Conversation

He wrote an Emerson biography with lots of unique insider info which I stumbled upon while researching school-teaching at this time. He tracks down students from when Emerson taught part-time in various towns while studying to be a minister.
1
These were mostly one-room schoolhouses. "Judge Abbott remembers....he was very grave, quiet, and very impressive...There was something engaging, almost fascinating, about him; he was never harsh or severe, always perfectly self-controlled, never punished except with words..."
1
"...but exercised complete command over the boys. His old pupil recalls the stately, measured way in which, for some offence the little boy had committed, he turned on him, saying only these two words: 'Oh, sad!' That was enough..." 🤣
1
One of Holmes's brothers adds his own recollection: "Calm, as not doubting the virtue residing in his sceptre. Rather stern in his very infrequent rebukes. Not inclined to win boys by a surface amiability, but kindly in explanation or advice. Every inch a king in his dominion."
1
From there, Holmes goes straight into a discussion of how the Divinity School's theology was up in the air at that time, and casually notes that Emerson was never officially enrolled there, arranging instead to prepare for the ministry via independent study. 🤷‍♀️
1
Also, every person in this crowd complains bitterly about their school experience and the misery of the classroom environment, from primary school up through graduate school, and then at some point mentions picking up their third Harvard degree.
2
5
They are sincere in this and see no contradiction--they love learning, but feel constrained by rules and bureaucracy and social expectations, etc. Plus the whole bad food thing. But it's amusing. From Emerson's eulogy of Thoreau:
Image
1
Thoreau refused to pay the five-dollar fee Harvard charged for diplomas when he completed grad school. They were all involved in constant drama with Harvard, but most of them ended up serving as professors or on its Board or sending their sons there.
1
Emerson begins his eulogy of Thoreau with a gentle reprimand for this. Thoreau was the only one who really broke with Harvard...and pretty much everything else by the end of his life.
Image
Image
Image
Image
1