The Irish standard., 1896-01-18
KIND OF A MAN BEN WAS
interesting Facts Concerning the
Career of Benjamin
V 'sH7s -'.5 t'Ftes :ssi ' T6s' 5s$' 'lt
Franklin.
His Vast and Varied Information
on All rlatters Concern
ing Life. =,
.'Have You Seen franklin" Was
Asked of Everyone Who
Was in Doubt.

There is something perennial about the
spirit of Benjamin Franklin. He bears
well the test to which we subject the i'm
mortals just because he touched COM
men life at so many points with his
wholesome human philosophy and prac-
tical scheme of life he projects himself
easily into the present more than any
other figure OF colonial times. Washing
ton is very much the hero of a legend,
and the Stuart portrait an idealization
we conspire to accept. but Franklin is q
familiar, helpfur hopeful, universally,
equipped man. whom we might have
spoken yesterday. and there would have
been his Socratic, s,lave, "If l. am not
mistaken OR sIt appears to me to be
so and so" insensibly winning us to his
opinions on any subject in the universe,
says the Chicago Times Herald.
So it is something Of a shock to re-
call that, lacking a decade. he was born
just 200 years ago on Jan. II, 1905. and six
years have been added to the century
since his death. 1t seems almost within
the recollection of the Oldest inhabitant
that was printing Poor Richards S Al
manac,' condensing the philosophy of old
into aphorisms for the> starved intellect
of the backwoods: erecting a ]a1np-post
in front of his house in Philadelphia as
an object lesson to the citizens and then
! inventing a street lamp that would not
! smokes; writing pamphlets on politics
and treatises on dust carts; making
moneys, laws, science and love with
equal facility and success, and taking
a healthy interest in it ali and in himself
with the zest of schoolboy.
Building church for Whitefeld and
! inviting the preacher to his house, mot
for Christ's sake, remember, but for your
own, you preachers shift the burden of
obligatio for personal favors." One
day Turing lightning down a kite
string and the next inventing fuel
saving fireplace and refusing patent
| coming rnaxims out of his mint of a mind
and refusing to coin money oft of the
opportunities afforded by public conf
dence in his sagacity and integrity; lik-
ing his own way and having it, but win
ming it by nonaggressiveness "Disputing
people rarely prosper They get victory
| sometimes, but never good will, which
would serve them better and longer ~
| He getting his victory and no i'll will
anywhere.
| The simple greatness of Franklin, the
many-sded genius of his character, TN
trammeled in any direction by ancestry,
tradition, education or fixed social condi-
tion,his absolute inability to distinguish
| differences between man and man except
| those made by native gifts and essential
qualities, makes him perhaps the ideal
| typical American, more than the shrewd,
humorous but raw Brother Jonathan.
Shrewdness and humor he had abundant
| }y, and much else equally typical. We
are just waking up to a sense of the wild
er capacity, higher training and deeper
| culture that was united to a. sort of sub
| hTated common sense and moral cour,
age in the makers Of our government;
| the commercial side of our courtly rep
resentatives abroad that made them
more than q match for ministries; the
learning and grace that handled the
musket in the wilderness; the fine phil
osophy that reached its flower in colo
directed energies.
| The mind and character and ultimate
versatile achievements of Franklin were
a sort of prophecy of the nation he was
to help and build Absolutely free and
hospitable to new conditions, questions
and ideas, and entertaining them with
simple courage, not bravado, not afraid
of the untried; but curious and sanguine
and critically inquiring, yet keeping fast
hold of everything good in the old and
adapting it to the new. The occasion
made him. His ancestry does not ac-
count for him.
- Plain yeomanry behind him for gener-
atoms, small landed proprietorship,
craftsmanship. integrity and piety.
There is much in the simple inscription
on the tomb he erected to his father and
mother, which tells that they raised their
ten children to manhood and woman
hood without estate of any kind but by
constant labor and denial, in comfort
and to useful lives, dying of old age at
Hast never having known severe illness.
| Benjamin was the tenth son and as
such was carried to the old 8nuth Church
on the day of his birth and Andicatead to
the Lord But the tithe of Joseph
Franklin's sons had his own ideas of
dedication. Lack OF money, too, pre-
vented his receiving the amount OF book
learning necessary to enter the pulpit,
and his own proclivities for reading and
writing determined his leaving the trade
of printing, all his friends hoping that as
the colonies grew there would be employ
ment for him sufficient for living.
| Shrewd, prone to verse making, which
t.twould beggar him in the end,'' and
| therefore prevailed upon to- give it up;
Idisputations. sarcastic, with much van
lity and a rebellious spirit against the
| tyranny over apprenticeship, with long
! ing for the sea and new books and ex-
periments of all kinds, even to starving
! himself. a great capacity for expressing
unpopular opinions, he got himself into
idisrepute in Boston at the age of H. and
/ ran away to New y York, and then to Phil
adelphia. .s.
The hardship of that journey in 1928
lis eloquent of the primitive state Of life
lin the colonies Time to read Pilgrim $
Progress from New York to Philadel-
lphia, and to note the agreeable original
Iity of5 mixing narrative and conversation
Iennployeds BY Bunyan. No novels in that
lday. though Richard son had indeed writ
Eten Pame1a' and Defoe g Robfns0n CRU
/ sne,' with this same, striking, agreeable
lfeature, very pleasing to the runa way
boy. he arrived Sin. Phiiade elphia nth 4
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