THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR - RALPH WALDO EMERSON
THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR - RALPH WALDO EMERSON SUMMARY Originally titled "An Oration Delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, at Cambridge, [Massachusetts,] August 31, 1837," Emerson delivered what is now referred to as "The American Scholar" essay as a speech to Harvard's Phi Beta Kappa Society, an honorary society of male college students with unusually high-grade point averages....