Benjamin Franklin: 1706-1790.

Next to Washington the most conspicuous and most widely useful of Americans throughout the eighteenth century was Benjamin Franklin. He was perhaps the most typical American of his time; certainly he was the most versatile man of affairs and the most picturesque in personality of all that distinguished group who helped to guide the nation in that troubled age. Through the second quarter of the century he lived the quiet life of a thrifty, sagacious man of business, at the same time taking a practical interest in matters of public moment and presenting the most original model of good citizenship that can be found. His contribution to American literature, the larger portion of which belongs to this earlier period of his career, is not great, but it is noteworthy.

The modest beginnings of Franklin's literary work were in the contributions made anonymously, while an apprentice, to his brother's paper in Boston. These articles, signed with the pen-name Silence Dogood, inspired by Cotton Mather's Essays to do Good, and formed on the style of Addison, were merely experimental. “The Busy Body papers” of Franklin, contributed to the Philadelphia Mercury in 1728-29, are not notable except for their well-developed sense of humor. But in 1732, Franklin published the first issue of his famous “Almanac”, which for a quarter of a century appeared annually, exercising no small influence on habits and morals throughout the colonies. To appreciate the popularity of Franklin's annual, it is necessary to recall the lack of original literature in America at that time. Among the common people, except the Bible, the printed sermons of the New England clergy, and their theological pamphlets, there was little if any reading matter of any sort. The almanac, however, was an established and cherished institution. It was as universal as the Bible itself.

The new publication "by Richard Saunders, Philomath," was different from its predecessors. Franklin created a character, Poor Richard, in whose name the work appeared, and whose real existence was debated humorously and seriously. Scattered among the calculations, were many crisp sayings introduced by the phrase "As Poor Richard says," -- sayings which have taken their place among the maxims of the world.

These and scores of similar homely proverbs were incorporated in the Almanac. It was Franklin's idea to teach lessons of thrift to his countrymen. Some of the sayings he coined entire, others he quoted from various sources. They were finally sifted and collected in permanent form in a lengthy discourse called “Father Abraham's Speech”, which was included in the Almanac of 1758 and found its way thus into well-nigh every home in America. “Father Abraham's Speech” was translated into every European language, and even to this day continues to teach its useful lesson of industry, frugality, and honesty, the world over.

Franklin's other literary success was his famous “Autobiography”, which he began to write in 1771, resumed in 1788, and left incomplete at his death. The purpose of its author was to make the experiences of his own career, the conduct and habit of life which had led to success in his own case, a source of help and inspiration to others. He therefore tells the story of his struggles, his errors, his experiments with himself, his accomplishment, with wonderful frankness and extreme simplicity.

The predominant quality in all of Franklin's writing is its genuine humanness; this is what brought the “Almanac” into instant popularity, and what makes the “Autobiography” an enduring American classic. It is a quality that had been extremely rare in the earlier colonial literature. A keen sense of humor, also, homely and blunt but true, is constant in Franklin's work and one of the essential factors in its success. Franklin's literary work was thoroughly typical of himself. Honest, plain, democratic, clear-headed, shrewd, worldly-wise, he was interested in the practical side of life. To him the matter of "getting on" in the world was a duty; and to enable others to see the advantages of integrity, application, and thrift was his self-appointed task. His influence in this direction was immense. The absence of ideality is obvious in all his compositions. He never reached the high levels of imaginative art, but on this lower plane of material interest and every-day life he was, and is, without a peer among writers. The works which have been mentioned possess a universal charm. "

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