Henry David Thoreau’s Views, Essay Example

Thoreau’s Views on Education

Henry David Thoreau was the 19^th-century American literary figure, naturalist, and philosopher. Although he wrote few works (mainly, a book Walden and an essay Civil Disobedience), and few contemporaries knew about his existence, today, his literary and philosophical legacy is believed to be influential.[1] Thoreau was an extraordinary individual with his own views on numerous aspects of human life. His views on education may attract one’s attention for their uniqueness and remarkability.

Some events in Thoreau’s life influenced his views on education. Discussing his biography, Meltzer noted that Thoreau was born to the family of a manufacturer, and grew up in a village farmhouse surrounded by beautiful gardens and picturesque landscapes. When his family left the farm, he grew up in the uneasy environment shaped by the American Revolution.[2] Although many people thought that he was an idler, it was not true. Thoreau worked hard during all his life: in childhood when he helped his father in work, during education at Harvard University where he proved to be an eager and talented learner, and in his adult life, when he became a hardworking person. Overall, his experiences “as farmer, gardener, house painter, carpenter, mason, surveyor, pencil maker, day laborer, schoolmaster, lecturer, naturalist, and writer” formed his views on education.[3] Naturally, these biographical facts influenced his worldview, and helped to shape his opinions about education.

Thoreau’s opinions about education can be considered as traditional and old-fashioned; however, this fact does not diminish the value of his considerations on education. Working as a teacher, he made sure of some simple things in practice. For example, Thoreau emphasized upon lived experience that needed to serve as a crucial element of education.[4] He believed that this educational method is more fruitful than all formal methods of instruction practices in educational institutions of his time are. These formal methods were full of disadvantages for Thoreau who thought that they represent a random and unstructured approach to education in which children had to learn something from readings, rigor was eschewed, and teachers reluctantly insisted on the completion of boring tasks.[5]

Thoreau was a supporter of individual practical experience that gives an opportunity for both child and adult learning. During his life in the self-built house in woods, he worked with purposeful intentionality and steadfast discipline on almost everything he did in natural surroundings.[6] Since he demonstrated willingness to work long and hard, he required the same diligence from his pupils, as well. Thoreau revealed that both an adult and a child often learn by doing.[7] Besides, as a teacher who worked with children, Thoreau used common sense and tried to cultivate continuous striving for exacting standards.[8]

Since Thoreau was a naturalist and found that spending time in natural surroundings is fruitful for each person, he introduced the so-called “field trips” as a part of children’s curriculum.[9] Unlike common children who learned something from theory (reading texts in books), Thoreau’s pupils studied plants and animals in their natural environment. In addition, Thoreau made children appreciate the time spent outside the classroom, because nature reveals numerous things that should be learnt by people.[10] Thoreau’s phrase about nature, for example, “let us first be as simple and well as nature”, “nature gives a sense of the variety and capacity” and of “a strange liberty”, points to the fact that nature is the best teacher for a person who draws inspiration, power, understanding of life, and other essential things out of it.[11]

Since Thoreau criticized the dominant role of the government in education, he offered to make the transformation in public education. Thoreau agreed, “government is best which governs least”; this statement suggests the idea that the less the government interferes with the educational system, the better it is for students.[12] For him, only public education cultivated an independent spirit (“the gift of joy and courage”) in children.[13] In addition, Thoreau believed that public educational establishments aim to teach all children (regardless of a social status) collectively; it means that the educational system should be unified by sharing the single teaching program that provided people with multifaceted development.

As one may see, Thoreau’s reality along with his daily and literary life influenced his views on education greatly. He proved to be a humanistic person with rigid moral values, and a successful teacher whose lifestyle served the exemplar for his pupils. Thoreau believed that society remained sick within the environment saturated with fatigue from the Revolutionary War, and continuous pressure on the part of the government. As he wrote, “to the sick the doctors wisely recommend a change of air and scenery”; this phrase suggested that he wanted to help society to recover through the new system of education.[14] According to Thoreau, people need to work hard, to spend time in natural surroundings as often as they can, and to absorb everything through practical experience. These practices of uncommon learning are considered fruitful for children and adults because they cultivate an independent spirit and striving for high standards in people; besides, they provide essential experience-based knowledge. He opposed the traditional educational system dependent of immoral and unjust government, and supported the idea of public education that encouraged people to change positively.

