Henry David Thoreau Final Post

 Henry David Thoreau was a very important part of the Transcendentalist Movement in 19th century America. He was born on July 12th, 1817 in Concord, Massachusetts, a major setting of the movement. He went and studied at Harvard, and studied German, Greek, and Latin. He graduated in 1837, but struggled to find what career he wanted to do. He decided to set up a school with his brother, but unfortunately it closed when his brother became sick. After college, he met one of his greatest friends and also another key figure in the Transcendentalist movement, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who exposed him to the movement. Transcendentalism focused on critical thinking and spiritual issues, and has shaped modern philosophy very much.  Through Emerson, Thoreau was given land that would ultimately be the setting for his "awakening," and the land where he wrote Walden. Thoreau lived in the woods for a while and used the time to think about how nature affects life, and became a small hit in that era. Today, a lot of environmentalists use the book for philosophical evidence in their arguments.

While living in Walden Pond, Thoreau was arrested for not paying a poll tax, and spent the night in jail because of it. Through this small imprisonment, he came up with his next famous work, Civil Disobedience. Thoreau was an abolitionist and also a pacifist, as he did not support the Mexican-American War. In the book, he states that one should act on its individual conscience and not abide to laws and government. A famous quote from him states that "The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time I think right." Civil Obedience  became highly popular in later civil rights movements, and figures like Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi used the ideas in the book, as did many other non-violent protestors. In his later years, Thoreau was still fascinated with nature and studied the many flora in Concord and also Cape Cod. Thoreau, a staunch abolitionist, still stood by his believes and wrote essays regarding his views on slavery. He highly supported John Brown, the abolitionist who raided Harper's Ferry. Thoreau called Brown "the bravest and humanest man of all the country." Thoreau died on May 6th, 1862 after a long battle with tuberculosis. Henry David Thoreau not only shaped the Transcendentalist Movement, he shaped modern philosophy through his works.
 A video on why every student should read Walden, if you are interested:

Source:
https://www.biography.com/writer/henry-david-thoreau

I do not clearly know how many bases I have since we went online, as I only started writing down the posts I have commented on recently. I think since we went online I have had 8 bases. I do not know how many runs I had before we went online either, and cannot give an accurate number, but can say I kept up pretty well when classes were not online.
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