AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT (1799-1888), one of the leading
transcendentalists, wrote a peculiar poem called _The Seer's Rations_, in
which he speaks of
"Bowls of sunrise for breakfast,
Brimful of the East."
His neighbors said that this was the diet which he provided for his hungry
family. His daughter, Louisa May, the author of that fine juvenile work,
_Little Women_ (1868), had a sad struggle with poverty while her father was
living in the clouds. The extreme philosophy of the intangible was soon
called "transcendental moonshine." The tenets of Bronson Alcott's
transcendental philosophy required him to believe that human nature is
saturated with divinity. He therefore felt that a misbehaving child in
school would be most powerfully affected by seeing the suffering which his
wrongdoing brought to others. He accordingly used to shake a good child for
the bad deeds of others. Sometimes when the class had offended, he would
inflict corporal punishment on himself. His extreme applications of the new
principle show that lack of balance which many of this school displayed,
and yet his reliance on sympathy instead of on the omnipresent rod marks a
step forward in educational practice.
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