Natural history of intellect, and other papersEmerson, Ralph Waldo
Philosophy
Natural history of intellect, and other papers
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
American essays -- 19th century; Boston (Mass.); Intellect; Memory; Michelangelo Buonarroti, 1475-1564; Milton, John, 1608-1674
More letters we have on the subject of the position of young men,
which accord well enough with what we see and hear. There is an
American disease, a paralysis of the active faculties, which falls
on young men of this country as soon as they have finished their
college education, which strips them of all manly aims and bereaves
them of animal spirits; so that the noblest youths are in a few years
converted into pale Caryatides to uphold the temple of conventions.
They are in the state of the young Persians, when “that mighty Yezdam
prophet” addressed them and said, “Behold the signs of evil days are
come; there is now no longer any right course of action, nor any
self-devotion left among the Iranis.” As soon as they have arrived
at this term, there are no employments to satisfy them, they are
educated above the work of their times and country, and disdain it.
Many of the more acute minds pass into a lofty criticism of these
things, which only embitters their sensibility to the evil and widens
the feeling of hostility between them and the citizens at large. From
this cause, companies of the best-educated young men in the Atlantic
states every week take their departure for Europe; for no business
that they have in that country, but simply because they shall so
be hid from the reproachful eyes of their countrymen and agreeably
entertained for one or two years, with some lurking hope, no doubt,
that something may turn up to give them a decided direction. It is
easy to see that this is only a postponement of their proper work,
with the additional disadvantage of a two years’ vacation. Add that
this class is rapidly increasing by the infatuation of the active
class, who, whilst they regard these young Athenians with suspicion
and dislike, educate their own children in the same courses, and use
all possible endeavors to secure to them the same result.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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