Their acknowledged leader was
the Rev. George Ripley, the founder of Brook Farm.
I do not know anything more about this old time Transcendentalism than I
do about the Pragmatism of our day, and that is not much. I believe the
two schools of thought were alike in this, they both held that modern
civilization has gone sadly and badly astray in the pursuit of wealth.
Not money but the love of money is, now as ever, the root of all evil.
The first work of the makers of America was necessarily the creation of
property, the accumulation of the means of life, but we have pushed this
pursuit too far, have gone money mad not knowing when we should stop
trying to get rich and give our time and attention to higher things.
There is another matter to be noted as of some significance namely that
leading Transcendentalists were, and leading Pragmatists now are,
scholars and university men. It is true America was not turning out
university men in the '40's and it might perhaps better be said that the
Transcendentalists were college men, but as several of them were
educated in Germany the connotation may be allowed to stand.
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