Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston, May 25, 1803. He was descended

from a long line of New England ministers, men of refinement and

education. As a school-boy he was quiet and retiring, reading a great

deal, but not paying much attention to his lessons. He entered Harvard

at the early age of fourteen, but never attained a high rank there,

although he took a prize for an essay on Socrates, and was made class

poet after several others had declined. Next to his reserve and the

faultless propriety of his conduct, his contemporaries at college

seemed most impressed by the great maturity of his mind. Emerson

appears never to have been really a boy. He was always serene and

thoughtful, impressing all who knew him with that spirituality which

was his most distinguishing characteristic.