The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1903-05-24
EMERsONs HOUSE AT CONCORD.
Here the famous American thinker lived during the greater part of his life.

Here the famous Amer
Special Correspondence OF Tho Sunday Republic.
Boston. May 22.-This city. the birthplace
OF Ralph Waldo Emersoni Harvard Uni
yersity, his alma mater; and old Concord.
the home Of his mature. years, ara all in
state Of excitement over the much heralded
Emerson centenary which is to be formally
opened to-day by the laying Of the corner
stone Of Emerson Hall. in Cambridge
destined to be the homo Of the departments
Of philosophy and education in Harvard
University.
The sum Of $50. 800. as announced in Dis
patches, was completed several days aSo'
and though the building Will still be greatly
improved for It's purposes II an additional
s5O,00 can ba raised, the work on It Is 10
begin very shortly.
The building will stand between Sever
Hall and Quincy street. opposite the new
Architectural building. Professor shaier's
house will be moved along toward Presi-
dent Eiot's to make room for it.
Within the hall will stand a bronze statue
| Of Emerson by Frank Duveneck OF Cinctn-
| natl.
This, curiously enough, will be the hrst
| memorial statue that has as yet been erect
ed to Emerson anywhere in the Boston COM
munity, though 1t IS reported that one by
Daniel Chester French, sculptor of the cele-
brated Minute Man" Of Concord, may
some day be placed in the courtyard of the
Boston Public Library.
oweyer hat may be. 1t is probably true
that Emerson himself would have wished
for no more fitting tribute than that OF hav-
ing his scuIptured likeness in such n school
80 - $1,000 F-~ NtN
in his honor.
| HIS LIFE CLOSELY ASSOCIATED
| WITH THE COLLEGE.
Harvard's interest in Emerson is natur-
! ally keen. for, though It is a curious fact
that the future scholar did not think enough
| OF his BACHELORS degree to take 1t and pay
the customary fee, his life after 1921. the
year his class was graduated. was closely
associated in many ways with the College
In Cambridge.
Indeed. after his fame as a thinker had
once gone abroad. he was probably the most
talked-of Harvard al~umnus-admlred by
most, disliked by a few as n supposedly
dangerous radical. but with a dislike that
became steadily less as his personality
and teachings became better understood.
Beyond doubt the two most famous ora
VOn9 ever Ce1VVT6u HI tldLNdLu Ntle ny
Emerson: one. his magnificent Grafton be-
fore the Phi Beta Kappa-Harvard's liter
airy society par northumberland Au-
gust 81. 1857: and the other given before the
graduating class of the Harvard Divinity
School the year following.
1t is difficult at the present day TO appre-
ciate the Importance in the eyes of con-
stemporaries Of these two expressions of
New England p~rotestantism-if one may so
denominate Emerson's vigorous Individual
ism.
Quite possibly neither of them. except for
the admirable and monuments form in
which they are cast. would excite especial
enthusiasm II spoken at Harvard COM
mencement this year.
The thought in the one that American
scholarship ought to be set free from SER
vile dependence upon European institutions
and in the other that religion should be
freed from servile dependence upon dogma,
has. Of course, become commonplace and
indeed SO generally accepted that the up-to-
date tendency in at least one American
church and IN some American educational
institutions is distinctly reactionary and
against such individualsm as Emerson ad-
vocated.
FAMOUS ADMoNITIoN TO
DIVINITY SCHOOL GRADUATES.
But in 1887 his special pleading was start
lingly fresh and striking.
Let me admonish you first Of ALL" he
said in his Divinity School address. ITO go
alone; to refuse good models. even those
most sacred to the Imagination Of men and
to dare to love God without mediator or
veil"
Other features of the Emerson cerebra-
H., ,,ht,l 6. ,tff1 60 t,fro ,In - ,---s
to excite further interest throughout the
country In this remarkable centenary.
In Boston's new Symphony Hall. erected
largely through the munifcence Of Major
Henry Lee Higginson, a great commemo- |
rative meeting Is to be held at which Sena-
tor George Frisbie Hoar will preside, the
Reverend Edward Everett Hale will &c. as
chaplain. and President Eliot OF Harvard
will be a principal speaker.
Choral music from the Handel and Haydn
Society and the reading of a poem by Pro- !
fessor George Z. Woodbury. OF Columbia |
University will LEND further attractiyeness
to the event.
The churches, too, will naturally enough
resound with Emersonian discourses,
Al Appleton Chapel, Cambridge, a sermon |
on Emerson is to be delivered by Francis
G. Peabody. dean OF the Harvard Divinity |
School. and the various churches through |
out the Boston community will practically.
without respect to denomination, vie with |
one another In honoring this former Unita-
rian minister who CAV up the habit of
formal discourse from the pulpit to preach |
to the larger constituency which he could
reach from the lecture platform.
Undoubtedly the most impressive Of all
those exercises will be that held at old Con- |
cord in the First Parish Church, where EN- |
erson used to preach and which still stands
an impressive example of the simple dig
nifty of old-fashioned New England archi- |
lecture.
REVIVAL OF CONCORD
SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY.
Here a memorable service will be held at |
which addresses are to be mad BY Senator |