Charles Wesley Emerson

“ The delight of social ease, the refined enjoyment of taste in letters and art, opulent leisure, professional distinction, gratified ambition—all these came and whispered to the young student. And it is the force that can tranquilly put aside such blandishments with a smile, and accept alienation, outlawry, ignominy, and apparent defeat, if need be, no less than the courage which grapples with poverty and outward hardship and climbs over them to worldly prosperity, which is the test of the finest manhood. ”

“ Now let it speak, and you fire, and the dark pioneer is
no more;
And ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England
blew.
VI. Ay, but the foe sprung his mine many times, and it chanced on a day, Soon as the blast of that underground thunder-clap echoed away, Dark through the smoke and the sulphur, like so many fiends in their hell— Cannon-shot, musket-shot, volley on volley, and yell upon yell— Fiercely on all the defences our myriad enemies fell.
VII. What have they done? where is it? Out yonder. ”

“ This discovery budded and blossomed into the consummate flower of true art, the fourth or suggestive era, which reached its acme in the work of Phidias and his contemporaries. Every creation was the expression of some state of mind. Everything was made as it appeared to the eye of the poet, not as it might seem to the man of no sentiment. The impression of the poetic mind found its expression in art, and now the statues think, fear, hate, love.
The same general laws which have governed the rise of sculpture, underlie the evolution of all forms of art. ”

“ I tell you, lover of liberty, there is no choice offered to you, but it is similarly between life and death. There is no act, nor option of act, possible, but the wrong deed or option has poison in it which will stay in your veins thereafter forever. Never more to all eternity can you be as you might have been had you not done that—chosen that. ”

“ To their country they yet live, and live forever. They live in all that perpetuates the remembrance of men on earth; in the recorded proofs of their own great actions, in the offspring of their intellect, in the deep engraved lines of public gratitude, and in the respect and homage of mankind. They live in their example; and they live, emphatically, and will live, in the influence which their lives and efforts, their principles and opinions, now exercise, and will continue to exercise, on the affairs of men, not only in their own country, but throughout the civilized world. ”

“ So long as there is a gulf between the speaker and audience, there is conscious and apparent effort in the address. It is a growing love, a vital sympathy with the audience that manifests itself in smoothness.
This second step grows in natural sequence out of the first. Out of the abundance of life comes sweetness. In all the successive steps of the pupil's evolution, he is constantly to add, never to discard or lay aside any power previously gained. Rather than outgrow it, he will grow in it. All that he will outgrow will be his faults, his mannerisms, his limitations. ”

“ As years go by, and only the large outlines of lofty American characters and careers remain, the wide republic will confess the benediction of a life like this, and gladly own that if with perfect faith, and hope assured, America would still stand and "bid the distant generations hail," the inspiration of her national life must be the sublime moral courage, the all-embracing humanity, the spotless integrity, the absolutely unselfish devotion of great powers to great public ends, which were the glory of Wendell Phillips. ”

“ The slightest quiver of a muscle may reveal greater intensity of thought than the most violent gesticulation. Yet since freedom and abandon of the agents of expression are necessary to their perfect service, let the teacher invite that freedom and abandon without fear of sacrificing good taste. He is not to be regarded as an artist yet; nor is it now profitable to measure him by the criteria of art. Let the form of his expression be as crude as it may, only let it be born of the thought. ”

“ A superior and commanding human intellect, a truly great man,— when heaven vouchsafes so rare a gift,—is not a temporary flame, burning bright for awhile, and then expiring, giving place to returning darkness. It is rather a spark of fervent heat, as well as radiant light, with power to enkindle the common mass of human mind; so that, when it glimmers in its own decay, and finally goes out in death, no night follows ”

“ Music has unfolded with the unfolding of the human mind, from the startling sounds of the savage,—exhibitions of pure energy,—through efforts at fascination by the medium of weird and unnatural combinations, and through attempts to reproduce natural sounds, ever upward till it breathes the very spirit of nature in a Haydn or a Beethoven. ”

“ Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Else to-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another. ”

“ In all things he must stimulate and not repress normal growth.
There is an old notion sometimes found among theoretical educators that the mind of a child is like a piece of paper upon which anything may be written; a mould of clay upon which any impression may be made; a block of stone in which the teacher, like the famous sculptor of old, sees, in his poetic vision, an angel, and then chips and hacks until that angel stands revealed. ”

“ And he has bound a snow white plume upon his gallant
crest.
He looked upon his people, and a tear was in his eye,
He looked upon the traitors, and his glance was stern
and high.
Right graciously he smiled on us, as rolled from wing
to wing,
Down all our line, a deafening shout, "God save our
Lord the King!"
"And if my standard bearer fall, as fall full well he
may—
For never I saw promise yet of such a bloody fray—
Press where you see my white plume shine amidst the
ranks of war,
And be your oriflamme to-day the helmet of Navarre."
IV. Hurrah! the foes are moving. ”

