Emerson -The American Scholar

Ralph Waldo Emerson delivers a speech of great significance to the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Harvard University, informing the members of the society that their duties as scholars and citizens lies not in the past nor in the future, but wholly in the present. By suggesting that man is responsible for that which takes place in his own society, Emerson implies that the actions and words of generations before and after our own are obsolete. Emerson states "As no air pump can by any means make a perfect vacuum, so neither can any artist entirely exclude the conventional, the local, the perishable from his book, or write a book of pure thought that shall be as efficient, in all respects, to a remote posterity, as to contemporaries, or rather to the second agte. Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each generation for the next succeeding. The books of an older period will not fit this" (Emerson, 673). Here, it is suggested that (such as the work of a dedicated artist) a book is relevant only to its time period. As an artist would create what he or she has been inspired by NOW. The work itself is not the art... but rather the fleeting moment of the creation of the piece. During the time of creation is the work at its most relevant peak because it is the newest and most inspired. Emerson encourages all scholars to do such with their words and actions. After the fleeting inescapable moments of the delivery of such actions or speeches, they will be obsolete and not as treasured. Emerson emphasizes that it is key to obtain appreciation for the present and the "Now" in order to be a true American scholar.

This is a link about the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Harvard University in an effort to obtain background information of the reasons for Emerson's lecture there:
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~pbk/