Autobiography Of Benjamin Franklin Full Text
Joy Wida
E Americans devour eagerly any piece of writing that purports totell us the secret of success in life; yet how often we aredisappointed to find nothing but commonplace statements, orreceipts that we know by heart but never follow. Most of the lifestories of our famous and successful men fail to inspire becausethey lack the human element that makes the record real and bringsthe story within our grasp. While we are searching far and near forsome Aladdin's Lamp to give coveted fortune, there is ready at ourhand if we will only reach out and take it, like the charm inMilton's Comus,
the interesting, human, and vividly told story of one of thewisest and most useful lives in our own history, and perhaps in anyhistory. In Franklin's Autobiography is offered not so mucha ready-made formula for success, as the companionship of a realflesh and blood man of extraordinary mind and quality, whose dailywalk and conversation will help us to meet our own difficulties,much as does the example of a wise and strong friend. While we arefascinated by the story, we absorb the human experience throughwhich a strong and helpful character is building.
The thing that makes Franklin's Autobiography differentfrom every other life story of a great and successful man is justthis human aspect of the account. Franklin told the story of hislife, as he himself says, for the benefit of his posterity. Hewanted to help them by the relation of his own rise from obscurityand poverty to eminence and wealth. He is not unmindful of theimportance of his public services and their recognition, yet hisaccounts of these achievements are given only as a part of thestory, and the vanity displayed is incidental and in keeping withthe honesty of the recital. There is nothing of the impossible inthe method and practice of Franklin as he sets them forth. Theyouth who reads the fascinating story is astonished to find thatFranklin in his early years struggled with the same everydaypassions and difficulties that he himself experiences, and he losesthe sense of discouragement that comes from a realization of hisown shortcomings and inability to attain.
There are other reasons why the Autobiography should bean intimate friend of American young people. Here they mayestablish a close relationship with one of the foremost Americansas well as one of the wisest men of his age.
The life of Benjamin Franklin is of importance to every Americanprimarily because of the part he played in securing theindependence of the United States and in establishing it as anation. Franklin shares with Washington the honors of theRevolution, and of the events leading to the birth of the newnation. While Washington was the animating spirit of the strugglein the colonies, Franklin was its ablest champion abroad. ToFranklin's cogent reasoning and keen satire, we owe the clear andforcible presentation of the American case in England and France;while to his personality and diplomacy as well as to his facilepen, we are indebted for the foreign alliance and the funds withoutwhich Washington's work must have failed. His patience, fortitude,and practical wisdom, coupled with self-sacrificing devotion to thecause of his country, are hardly less noticeable than similarqualities displayed by Washington. In fact, Franklin as a publicman was much like Washington, especially in the entiredisinterestedness of his public service.
Franklin is also interesting to us because by his life andteachings he has done more than any other American to advance thematerial prosperity of his countrymen. It is said that his widelyand faithfully read maxims made Philadelphia and Pennsylvaniawealthy, while Poor Richard's pithy sayings, translated into manylanguages, have had a world-wide influence.
Franklin is a good type of our American manhood. Although notthe wealthiest or the most powerful, he is undoubtedly, in theversatility of his genius and achievements, the greatest of ourself-made men. The simple yet graphic story in theAutobiography of his steady rise from humble boyhood in atallow-chandler shop, by industry, economy, and perseverance inself-improvement, to eminence, is the most remarkable of all theremarkable histories of our self-made men. It is in itself awonderful illustration of the results possible to be attained in aland of unequaled opportunity by following Franklin's maxims.
Franklin's fame, however, was not confined to his own country.Although he lived in a century notable for the rapid evolution ofscientific and political thought and activity, yet no less a keenjudge and critic than Lord Jeffrey, the famous editor of theEdinburgh Review, a century ago said that "in one point ofview the name of Franklin must be considered as standing higherthan any of the others which illustrated the eighteenth century.Distinguished as a statesman, he was equally great as aphilosopher, thus uniting in himself a rare degree of excellence inboth these pursuits, to excel in either of which is deemed thehighest praise."
