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A Freshman Poem by Emerson
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
During 1817-1818, Ralph Waldo Emerson furnished himself with lodgings at Harvard College by serving as the president's Freshman. His activities as messenger to President John Thornton Kirkland and to the faculty reached their high point when Emerson, at the close of the college year, formally distributed to his classmates official notices of their class standing and of their honors.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1930
References
1 James E. Cabot, A Memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Boston, 1887. I, 50.
2 For a verse rendering of lines 19-53 of Virgil's fifth Bucolic, translated while Emerson was a pupil in the Boston Latin School, see George W. Cooke, Ralph Waldo Emerson: His Life, Writings, and Philosophy. Boston, 1881. pp. 18, 19.
3 Jared Sparks was tutor at Harvard from 1817 to 1819 (Catalogus Harvardianus. Cambridge, 1821. p. 11).
4 John Brazer was Professor of Latin Language from 1817 to 1820 (idem., p. 8).
5 Hugo Grotius, De Veritate Religionis Christianae. Boston, 1809. This edition was dedicated to the president and faculty of Harvard.
6 “The eloquent Grecian” was Aristotle, whom Emerson had met in Andrew Dalzel, Grœca Majora . . . Cambridge, 1811. “Our own Grecian sage” was Edward Everett, Professor of Greek Literature from 1815 onward (Catalogus Harvardianus, p. 8).
7 An expurgated edition of Horace was used at Harvard; apparently the only such edition available in the United States was Opera Expurgala, Notis Anglicis Illustrata . . . Philadelphia, 1815.
8 Elementary geometry was included in Samuel Webber, Mathematics, Compiled from the Best Authors . . . Cambridge, 2nd ed., 1808. Webber was president of Harvard from 1806 to 1810.
9 John Walker, A Rhetorical Grammar; in which the Common Improprieties of Reading and Speaking Are Detected . . . Boston, 1814.
10 Samuel Gilman was Freshman tutor from 1817 to 1819 (Catalogas Harvardianus, p. 11).
11 Robert Lowth, A Short Introduction to English Grammar. Philadelphia, 1775.
12 Since history and antiquities alternated with English grammar during the third term of the Freshman year, it is probable that in alluding to Tacitus, Emerson had in mind Alexander Adam, Roman Antiquities; or, an Account of the Manners and Customs of the Romans. New York, 2nd American ed., 1814.
13 Claude François Xavier Millot, Elements of General History. Worcester, 1789.
14 “If any make tumultuous, troublesome, or indecent noises, to the dishonour or disturbance of the College, or of the town, or any of its inhabitants; . . . they subject themselves to a fine, not exceeding two dollars” (Laws of Harvard College, p. 16).
15 “Government” was a cant term applied by the students to the college administration (see a satirical account of life at Harvard in 1819 in the anonymous poem, The Rebelliad; or the Terrible Transaction at the Seat of the Muses . . . Boston, 1842).
16 Concerning Emerson at Harvard, his classmate, J. B. Hill, made the following statement (quoted in Cabot, op. cit., I, 63) : “He was mirthful, and, though never demonstrative or boisterous, keenly enjoyed scenes of merriment.”
17 Josiah Quincy, quoted in Oliver Wendell Holmes, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Boston, 1884. p. 44.