writer. He cannot build; his arrangement of philosophical ideas has no progress in it—no evolution; he does not construct a philosophy."

Lastly, the Rev. C. A. Bartol, criticising the critic, says:

"Mr. Arnold, who has forgot the dreams and got so bravely over the supposed illusions of his youth, putting for them the depressing doubts and hopeless speculations of his age, while he prizes Emerson's spiritual substance, eschews as not good tissue his literary style. Moses, David, Paul, James, and Jesus, as reported by his amanuenses, under this self-confident critic's cleaver, must lose their heads as writers and authors on the same block. They, too, are no weavers of words whose work is figured by the loom; but brief, sententious, pictorial, ejaculatory, a quiver full of arrows being rather their type. Is there not a good prophetic and oracular as well as a didactic or dialectic style?"

So we see that it is not safe to trust the opinion of any one critic. It is not always easy to understand Emerson; his sentences are full of hidden meaning which cannot be detected at a glance; they must be read and re-read to perceive the full drift of the thought; but the thought in its fullness well repays us for the trouble. With unbiased mind and earnest purpose we must go to the storehouse of Emerson's works, take from thence all the material we can gather, and with this as the basis, each according to his understanding, form his own judgment.

"The American Scholar" has been well called our literary declaration of independence. In it Emerson deplores the tendencies of Americans to devote their energies exclusively in the direction of mechanical skill, and he fearlessly accuses them of subserviency to European taste and style.

In treating of the education of the scholar, he recognizes three Nature, the Past with its accumulation of

great influences,

books, and Action.

"Know

Nature he regards as the most important influence. thyself" and "Study nature" are to him as one maxim. The classifying instinct is one of the first to be developed; we must learn to see that many things are governed by one law.

In speaking of the influence of the past, he dwells chiefly on books. The danger, he tells us, is in placing too much faith in books. Instead of Man Thinking we have the bookworm. Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst."

Action, though subordinate to the other influences, still is an essential factor in education. "It is the raw material out of which the intellect molds her splendid product." He emphasizes the dignity and necessity of labor, and spurns the idea that the scholar must withdraw from the practical issues of life. Having spoken of the scholar's education, he eloquently describes his duties, which, he tells us, are all included in self-trust. If we would be true to ourselves, we must never yield to the popular cry, but manfully declare our independence, cost what it may, and hold to our belief though the whole world decry it.

Lastly, he makes special application of these principles to the American Scholar. He rejoices in the fact that people are beginning to be interested in near and common things instead of in the "doings in Italy and Arabia." "What would we really know the meaning of the meal in the firkin, the milk in the pan, the ballad in the street." And he closes in that hopeful strain, so characteristic of Emerson, by expressing the utmost faith and confidence in the American Scholar.

Perhaps no other work of Emerson's has been less criticised or more universally approved. James Russell Lowell, in speaking of its delivery, says: "It was an event without any former parallel in our literary annals, a scene to be always treasured in the memory for its picturesqueness and its inspiration. What crowded and breathless aisles, what windows clustering with eager heads, what enthusiasm of approval, what grim silence of foregone dissent!"

In this oration are to be found the germs of those thoughts and principles which animate all the author's later works,-selftrust, self-culture, the dignity of labor, harmony and analogy in nature, intellectual and moral independence. Emerson has been accused of burying his thoughts so deep that common seekers cannot find them; but in this essay, at least, few passages can be found which are not perfectly intelligible. Some of them, indeed, are so exquisitely expressed as to constitute veritable prose poems. The address, like all of Emerson's works, is full of quotations and allusions; yet Emerson is essentially original. He is the champion of mental freedom, and continually urges others to free themselves from the fetters of conventionality.

He practiced what he preached in this oration, and set the example of ignoring European methods and manners. The humblebee and the pine tree rather than the nightingale and the asphodel furnished his models.

Let us rejoice that Emerson no longer need complain of our subserviency to European taste. Since this address was delivered, we have had a host of original writers, -Cooper, Irving, Hawthorne, Bryant, Longfellow, Whittier, Lowell, Holmes, Whitman, and many others. The whole tendency of American literature has changed. As with one impulse it has grown more

original and more American. Emerson's rich and vigorous freshness has undoubtedly proved a stimulant to his contemporaries, and to him, more than to any other, we are indebted for the development of American scholarship.

It is hardly necessary to explain the theme of "Self-Reliance." The title is self-explanatory. It is the doctrine which Emerson preaches in "The American Scholar," reiterated and elaborated. When we read there, "In self-trust all the virtues are comprehended," we strike the keynote of this later essay. To the selfreliant man everything is possible; he may become a genius, a leader of men, but without this one virtue, his case is hopeless.

case.

Some of us, perhaps, cannot agree with Emerson when he tells us it is right to ignore many of the ordinary duties of life for the sake of maintaining our individuality; but certain it is that conformity to the conventionalities of society 'stamps out from many a man his originality and individuality, and makes of him merely one of a mass of men. Let us see how it is in our own Suppose some one took enough interest in you or me to write our biography. Would it not read somewhat like this? "Mr. — was of such a nationality (Order). He belonged to such a religious sect (Class). He followed such a profession or engaged in such a business (Genus). He was a member of such a club, was interested in such a movement, etc. (Species)." These are all class distinctions, but where, we ask, is the attribute that shows his individuality, that makes him himself and distinguishes him from his companions B and C and D? Of this, alas! most men's lives leave no record.

In times of revolution, when conventionalities are forcibly thrust aside, our great men grow up like mushrooms in a night.

So we find in our own history that at no other time did our country produce so many great men as during the Revolutionary period and the period of the Civil War. Must we, then, wish for war and turmoil, or shall we rather believe with Emerson that if we would but be as brave as he would have us, the most peaceful times might fill our records with the achievements of men who now sink into unknown graves?

In "Compensation" we strike one of Emerson's deeper and more philosophic veins,- that great theory of retribution on earth which makes us pause and hold our breath. Is it indeed true that "every excess causes a defect, every defect an excess? " that "for everything you have missed you have gained something else, and for everything you gain you lose something?' that "every secret is told, every crime is punished, every virtue rewarded, every wrong redressed, in silence and certainty?" The universal acceptation of this doctrine would work a revolution in society for would not the wicked man fear to do wrong if he knew the punishment to be as inevitable as the laws of nature, and not dependent upon a possible detection and conviction by the judges of the world? And where would be the motive for his crime if he felt that he already possessed his full allotment of happiness, and that for everything he gained in one direction he would lose something in another? And would not the virtuous man be encouraged to persist all the more in his virtue if he knew that for every sacrifice he made there would be some reward,- a gain in character, if not a material com

pensation?

But the doctrine is one that is not easily learned. To be well understood it must be carefully taught by inspired men, by men