Franklin has indeed been aptly called "many-sided." He waseminent in science and public service, in diplomacy and inliterature. He was the Edison of his day, turning his scientificdiscoveries to the benefit of his fellow-men. He perceived theidentity of lightning and electricity and set up the lightning rod.He invented the Franklin stove, still widely used, and refused topatent it. He possessed a masterly shrewdness in business andpractical affairs. Carlyle called him the father of all theYankees. He founded a fire company, assisted in founding ahospital, and improved the cleaning and lighting of streets. Hedeveloped journalism, established the American PhilosophicalSociety, the public library in Philadelphia, and the University ofPennsylvania. He organized a postal system for the colonies, whichwas the basis of the present United States Post Office. Bancroft,the eminent historian, called him "the greatest diplomatist of hiscentury." He perfected the Albany Plan of Union for the colonies.He is the only statesman who signed the Declaration ofIndependence, the Treaty of Alliance with France, the Treaty ofPeace with England, and the Constitution. As a writer, he hasproduced, in his Autobiography and in Poor Richard'sAlmanac, two works that are not surpassed by similar writing.He received honorary degrees from Harvard and Yale, from Oxford andSt. Andrews, and was made a fellow of the Royal Society, whichawarded him the Copley gold medal for improving natural knowledge.He was one of the eight foreign associates of the French Academy ofScience.
The careful study of the Autobiography is also valuablebecause of the style in which it is written. If Robert LouisStevenson is right in believing that his remarkable style wasacquired by imitation then the youth who would gain the power toexpress his ideas clearly, forcibly, and interestingly cannot dobetter than to study Franklin's method. Franklin's fame in thescientific world was due almost as much to his modest, simple, andsincere manner of presenting his discoveries and to the precisionand clearness of the style in which he described his experiments,as to the results he was able to announce. Sir Humphry Davy, thecelebrated English chemist, himself an excellent literary critic aswell as a great scientist, said: "A singular felicity guided allFranklin's researches, and by very small means he established verygrand truths. The style and manner of his publication onelectricity are almost as worthy of admiration as the doctrine itcontains."
Franklin's place in literature is hard to determine because hewas not primarily a literary man. His aim in his writings as in hislife work was to be helpful to his fellow-men. For him writing wasnever an end in itself, but always a means to an end. Yet hissuccess as a scientist, a statesman, and a diplomat, as well associally, was in no little part due to his ability as a writer."His letters charmed all, and made his correspondence eagerlysought. His political arguments were the joy of his party and thedread of his opponents. His scientific discoveries were explainedin language at once so simple and so clear that plow-boy andexquisite could follow his thought or his experiment to itsconclusion." [1]
English literature of the eighteenth century was characterizedby the development of prose. Periodical literature reached itsperfection early in the century in The Tatler and TheSpectator of Addison and Steele. Pamphleteers flourishedthroughout the period. The homelier prose of Bunyan and Defoegradually gave place to the more elegant and artificial language ofSamuel Johnson, who set the standard for prose writing from 1745onward. This century saw the beginnings of the modern novel, inFielding's Tom Jones, Richardson's Clarissa Harlowe,Sterne's Tristram Shandy, and Goldsmith's Vicar ofWakefield. Gibbon wrote The Decline and Fall of the RomanEmpire, Hume his History of England, and Adam Smith theWealth of Nations.
In the simplicity and vigor of his style Franklin more nearlyresembles the earlier group of writers. In his first essays he wasnot an inferior imitator of Addison. In his numerous parables,moral allegories, and apologues he showed Bunyan's influence. ButFranklin was essentially a journalist. In his swift, terse style,he is most like Defoe, who was the first great English journalistand master of the newspaper narrative. The style of both writers ismarked by homely, vigorous expression, satire, burlesque, repartee.Here the comparison must end. Defoe and his contemporaries wereauthors. Their vocation was writing and their success rests on theimaginative or creative power they displayed. To authorshipFranklin laid no claim. He wrote no work of the imagination. Hedeveloped only incidentally a style in many respects as remarkableas that of his English contemporaries. He wrote the bestautobiography in existence, one of the most widely knowncollections of maxims, and an unsurpassed series of political andsocial satires, because he was a man of unusual scope of power andusefulness, who knew how to tell his fellow-men the secrets of thatpower and that usefulness.
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