What does it take to be an American Scholar? For one, you’d have to understand the concept of “Man thinking”. Emerson emphasizes how significant it is for a scholar to actually think rather than just understanding other thinking. One’s role as an American Scholar is to develop one’s own ideas using nature, one’s knowledge, and one’s experiences.
How does one learn from nature? Even I didn’t really understand this concept, but it forces people to think. As nature throws out all kinds of havoc, people adapt. Scientists are forced to find cures for new diseases; resources are deprived forcing people to find ways to use new resources. Appreciating nature expands one’s intellect as Emerson states, “-when he has learned to worship the soul, and to see that the natural philosophy that now is, is only the first gropings of its gigantic hand, he shall look forward to an ever expanding knowledge as to a becoming creator.”. Nature influences one to think and to develop ideas.
The mind is like a plant: growing. One’s knowledge can expand when you feed it with information, like the plant grows when you water or fertilize it. A scholar should be inspired. A scholar should use his resources to help him develop his ideas. As a scholar, one can’t just depend on the learning from literature. Instead, he picks up from that and piles up a mountain of further knowledge: “-genius looks forward: the eyes of man are set in his forehead, not in his hindhead: man hopes:genius creates.”. Man Thinking is production.
We are influenced everyday. We influence ourselves with the choices we make: the things we do. A scholar uses his experience to make things happen: “Action is with the scholar subordinate, but it is essential. Without it, he is not yet man.”. Students go to school thinking they just come to learn. School provides opportunity. It gives you opportunity to do things you probably would’ve never thought of doing. Meeting a group of people who share interests, can cause action: change in the community. Our experiences help the scholar do something with an idea.
As an American Scholar your job is to “Think” and to be innovative. And to “Think” is to use one’s surroundings to develop ideas.
On the verge of success 