![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() He spent years working as a tutor, writing and seeking publishers for his work, but also spent time working at his family’s pencil factory.Ĭonservation is important to transcendentalists as they have strong bonds to nature and the movement was at odds with capitalism and industrialisation. Later he met author Ralph Waldo Emerson through a mutual friend and was encouraged to try his hand at writing. In truth, he turned down only an honorific masters degree that Harvard would sell to all alumni at the time if they survived for three years after graduation and therefore proved their “physical worth”.Īfter graduation he became a teacher, but almost immediately quit when asked to mete out corporal punishment. Thoreau studied at Harvard College from 1833 and part of the legend that surrounds him has it that he refused to pay the $5 fee for his final diploma. He was freed the next day when his aunt paid the taxes against his wishes. Thoreau once spent a night in jail after refusing to pay six years of back-dated poll taxes because of his opposition to slavery. In his essay On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, Thoreau once wrote “That government is best which governs not at all”. He was a well-known advocate of transcendentalism, or the belief in the inherent goodness of people and nature, making a virtue of self-reliance. The philosopher Henry David Thoreau is best known for his nature writing and his support of small government. ![]()
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