What are the duties of the American Scholar?

Or, Emerson points out some duties of the American Scholar. What are his duties?

Or, Emerson gives the picture of an ideal scholar who is a man of thinking and action. Discuss.

Or, Emerson’s idea of a scholar is revolutionary. Do you agree?

Answer: The ideal picture of an American Scholar that Emerson gives in his famous essay “The American Scholar” is indeed a revolutionary one. It sharply contrasts with the traditional ideal of a scholar who is a valetudinarian, a man of thinking only, given to study and acquiring knowledge. Emerson’s ideal of a scholar is that he should be a man of study and contemplation, not only of books but also of Nature. He should have a great amount of self-confidence, and be brave and free to do his duties as a revolutionary. His duty is to bring out a cultural revolution in which every man will find his due importance in the total scheme of things.

The duties of an American scholar are befitting for a Man Thinking. He should cheer, raise and guide men by showing them truths which lie hidden under appearances. He goes through a long period given to the study of the human mind. He gives up display and immediate fame and is ready to accept poverty and solitude. He is the world’s eye and heart. He resists the vulgar prosperity that retrogrades ever to barbarism by preserving and communicating heroic sentiments, noble biographies, melodious verses and conclusions of history. He should hear and promulgate the verdict of reason on the passing men and events of the present time.

The office of the scholar is to cheer, raise and guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances. He plies the slow, unhonoured, and unpaid task of observation. Flamstead and Herschel, in their glazed observatories, may catalogue the stars with the praise of all men, and the results being splendid and useful, honour is sure. But the American Scholar in his private observatory, catalogues obscure and nebulous stars of the human mind, which as yet no man has thought of as such. He watches days and months sometimes for a few facts. He corrects still his old records. He must relinquish display and immediate fame. During the long preparation period, he must often betray ignorance and shiftlessness in popular arts, incurring the disdain of the able who puts him aside. Long he must stammer in his speech and often forego the living for the dead. Worse yet, he must accept poverty and solitude. For the ease and pleasure of treading the old road, accepting the fashions, the education, the religion of society, he takes the cross of making his own, and of course, the self-accusation, the faint heart, the frequent uncertainty and loss of time, which are the nettles and tangling wines in the way of the self-relying and self-directed. He seems to stand in a state of virtual hostility to society, and especially to an educated society. For all this loss and scorn, he is to find consolation in exercising the highest functions of human nature. He is the one who raises himself from private considerations and breathes and lives on public and illustrious thoughts. He shall receive and impart whatsoever oracles the human heart, in all emergencies, in all solemn hours, has uttered as its commentary on the world of actions. ..

The American Scholar should be confident. He should not care for any popular opinions. Nor is he carried away by popular propaganda. By knowing himself, he believes he can know all men.

Bravery and freedom are also the spiritual and moral qualities of the scholar. He knows that self-confidence comprises all other virtues. It makes him brave. He is aware that fear springs from ignorance. Brave as he is, he puts fear behind him. He does not flee away from danger. He investigates the nature of danger and controls it. The basis of self-trust is the reason. He knows that reason is deeper than can be fathomed and darker than can be enlightened. Emerson says, “In self-trust, all the virtues are comprehended. Free should the scholar be free and brave. Free even to the definition of freedom, “without any hindrance that does not arise out of his own constitution”. It is a shame for him if his tranquillity amid dangerous times, arises from the presumption that like children and women, he is a protected class.

One of the major duties of such a scholar is to spread the idea of culture, the idea of one man. Men have degraded themselves into “the mass”, “the herd” they are now given to hero-worship, idolizing one man. The American Scholar lifts men from such degradation. He wakes men to their real individual dignity. He makes efforts towards the upbuilding of the individual. He thinks that such upbuilding of a man is the enterprise of the world for splendour and for expansion. He considers the private life of a man a more illustrious monarchy. It is more formidable to its enemy, more sweet and serene in its influence on its friend than any kingdom in history. The scholar realises that one man comprehends the particular natures of all men. It ever pours itself out into all men growing larger and larger. He brings about this cultural revolution.

Thus, as Emerson propounds, the duties of the Arnerican Scholar are manifold. His first duty is to build himself up as a scholar having the qualities of knowledge, the urge for practical actions and self-confidence. He frees himself from all fears because he comes to know that fears arise from ignorance. He is brave and does not flinch from any danger. After he builds himself this way, he devotes himself to bringing about the cultural revolution in America. it

Emerson has given, through the figure of the American Scholar, an ideal American who is to build a new America which will be a torch-bearer to the other nations of the world.