March 21, 2002
The fresh snow is laying heavy in the woods. It’s 34 degrees and you can almost wring the water out of a spring snow such as this. I was reading a little Emerson this morning and came across his definition of scholar as Man Thinking; not in the sense of mere thinking or accommodating to general public opinion, but independent thinking in a critical sense. I like this usage since that kind of scholar can be found practically anywhere (although they are hard to locate these days!) I’ve run into them at the local garage or post office, as well as reading their editorial columns in the New York Times. Here’s what Emerson has to say…
The scholars are the priests of thought which establish the foundations of the earth. No matter what is their special work or profession, they stand for the spiritual interest of the world, and it is a common calamity if they neglect their post in a country where the material interest is so predominant as it is in America. We hear something too much of the results of machinery, commerce and the useful arts. I do not wish to look with sour aspect at the industrious manufacturing village, or the mart of commerce. I love the music of the waterwheel; I value the railway; I look on trade and every mechanical craft as education also. But let me discriminate what is precious herein. There is in each of these works an act of invention, an intellectual step, or short series of steps taken; that act or step is the spiritual act; all the rest is mere reputation of the same a thousand times... While the multitude of men degrade each other, and give currency to desponding doctrines, the scholar must be a bringer of hope, and must reinforce man against himself. -Ralph Waldo Emerson An Oration delivered before the Society of the Adelphi, in Waterville College, Maine August 11, 1841