“ The human mind, like the plant, must exhibit vitality in abundance before it finds a higher and more complex manifestation. The unskilled teacher, instead of inviting out the young pupil along the line of his own organism, may, at the outset, paralyze the unfolding mind by ill-advised dictation. There can be no true teaching which does not involve growing, and growing in the way intended by nature. The teacher must be something more than a critic. The critic establishes criteria, protects the public, and, in a measure, educates the public taste. ”

“ Herein is illustrated a fundamental law of development; what we earnestly attempt to do for another that we actually do for ourselves. The constant endeavor of the teacher, therefore, must be to inspire the pupil to serve his audience through truth, the truth of his discourse. His attempt to gain the attention of his hearers and to concentrate their minds on this truth will secure such concentration of his own mind as will stimulate his interest, and interest is always vital.
Let no one mistake loudness for animation. A whisper may be more vital, more animated than a shout. ”

“ In religion we see the same phases—from the worship of life itself, of natural phenomena, through the panorama of deities friendly and deities unfriendly, of gods many and of devils many, until the human mind grasps the conception of Unity in deity, and bows in worship before an Infinite Being of Love and Providence. ”

“ The personality of Spartacus revealed through his effort to inspire his fellows with the spirit of liberty.
The theme which Spartacus presents is of universal value—the spirit of liberty, dear to all mankind. ”

“ A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts ”

“ But your fly, free in the air, free in the chamber—a black incarnation of caprice, wandering, investigating, flitting, flirting, feasting at his will, with rich variety of choice in feast, from the heaped sweets in the grocer's window to those of the butcher's back yard, and from the galled place on your cab- horse's back, to the brown spot in the road, from which, as the hoof disturbs him, he rises with angry republican buzz—what freedom is like his? ”

“ If, musing over Coke and Blackstone, in the full consciousness of ample powers and of fortunate opportunities, he sometimes forecast the future, he doubtless saw himself succeeding Fisher Ames, and Harrison Gray Otis, and Daniel Webster, rising from the bar to the Legislature, from the Legislature to the Senate, from the Senate— who knew whither?—the idol of society, the applauded orator, the brilliant champion of the elegant repose and the cultivated conservatism of Massachusetts. ”

“ Their work doth not perish with them. The tree which they assisted to plant will flourish, although they water it and protect it no longer; for it has struck its roots deep; it has sent them to the very center; no storm, not of force to burst the orb, can overturn it; its branches spread wide; they stretch their protecting arms broader and broader, and its top is destined to reach the heavens.
6. We are not deceived. There is no delusion here. No age will come, in which the American Revolution will appear less than it is—one of the greatest events in human history. ”

“ A knowledge of the philosophy of education in expression avails little without the ability to create the genial atmosphere conducive to the development of the student. The teacher is the gardener, his service—his full service—is to surround the young plant with favorable conditions of light and soil and atmosphere; then stand out of its way while it unfolds its full blossom and final fruitage.
The tendency of modern education is towards the discovery and perfection of methods. The thought of leading educators is turned from the what to the how ”

“ The pupil must live with his author, see through his eyes, think with his intellect, feel with his heart, and choose with his will, picturing to himself every scene, putting himself in the place of every character described.
Like every organism every true work of art has organic unity; it represents a unit of thought, the WHOLE, made up of essential PARTS. Each part is a part of the whole, because in its own way it reflects the whole. The perfect unity of an organism or of a work of art results from the service rendered by each part to every other part. ”

“ As human beings, indeed, they are no more. They are no more, as in 1776, bold and fearless advocates of independence; no more, as on subsequent periods, the head of the government; no more, as we have recently seen them, aged and venerable objects of admiration and regard. They are no more. They are dead. ”

“ Thus the brain of the child passes through the successive stages from simple animation to attraction, to selection or choice, to separation or analysis. This principle of evolution, operating along the same lines, is found in the race as in the individual. In all man's work he has but recorded his own life or evolution. All history, all religions, all governments, all forms of art bring their testimony to this truth, and in each the scholar may find these successive stages of development.
In the age of Phidias the art of sculpture reached its maturity. ”

“ As the conceptions of the past no longer satisfied the criterion which their own minds had embraced, the Greek artists sought in nature herself for models of that beauty, which, when placed in art forms, should be a joy forever. ”

“ He may have developed the power of the painter, the sculptor, the musician, yet if he would unfold the art of the rhetorician, he must pass through the progressive gradations that have marked the education of his powers in other departments. In a single lifetime he may attain the highest art expression, yet he cannot escape the necessity of cultivating his powers by the same process of evolution which the race needed centuries to pass through. It remains for the teacher, therefore, to so arrange the methods of study as to enable the pupil to pursue the natural order of education. ”

“ Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature; for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first, and now, was, and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure. ”