Summary of John Matteson's Eden's Outcasts

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 Bronson Alcott’s life was shaped by three significant events that occurred within a short period of time in 1828: he paid his first visit to the city of Boston, he first heard the preaching of a young Unitarian minister named Ralph Waldo Emerson, and he proposed marriage to a fascinating woman named Abigail May.

#2 Bronson’s school days were interrupted by a total solar eclipse in 1806. He and a group of boys gathered stones to throw at the phenomenon. He stepped awkwardly, dislocating his shoulder blade. More than sixty years later, he recalled this accident as a prophecy of his life.

#3 Bronson Alcott grew up on Spindle Hill, and he loved it. It was there that he learned about the world and his parents’ farm, which he found to be a perfect place for him to grow up.

#4 Bronson was eventually able to get away from his small town and go to the local school, but he was still confined to the small range of thought that a small, isolated town could provide. He began looking for ways to distance himself intellectually from his environment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: May 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822520271

IRB Media

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Insights on John Matteson's Edens Outcasts

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 12

Insights from Chapter 13

Insights from Chapter 14

Insights from Chapter 15

Insights from Chapter 16

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

Bronson Alcott’s life was shaped by three significant events that occurred within a short period of time in 1828: he paid his first visit to the city of Boston, he first heard the preaching of a young Unitarian minister named Ralph Waldo Emerson, and he proposed marriage to a fascinating woman named Abigail May.

#2

Bronson’s school days were interrupted by a total solar eclipse in 1806. He and a group of boys gathered stones to throw at the phenomenon. He stepped awkwardly, dislocating his shoulder blade. More than sixty years later, he recalled this accident as a prophecy of his life.

#3

Bronson Alcott grew up on Spindle Hill, and he loved it. It was there that he learned about the world and his parents’ farm, which he found to be a perfect place for him to grow up.

#4

Bronson was eventually able to get away from his small town and go to the local school, but he was still confined to the small range of thought that a small, isolated town could provide. He began looking for ways to distance himself intellectually from his environment.

#5

The Pilgrim’s Progress was a book that captivated Bronson. It taught him not to take the world’s judgments at face value, and it firmly proclaimed the narrowness of the path that leads to salvation.

#6

Bronson was not interested in the moral coin toss that Emerson found so fascinating. He believed that the spirit was all that mattered. He never accepted the idea of Jesus as the Son of God. He thought the New Testament should be combined with other Eastern texts to create a Bible for mankind.

#7

Bronson’s faith was expressed through his personal habits. He believed that one must prefer their soul to their body, and the needs of others to their own wants. He also believed that one should not read in front of others, because his classmates did not know what he knew.

#8

Bronson’s education was essentially over when he left school. He began working at a young age, selling religious tracts from door to door and eventually becoming a Yankee peddler. He spent the next five years traveling the upper South, selling items.

#9

Bronson began to develop a sense of superiority over his beginnings. He began to write his parents letters bragging about his profits, when in reality, he was barely making any money at all.

#10

Bronson’s first two trips to the South went part of the way towards fulfilling his promise to his parents to help them get out of debt. However, he was probably aware that the idea of a virtuous peddler would have struck most people as an oxymoron.

#11

Bronson’s third trip was the last one that was profitable, and his earnings did not survive the trip home. He began teaching, and he found that it was the greatest work he could undertake. He believed that education was the most important thing a person could do.

#12

Alcott’s school in rural Connecticut was very different than the traditional school. It was extremely inviting, and he made little use of corporal punishment. He governed his students not by threats but by conversation.

#13

Bronson Alcott’s parents were not long in starting to grumble about his methods. They neither understood nor trusted his methods, and they wanted only practice. He closed his school and retreated to Spindle Hill.

#14

The Mays were visited by Bronson Alcott, a Radical who spoke with such sparkle and sincerity about his theories of education. He was a born sage and saint, and his sister Abba was immediately enraptured by him.

#15

Bronson was a man of many internal rules and restraints, who exerted great control over his displays of emotion. Abba was naturally more