Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography Blog

I loved reading Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography. He covered and gave his opinion on topics still relevant today. He said that repetition in life is not to be expected, but to re-live your live, you are allowed recollection of your life. To make that recollection as durable as humanly possible, put it in writing, which seems to be the purpose for writing this piece of literature. He confronts the Puritanical idea of Affliction, saying that he must hope not presume that happiness will ensue helping him bear affliction with more ease.

One of my favorite parts of this excerpt was Benjamin describing growing up and how his father would conduct his dinner table. He learned the lesson that good conversation fed you more than soup and meat. This allowed him to never go hungry or be dissatisfied with actual food, because you can always spark conversation with those willing to have it.

Franklin speaking about how much he read by candlelight after a long days' work, made me feel horribly inadequate as an English Major. Autobiographies tend to make me think of all the things I should be doing. He also, on a whim, became a vegetarian. That screams self-control to me.

I loved how he described his friends Colin and Charles Osborne to be exact, as what they did better or worse than he. Colin was naturally more eloquent and fluent and wore Franklin down with that rather than his strength of reasons in debates. His conversations and depth of purpose in his friendships reminded me of "The Dead Poet's Society". Their love of books and strolling by the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia seemed so natural and it suited their young manhood.

He showed self control in not drinking while he was in London for strength purposes and monetary savings. This put him ahead of the other men by not taking on more debt or having an expense that wasn't necessary. He also lived according to these virtues:

1. TEMPERANCE: Eat not to Dullness. Drink not to elevation.

2. SILENCE: Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself. Avoid trifling conversation.

3. ORDER: Let all your things have their places. Let each part of your business have its time.

4. RESOLUTION: Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve.

5. FRUGALITY: Make no expense but to do to others or yourself. Waste Nothing.

6. INDUSTRY: Lose no time. Be always employed in something useful. Cut off all unnecessary actions. 

7. SINCERITY: Use no hurtful deceit. Think innocently and justly. Speak accordingly. 

8. JUSTICE: Wrong none.

9. MODERATION: Avoid extremes. 

10. CLEANLINESS: Tolerate no uncleanness in body, clothes, or habitation.

11. TRANQUILITY: Be not disturbed at Trifles, or Accidents common or unavoidable.

12. CHASTITY: Rarely use venery but for health or offspring; never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's Peace or Reputation.

13. HUMILITY: Imitate Jesus and Socrates. 

He was respectable and his autobiography gave us a deeper insight into him as a person, not just as a leader.

Pennsylvania Gazette

The Pennsylvania Gazette: Containing the Freshest Advices Foreign and Domestic.

March 25, 1742

Issue 693

The first strange thing I noticed about the Pennsylvania Gazette was how the S’s were maid to look like odd F’s. It had day to day accounts of what was happening in London and Madrid and Naples according to letters. It had death tolls from the Hungarian troops moving towards Bohemia. There was a lot of international affairs written about in the Pennsylvania Gazette.

There was an entire letter written to Mr. Franklin written in German from someone with the initials J.W. Which I find odd, because it’s in the newspaper. How many people in Pennsylvania can read German- maybe at this time some of them could because they were recently immigrated from Germany, but nowadays, there would never be an entire column of a newspaper in another language.

I enjoyed the Notice given to all persons indebted to William Clymer threatening to put them away if they didn’t pay their federal obligations by June. “Very good Rum to be sold” at the end seemed funny.

There are a lot of indebted callings in this issue of the paper. Also, many small articles that seem like obituaries aren’t remembrances of people, but casting off of their land or estate to others. It wasn’t about grieving the losses of people, but what would happen with what was left. That was interesting to me. It makes sense because of the time, but nowadays we want to be comforted in remembering the lost loved one, not just selling their land and moving on with reality.

The paper also listed items from Europe for sale instead of today’s papers having pictures. They were efficient for the people to know their inventory and what was in stock and what wasn’t. I liked that way of doing it. It showed that they were buying to use not buying to buy, for consumer’s sake.

Over all it was a good paper that told what needed to be told. I didn’t understand why so much foreign news was being told, or letters back and forth, but I suppose I don’t really understand why that happens now either.