In his essay "The American Scholar" Ralph Waldo Emerson expresses a rather progressive for his time position on the role and the duties of the intellectual, as well as on the different ways of learning and their significance. He rejects the rigid methods of education, which rely on the "exertion of mechanical skills," and speaks in support of a teaching that develops the personality and gives importance to the individual. Emerson states that the three …showed first 75 words of 678 total…

…showed last 75 words of 678 total…American Scholar" to give them the guidelines for successful learning and writing that would encourage them to think independently and have them use it as a cornerstone for analyzing some other reading, or as a basis for a piece of creative writing not connected with a previously read text. It is likely that any text included in an assignment would be used more as a reference than as a central theme in the students work.