Self-Reliance that would become "Self-Reliance" was presented by Ralph Waldo Emerson as part of a sermon in September 1830 a month after his first marriage. His wife Ellen was sick with tuberculosis and, as Emerson's biographer Robert D. Richardson wrote, "Immortality had never been stronger or more desperately needed!" From 1836 into 1837, Emerson presented a series of lectures on the philosophy of history at Boston's Masonic Temple. These lectures were never published separately, but many of his thoughts in these were later used in "Self-Reliance" and several other essays. Later lectures by Emerson led to public censure of his radical
Joseph Priestley and education modern history, sets Priestley apart from his contemporaries. Priestley was the first person to advocate the serious study of modern history; no other British university was teaching the subject at the time and Oxford would not begin until 1841. While at Warrington Academy, Priestley gave a series of lectures on history and government; in 1788 he finally published them as "Lectures on History and General Policy". They cover a wide array of topics—"forms of government, the feudal system, the rise of corporations, law, agriculture, commerce, the arts, finance and taxation, colonies, manners, population, war and peace"—demonstrating how all-encompassing Priestley believed