The American Scholar

By: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Narrated by: Phil Paonessa

The American Scholar was a speech given by Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1837 to the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard College.

Emerson argues that American culture, still heavily influenced by Europe, could build a new, distinctly American cultural identity. Emerson uses Transcendentalist and Romantic points of view to explain a true American scholar's relationship to nature.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. declared this speech to be America's "Intellectual Declaration of Independence". Building on the growing attention he was receiving from the essay Nature, this speech solidified Emerson's popularity and weight in America.

Public Domain (P)2018 Dreamscape Media, LLC

A powerful statement on the important of self thought

Many many great ideas on individualism, thinking for yourself, the vices of formalized education and the state of weak men. Many great quotes from this essay. Overall I take away the main lesson that education should not become ordained. Cleverness, always, comes first.