In this address, given before the Psi Beta Kappa Society at Harvard College, Edward Tyrrell Channing argues that the scholar's question should not be what has been prescribed or approved by others? but rather what is the beauty that I should love, the character I should respect, the opinion I should adopt or enforce? He goes on to argue that it is the intellectual adventurer who advances society's knowledge and helps to form national literature and ends by advocating the establishment of domestic literature as a source of national dignity, a foundation of respect from foreigners. This speech is a photocopy of the original. Also included is an issue of The Key Reporter containing a copy of this address with an introduction by Richard Beale Davis entitled Edward Tyrrell Channing's American Scholar of 1818.