Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau was most interested in discovering life’s true essence. His writings depicted philosophy, natural history, and ecology in a way that combined personal experience and natural observation. He advocated the elimination of all waste and illusion.

His ideas on civil disobedience influenced Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, Russian author Tolstoy, Ernest Hemminway, and John F. Kennedy. Henry David Thoreau was for improving rather than abolishing government. He wanted a better government.

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s first encounter with the idea of non-violent resistance was reading "On Civil Disobedience" in 1944 while attending Morehouse College. He wrote this in his autobiography:“Here, in this courageous New Englander's refusal to pay his taxes and his choice of jail rather than support a war that would spread slavery's territory into Mexico, I made my first contact with the theory of nonviolent resistance. Fascinated by the idea of refusing to cooperate with an evil system, I was so deeply moved that I reread the work several times.”

Background

Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts. He studied at Harvard University between 1833 to 1837. Traditional professions such as law, medicine, business, and theology did not interest Thoreau. He resigned as a teacher from a public school in Concord, MA because he refused to administer corporal punishment. He then opened Concord Academy with his brother, John. They introduced many progressive ideas and concepts such as visiting local businesses and shops and nature walks.

Thoreau met Ralph Waldo Emerson shortly after graduating from Harvard. Emerson acted as a big brother and mentor, introducing him to local writers and thinkers such as Nathaniel Hawthorne and Margaret Fuller.

Henry David Thoreau was a philosopher who studied the human condition. He followed Transcendentalism in his early years. This philosophy was supported by Emerson, Louisa May Alcott, and Fuller. It was an idealist philosophy that stressed intuition over religious doctrine in achieving an ideal spiritual state.

Thoreau desired to buy or lease a farm where he could support himself, while finding solitude to write his first book. Walden Woods was the answer.

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.”— Henry David Thoreau, Walden, "Where I Lived, and What I Lived For"

Walden Pond

In 1845 Henry David Thoreau began a two year experiment on simple living by moving to a small house he built on land owned by Emerson in a forest around Walden Pond. In 1846 he was asked to pay 6 years of delinquent poll taxes, but refused because of his opposition to the Mexican-American War and slavery. After spending a night in jail, he was freed against his wishes when his aunt paid the taxes.

In 1848 he lectured on “The Rights and Duties of the Individual in relation to Government” explaining his tax resistance at the Concord Lyceum. This lecture later became Civil Disobedience. He left Walden Pond on September 6, 1847. He recounted his time there in 1854 by publishing Walden, also called Life in the Woods

The American poet Robert Frost had this to say, “In one book…he surpasses everything we have had in America.”

In later years Thoreau studied natural history, botany, and became a land surveyor. He was a philosopher as well as an analyst of ecological patterns in woodlots and fields. He contracted tuberculosis in 1835, and suffered from it on and off until his death on May 6, 1862 at age 44. His friends were fascinated by his tranquil acceptance of death, and when his aunt Louisa asked if he had made peace with God, he responded: “ I did not know we had ever quarreled.”

Thoreau is regarded as one of the leading American writers both for his prose style and his views on politics and nature. His memory is honored by the Thoreau Society.

He was an early proponent of canoeing, recreational hiking, and of conserving natural resources. He sought a middle ground integrating both nature and culture. He realized the necessity of balance both in nature and civilization. He had this to say about the simple life, "Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind."

Henry David Thoreau possessed the courage and strength to stand by his convictions, and instilled in others the encouragement to do the same. School readiness is much more than being prepared to soak up “borrowed knowledge” through rote memory. Thoreau was an advocate of independent thinking, and learning to access our intuition. All children, even those with challenges such as bipolar disorder children, will be positively affected by the strong presence of spirit in his writings.

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