The sluggish and perverted mind of the multitude, slow to open to the incursions of Reason, having once so opened, having once received this book, stands upon it, and makes it outcry if it is disparaged. Colleges are built on it. Books are written on it by thinkers, not by Man Thinking; by men of talent, that is, who start wrong, who set out from accepted dogmas, not from their own sight of principles (pg 88)". Emerson starts off by bashing the idea of man learning from a book. He even goes so far as to say that "the book becomes noxious." He is saying that the books men try to learn from are distasteful, even harmful to one's health. He describes this book as a tyrant, a dictator, a harmful ruler, taking over one's mind, as well as thought. He talks about how colleges are built on this firm idea of learning from a book. He believes rote learning is the absolute devil to a man's mind, and colleges are simply brain washing individuals by teaching them in this manner. Emerson argues that Man is becoming single-faceted by receiving a college "education." By doing this, he is no longer a true man. Emerson believes that we are all becoming "the mass and the herd (pg. 99)" by succumbing to the pressures of receiving a college education. By doing this, people are no longer individuals. He believed that a scholar learned best by engaging in life. .
Thoreau has a similar view of institutionalized education to that of Emerson's. "In most books, the I, or the first person, is omitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism, is the main difference (pg. 5)". When writing it is normally considered improper to use talk of one's self, using I. Thoreau defends this style of writing by saying that the reader must give an honest, first hand account. Thoreau may be rebelling more than anything else in this first passage, but he is going against the ways of formal education.
