New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1874-04-03

other mental power are, it is true, not frequent
from Englishmen to Americans. Our British
cousins are unfortunately more hampered than
wa by old and narrowing customs and pre]u-
dices. and find it more difficult to be either
lust to themselves or generous to others IN
choosing their leaders of opinion or thought.
Rut this ia a fault which each year will cure.
As n sign of such cure, the election OF a
foreign author to position never gwen Dciore
TO any but Englishmen would, as we salo' DO
q pleasant incident, and credltaDie 10 inc
students who give it.
But Mr.. Emerson, we suspect. VIII vaiue
any such homage less than almost any living
author. He would regard it very much as the
big boy of the school, who is old enough to
know the real value of his work and the
knowledge he has gained there, and VINO LOOKS
forward daily to the wider life outside,
regards the petty prizes and ribbons Oh
Exhibition day. Besides, there is q dlscrep-
anew, an odd want of conference or affinity,
between the thing offered and the man, Wnlch
would jar upon any intelligent American. Inc
snneryjsion of q school, no matter now
shadowy or nominal the office, may have been
given appropriately enough to any ieaoins
man of letters. Macaulay, with his brilliant
historical pictures; Carlyle or Mill, each repre-
senting a certain vigorous but partial creed Oh
his own, might very properly hoid tne posi-,
tion-positiye leaders of immature minds. But
Emerson is q man apart and dliferent ITO"
these or any other living Anglo-Saxon tmnKer'
His life needs to be looked at through the
magnifying lens Of death to show 1t to us as IL Is
When we see it in that way (Which time may
God avert for many year y we shall recognize
the first philosopher who was at once the
creature and exponent of the life OF the New
World-an American of the Americans-whose
tbouchts were based on books as those OF
other scholars, but whose vision and utterances
dealt solely with humanity. In the congress
of nations, if Plato should be chosen to repre-
sent the Greek, Jean Paul the German, or
Voltaire become the typical Frenchman, then
Emerson would be the American per Sc, and
Enthusiastically. Not, of course, In personal
character, but as the embodiment OF our
higher drift of thought and its aim. Never
until now, here, in the United States,
has the real urgent study of mankind
been man. Emerson is the highpriest and
seer of that study. All men and women pass
before him as pictures before an appreclatlve,
keen-eyed artist. He values them for what
they give to him. He gives credit to honesty
in them, to sweet moral nature, to biting sar-
casm, or skilled duplicity, just as the painter
recognizes here chrome yellow, there burnt
SIENNA In this swarming American life. made
ND of every race, creed, and habit under
the sun, he sits apart and quiet, and now
and then gives us his message. 1t reaches the
profoundest depths of each mans conscious
ness il touches every practical detail OF his
everyday life. The epigrammatio sentences
invariably seem to US our own which we had
some day spoken and forgotten; for every
human emotion and thought have been strained
into them, Of outside knowledge. Emerson
gives to his disciple but few gimpses OF
God, not many but himself, the disciple sees
clearly as never before; of the science OF the
man he is or may be, this teacher makes him
absolute master. OF what value this philos-
ophy may be hereafter, whether its influence
on our future modes Of thought and action
will be curative or hurtful, is for each man to
determine for himself. 1t is certain, however,
that even among the religious teachers who
disagree with him, those who grasp the spirit
of the age most shrewdly are giving up doc
trinal teaching, and dealing with man as men.
To dub this leader of human thought Rector
of any University, however lofty and well
meant an honor, appears to US i'll fitting and
a misunderstanding like the sprig of bloom
on the head of crowned Plantagenet. We
choose rather to think of him, untitled and
uncomplimented, yonder in his old house in
| Concord or pacing unnoticed up and down
among the grove of pines which has known
| him SO long.