It was on this day in 1837 that Ralph Waldo Emerson (books by this author) delivered a speech entitled "The American Scholar" to the Phi Beta Kappa society at Harvard University.
Emerson wasn't especially well known at the time. He was actually filling in for Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright, who had backed out of the speaking engagement at the last minute.
The speech was the first time he explained his transcendentalist philosophy in front of a large public audience. He said that scholars had become too obsessed with ideas of the past, that they were bookworms rather than thinkers. He told the audience to break from the past, to pay attention to the present, and to create their own new, unique ideas.
He said: "Life is our dictionary ... This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it ... Give me insight into to-day, and you may have the antique and future worlds."
The speech was published that same year. It made Emerson famous, and it brought the ideas of transcendentalism to young men like Henry David Thoreau. Oliver Wendell Holmes later praised Emerson's "The American Scholar" as the "intellectual Declaration of Independence."
Emerson wasn't especially well known at the time. He was actually filling in for Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright, who had backed out of the speaking engagement at the last minute.
The speech was the first time he explained his transcendentalist philosophy in front of a large public audience. He said that scholars had become too obsessed with ideas of the past, that they were bookworms rather than thinkers. He told the audience to break from the past, to pay attention to the present, and to create their own new, unique ideas.
He said: "Life is our dictionary ... This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it ... Give me insight into to-day, and you may have the antique and future worlds."
The speech was published that same year. It made Emerson famous, and it brought the ideas of transcendentalism to young men like Henry David Thoreau. Oliver Wendell Holmes later praised Emerson's "The American Scholar" as the "intellectual Declaration of Independence."
It's the birthday of William Shawn, born William Chon in Chicago (1907), who worked at The New Yorker for 54 years, and was the editor for 35. He was small, with big ears, and he spoke in a high, mild voice, always considerate. When he sat at his desk his feet barely touched the ground. He was extremely shy and he never discussed his personal life. He didn't give interviews or pose in photographs, and even his coworkers knew almost nothing about him outside of the office. They always called him "Mr. Shawn."
But his writers loved him, and he published many of the preeminent writers of the day, including E.B. White, Elizabeth Bishop, John Updike, and J.D. Salinger. He personally edited Rachel Carson's Silent Spring and Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, and published themas long articles in the magazine before they came out as books.
But his writers loved him, and he published many of the preeminent writers of the day, including E.B. White, Elizabeth Bishop, John Updike, and J.D. Salinger. He personally edited Rachel Carson's Silent Spring and Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, and published themas long articles in the magazine before they came out as books.
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