Whether they were overweighted by their ponderous title or whether they created an artificial atmosphere too etherial for common mortals, the first generation of Transcendentalists was also the last. They had no successors and _The Dial_, as their organ, was short lived. It undoubtedly exercised a considerable influence in its day; and individual members of the long-named fraternity did much to mould the thought of the American people in after years. Among these were Ralph Waldo Emerson, Bronson Alcott, George William Curtis, Francis George Shaw, translator of Eugene Sue and of George Sand, and father of Colonel Robert Shaw, Margaret Fuller, Theodore Parker, Dr. Howe and his fiancee Julia Ward, Charles A. Dana, John S. Dwight and perhaps a score of other bright spirits. Occasional attendants at their gatherings and contributors to _The Dial_ were Horace Greeley, William Page, afterward President of The National Academy of Design, Thomas Wentworth Higginson and my father, Charles Sears. Their acknowledged leader was the Rev. George Ripley, the founder of Brook Farm. I do not know anything more about this old time Transcendentalism than I do about the Pragmatism of our day, and that is not much. I believe the two schools of thought were alike in this, they both held that modern civilization has gone sadly and badly astray in the pursuit of wealth. Not money but the love of money is, now as ever, the root of all evil. The first work of the makers of America was necessarily the creation of property, the accumulation of the means of life, but we have pushed this pursuit too far, have gone money mad not knowing when we should stop trying to get rich and give our time and attention to higher things. There is another matter to be noted as of some significance namely that leading Transcendentalists were, and leading Pragmatists now are, scholars and university men. It is true America was not turning out university men in the ’40’s and it might perhaps better be said that the Transcendentalists were college men, but as several of them were educated in Germany the connotation may be allowed to stand. It was said of these learned students that at their meetings they read Dante in the original Italian, Hegel in the original German, Swedenborg in the original Latin, which language the Swedish seer always used, Charles Fourier in the original French, and perhaps the hardest task of all, Margaret Fuller in the original English. Margaret was an honored member of the illustrious company and was held in high esteem; but her writings are mighty hard reading. I can quite understand James Russell Lowell’s judgment in his “Fable For Critics” where he condemns a certain literary offender to severe punishment, sentencing him to 30 days at hard labor, reading the works of Margaret Fuller.