..."greatness." In both cases, the main cause was an overemphasis on commerce and economic prosperity. "Public and private avarice make the air we breathe thick and fat," Emerson told his young charges. "The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon...

...of universal individualism, but also the necessary superiority of American over European education. "We have listened too long to the courtly muses of...already suspected to be timid, imitative, tame."" Heaven keep us from such a charge. We will be bold: "We will walk on our own feet; we will work with...

...von der verbrauchten Kultur des feudalen Europa ab: „Mr. President and Gentlemen, this confidence in the unsearched might of man, belongs by all motives, by all prophesy, by all preparation, to the American Scholar. We have listened too long to the courtly muses...