What ideas and philosophies guided the Transcendentalist movement in America? Scholars explore the topic, reading texts by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Additionally, they write essays comparing the authors' structural...

What were the virtues and values that helped form America? Pupils watch and discuss a video, read biographies of early Americans, chart the differences between early American religious movements, write journals and letters, draw, and...

Ralph Waldo Emerson taught us about the presence of nature and something a little divine inside all of us; simultaneously helping usher in what was considered, "America's intellectual declaration of independence." [10:52]

The Transcendentalist movement of the 1820s-1830s promoted the ideas of intuition, independence, and inherent goodness in humans and nature. This excerpt comes from Emerson's most famous essay. "Self-Reliance," which discusses similar...