s and don’ts. He emphasizes the instances of learning through nature and from what I feel one’s own inclination towards textual meanings “Is it not manifest that our academic institutions should have a wider scope; that they should not be timid and keep the ruts of the last generation, but that wise men thinking for themselves and heartily seeking the good of mankind, and counting the cost of innovation, should dare to arouse the young to a just and heroic life; that the moral nature should be addressed in the school-room, and children should be treated as the high-born candidates of truth and virtue?”