Thoreau’s Views on American Character Identity

Taking into consideration Thoreau’s lifestyle and philosophical ideas embodied in the literary works, his views on American character identity can be revealed. Thoreau is not only a well-known literary figure, but also a philosopher concerned with people’s nature, eternal problems of life, American identity, and national character. As an abolitionist, he was an advocate of abolition of slavery, and fostering individual independence.[15] Since he was a naturalist, he paid much attention to the gifts offered by nature for human development.[16] Moreover, he was a transcendentalist, the one who shares a belief in the inherent goodness of nature and people, and in the fact that society and its institutions corrupt individuals’ purity.[17] Overall, Thoreau was a multifaceted person whose life experience shaped his views on his compatriots’ national identity.

Thoreau’s major work, Walden, suggested how an individual’s life and personality should look like In the book, one may see how American character identity is reflected in the author’s lifestyle.[18] Reading the book, one may see that Thoreau spent several years in woods reflecting upon a human life and individuality beyond the society that has to obey unjust and immoral civil government. Thoreau lived in a self-built house within natural surroundings where he reflected upon the happiness of simple living, morally opposing an unjust state, and demonstrating his individual resistance to civil government.[19] As Thoreau wrote, “I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labour of my hands only”.[20]

As Elliot noted, “desiring his countrymen to know what it was to live deliberately, Thoreau documented his experiences, teaching us how to live without our European kinsmen and their authority”.[21] In Walden, one may see that for Thoreau, within an urban society full of stereotypes, people “lead lives of quiet and unconscious desperation”, while living in nature, people choose “the common mode of life because they preferred it to any other”.[22] Thoreau respected nature for its power to share its harmony and energy with a person, cultivating his or her independent spirit, and developing intellect and morality. Hence, American character identity is partially based on unconscious and inherent love to nature and life within natural surroundings.

Since childhood, Thoreau was engaged in farming activity and hard work; for this reason, devotion to one’s native land, hardworking, and satisfaction with the fruits of one’s own labor are a part of the American character identity. This idea was suggested by Thoreau’s observation of farmers’ lifestyle and his personal experience gained in the village where he had been born. Besides, living in a self-built house, Thoreau felt the happiness of manual work and hard labour; he liked to be aware of the fact that his living depended on the fruits of his own labor only.[23] In addition, Thoreau believed that people might be happy regardless of hard manual labor because they are bound to their traditions, and follow them rigidly. As he noted, “this generation is very sure to plant corn and beans each new year precisely as the Indians did centuries ago and taught the first settlers to do, as if there were a fate in it”.[24] Hence, people’s connection with traditions and a tendency to follow them for the sake of happiness are also essential elements of American character identity.

Dathorne suggested that since Thoreau was a transcendentalist, he had separatist opinions about the American nation’s destination. For Thoreau, Americans were a unique nation worth to be independent from the British Empire; in addition, he believed that the US could not be compared with any other country. The philosopher felt “loftier American need for identification, justification, and revision beyond Europe”.[25] As one may see, Thoreau agreed that his country should move not in the Eurocentric direction, but in its own one. For this reason, Thoreau’s American character identity includes a nation’s belief in the significance of self-identity, and a tendency to choose one’s own way due to its uniqueness.

Thoreau’s essay Civil Disobedience revealed another feature embodied in the authentic American character identity, a tendency for improvement through nonviolent resistance. In this essay, he criticized government suggesting that it should be resisted by just people with high moral values. However, he called not for government’s abolition, but rather for its improvement. As he noted, “that government is best which governs not at all; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have”; owing to this phrase, Thoreau is sometimes considered an anarchist.[26] Nevertheless, Thoreau did not represent anarchism; in fact, he provided the idea that citizens should take measures aimed for the improvement of state governance instead of complaining of the government. It is unreasonable for people to accuse the national government of immorality and injustice because they have chosen it by themselves to execute their will. The government of Thoreau’s times was “liable to be abused and perverted”, and represented an evil system; for this reason, he called for its improvement and progressive transformation triggered by active citizens’ nonviolent resistance.[27] According to Thoreau, it is an evident duty and moral obligation of American citizens not to cooperate with their national government, and to protest against the existing political system. Overall, Thoreau’s essay on politics reveals American people’s natural desire to improve the existing system through nonviolent means.

