Part 7 (1/2)
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.
”We call the Americans a nation of inventors,” said Fergus. ”How long has this been true?”
”That is a very curious question,” said Uncle Fritz. ”You remember we were talking of it before. When I go back to think of the hundred and fifty years before Bunker Hill, I think there must have been a great many inglorious Miltons hidden away in the New England towns. Really, the arts advanced very little between 1630 and 1775. Flint-locks had come in, instead of match-locks. But, actually, the men at Bunker Hill rested over the rail-fence old muskets which had been used in Queen Anne's time; and to this day a 'Queen's arm' is a provincial phrase, in New England, for one of these old weapons, not yet forgotten. That inability to improve its own condition comes to a people which lets another nation do its manufacturing for it. You see much the same thing in Turkey and French Canada. Just as soon as they were thrown on their own resources here, they began to invent.”
”But,” said Fergus, ”there was certainly one great American inventor before that time.”
”You mean Franklin,--the greatest American yet, I suppose, if you mean to measure greatness by intellectual power and intellectual achievement.
Yes; Franklin's great discovery, and the inventions which followed on it, were made twenty-five years and more before Bunker Hill.”
”What is the a.s.sociation between Franklin and Robinson Crusoe?” asked Alice. ”I never read of one but I think of the other.”
Uncle Fritz's whole face beamed with approbation.
”You have started me upon one of my hobbies,” said he; ”but I must not ride it too far. Franklin says himself that De Foe's 'Essay on Projects'
and Cotton Mather's 'Essay to do Good' were two books which perhaps gave him a turn of thinking which had an influence on some of the events in his after life. And you may notice how an 'Essay on Projects' might start his pa.s.sion for having things done better than in the ways he saw.
The books that he was brought up on and with were books of De Foe's own time,--none of them more popular among reading people of Boston than De Foe's own books, for De Foe was a great light among their friends in England.
”If Robinson Crusoe, on his second voyage, which was in the year 1718, had run into Boston for supplies, as he thought of doing; and if old Judge Sewall had asked him to dinner,--as he would have been likely to do, for Robinson was a G.o.dly old gentleman then, of intelligence and fortune,--if there had been by accident a vacant place at the table at the last moment, Judge Sewall might have sent round to Franklin's father to ask him to come in. For the elder Franklin, though only a tallow-chandler,--and only Goodman Franklin, not _Mr._ Franklin,--was a member of the church, well esteemed. He led the singing at the Old South after Judge Sewall's voice broke down.
”Nay, when one remembers how much Sewall had to do with printing, one might imagine that the boy Ben Franklin should wait at the door with a proof-sheet, and even take off his boy's hat as Robinson Crusoe came in.”
Here Bedford Long put in a remark:--
”There are things in Robinson Crusoe's accounts of his experiments in making his pipkins, which ought to bring him into any book of American inventors.”
”I never thought before,” said Fergus, ”that De Foe's experiences in making tiles and tobacco-pipes and drain-pipes fitted him for all that learned discussion of glazing, when Robinson Crusoe makes his pots and pans.”
”Good!” said Uncle Fritz; ”that must be so.--Well, as you say, Alice, there are whole sentences in that narrative which you could suppose Franklin wrote, and in his works whole sentences which would fit in closely with De Foe's writing. The style of the younger man very closely resembles that of the older.”
”And Franklin would have been very much pleased to hear you say so.”
”He was forever inventing,” said Uncle Fritz. ”As I said, he was worried unless things could be better done. If he was in a storm, he wanted to still the waves. If the chimney smoked, he wanted to make a better fireplace. If he heard a girl play the musical-gla.s.ses, he must have and make a better set.”
”And if the house was struck by lightning, he went out and put up a lightning-rod.”
”He had a little book by which people should make themselves better; for he rightly considered that unless a man could do this, he could make no other improvement of much account.”
And when Uncle Fritz had said this, he found the pa.s.sage, which he bade John read to them.
FRANKLIN'S METHOD OF GROWING BETTER.
”I made a little book in which I allotted a page for each of the virtues. [He had cla.s.sified the virtues and made a list of thirteen, which will be named below.] I ruled each page with red ink, so as to have seven columns, one for each day of the week, marking each column with a letter for the day. I crossed these columns with thirteen red lines, marking the beginning of each line with the first letter of one of the virtues, on which line and in its proper column I might mark, by a little black spot, every fault I found upon examination to have been committed respecting that virtue upon that day. The thirteen virtues were: 1. TEMPERANCE; 2. SILENCE; 3. ORDER; 4. RESOLUTION; 5. FRUGALITY; 6. INDUSTRY; 7. SINCERITY; 8. JUSTICE; 9. MODERATION; 10. CLEANLINESS; 11. TRANQUILLITY; 12. CHASt.i.tY; 13. HUMILITY. Each of these appears, by its full name or its initial, on every page of the book. But the full name of one only appears on each page.
”My intention being to acquire the habitude of these virtues, I judged it would be well not to distract my attention by attempting the whole at once, but to fix it on one of them at a time, and when I should be master of that, then to proceed to another,--and so on, till I should have gone through the thirteen; and as the previous acquisition might facilitate the acquisition of certain others, I arranged them with that view. Temperance first, as it tends to procure that coolness and clearness of head which is so necessary where constant vigilance has to be kept up, and a guard maintained against the unremitting attraction of ancient habits, and the force of perpetual temptations.”[6] And so he goes on to show how Temperance would prepare for Silence, Silence for Order, Order for Resolution, and thus to the end.
Here is the first page of the book, with the marks for the first six of the virtues.
+--------------------------------+ | TEMPERANCE. | +--------------------------------+ | EAT NOT TO DULNESS. | | | | DRINK NOT TO ELEVATION. | +----+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | | S.| M.| T.| W.|Th.| F.| S.| | T. | | | | | | | | | S. | * | * | | * | | * | | | O. | * | * | * | | * | * | * | | R. | | | * | | | * | | | F. | | * | | | * | | | | I. | | | * | | | | | | S. | | | | | | | | | J. | | | | | | | | | M. | | | | | | | | | C. | | | | | | | | | T. | | | | | | | | | C. | | | | | | | | | H. | | | | | | | | +----+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+