Every tributary, then, that made Emerson what he was, flowed not only
from Protestantism, but from 'the Protestantism of the Protestant
religion.' When we are told that Puritanism inexorably locked up the
intelligence of its votaries in a dark and straitened chamber, it is
worthy to be remembered that the genial, open, lucid, and most
comprehensive mind of Emerson was the ripened product of a genealogical
tree that at every stage of its growth had been vivified by Puritan sap.
Not many years after his birth, Emerson's mother was left a widow with
narrow means, and he underwent the wholesome training of frugality in
youth. When the time came, he was sent to Harvard. When Clough visited
America a generation later, the collegiate training does not appear to
have struck him very favourably. 'They learn French and history and
German, and a great many more things than in England, but only
imperfectly.' This was said from the standard of Rugby and Balliol, and
the method that Clough calls imperfect had merits of its own. The pupil
lost much in a curriculum that had a certain rawness about it, compared
with the traditional culture that was at that moment (1820) just
beginning to acquire a fresh hold within the old gray quadrangles of
Oxford. On the other hand, the training at Harvard struck fewer of those
superfluous roots in the mind, which are only planted that they may be
presently cast out again with infinite distraction and waste.
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