The ideology provided by Thoreau suggests that a desire for a positive change is a characteristic feature of the American character identity. He believed that people are changeable creatures. As he noted, “things do not change; we change”.[28] Thoreau claimed that it is natural for people to strive for positive changes; for him, it was the only way “not to live in this restless, nervous, bustling, trivial” times.[29] The philosopher realized that his own worldview was greatly influenced by the positive changes such as industrial society burgeoning and progressive political and social reforms (among which, the slavery Abolition Act of 1833 was the most significant) aimed to meet American society’s essential needs.[30] For Thoreau, a desire for a positive change is essential for the development of the young nation. In the middle of the 19^th century, the American national self-consciousness increased, and positive changes to the existing system were vital in order to provide the US with national development. For example, industrialization and partial reformation of the country provided the young nation with an opportunity to assert itself as a powerful state with its own peculiarities, achievements, and way of development.

Based on the information stated above, one may see that Thoreau formed his views on the American character identity under the influence of his life experience and surrounding reality that can be revealed in his literary works. Overall, Thoreau’s ideology suggests that the unconscious and inherent love to nature and life within natural surroundings, people’s connection with traditions and a tendency to follow them for the sake of happiness, a nation’s belief in the significance of self-identity and a tendency to choose one’s own way due to its uniqueness, a tendency for improvement through nonviolent resistance, and a desire for positive change are typical characteristics of the American national character. As one may see, the abolitionist, naturalistic, and transcendental views of Thoreau remain relevant in the modern world.

References

Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience (Carlisle: Applewood Books, 2000), 7.

Henry David Thoreau, Jonathan Kozol, & Martin Bickman, Uncommon Learning (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1990), vii-x.

Henry David Thoreau, Walden (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 3-320.

Milton Meltzer, Henry David Thoreau: a Biography (Minneapolis: Twenty-First Century Books, 2006), 9-65.

Norbert Elliot, On a Scale: a Social History of Writing Assessment in America (New York: Peter Lang, 2005), 1.

Oscar, R. Dathorne, In Europe’s Image: The Need for American Multiculturalism (Westport; Greenwood Publishing Group, 1994), 47.

Shawn Chandler Bingham, Thoreau and the Sociological Imagination: The Wilds of Society (Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008), 15.

[1] Milton Meltzer, Henry David Thoreau: a Biography (Minneapolis: Twenty-First Century Books, 2006), 9.

[2] Ibid., 10.

[3] Ibid., 9.

[4] Henry David Thoreau, Jonathan Kozol, & Martin Bickman, Uncommon Learning, vii.

[5] Ibid., viii.

[6] Meltzer, Henry David Thoreau: a Biography, 9.

[7] Thoreau, Walden, 8.

[8] Thoreau, Kozol, & Martin Bickman, Uncommon Learning, viii.

[9] Ibid., ix.

[10] Ibid., ix.

[11] Thoreau, Walden,148 .

[12] Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience (Carlisle: Applewood Books, 2000), 7.

[13] Thoreau, Kozol, & Martin Bickman, Uncommon Learning, x.

[14] Thoreau, Walden, 320.

[15] Meltzer, Henry David Thoreau: a Biography, 65.

[16] Ibid., 63.

[17] Ibid., 93.

[18] Norbert Elliot, On a Scale: a Social History of Writing Assessment in America (New York: Peter Lang, 2005), 1.

[19] Henry David Thoreau, Walden (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 3.

[20] Ibid., 4.

[21] Ibid., 1.

[22] Thoreau, Walden, 8.

[23] Ibid., 4.

[24] Ibid., 155.

[25] Oscar, R. Dathorne, In Europe’s Image: The Need for American Multiculturalism (Westport; Greenwood Publishing Group, 1994), 47.

[26] Thoreau, Civil Disobedience, 7.

[27] Ibid., 7.

[28] Thoreau, Walden, 328.

[29] Ibid., 330.

[30] Shawn Chandler Bingham, Thoreau and the Sociological Imagination: The Wilds of Society (Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008), 15.