From the American Scholar to Education: A Study of Emersonian Education Philosophy

As an educator, Ralph Waldo Emerson was long neglected in American Education History. In fact, his philosophy of education not only influenced his contemporaries like Bronson Alcott and Margaret Fuller, but also had deep impact upon John Dewey’s thoughts of democratic education. This paper attempts to reinterpret Emerson’s philosophy of education, by means of re-reading into his two speeches respectively, namely The American Scholar, which is hailed as “the declaration of intellectual independence” and On Education afterward. Through this reexamination, the paper arrives at the conclusion that Emerson’s belief in “an education as broad as man” will exert an everlasting influence upon American education history.

Keywords: Emerson, Education, Philosophy, the American Scholar.