The Life of Benjamin Franklin
The Life of Benjamin FranklinWhen one takes a look at the world in which he currently
lives, he sees it as being normal since it is so slow in changing.
When an historian looks at the present, he sees the effects of many
events and many wise people. Benjamin Franklin is one of these
people. His participation in so many different fields changed the
world immensely. He was a noted politician as well as respected
scholar. He was an important inventor and scientist. Particularly
interesting is the impact on the scientific world.
Benjamin Franklin was a modest man who had had many jobs in
his lifetime. This may help explain his large array of inventions and
new methods of working various jobs. He did everything from making
cabbage-growing more efficient to making political decisions to being
the first person to study and chart the Gulf Stream movement in the
Atlantic Ocean.
Franklin was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 17,
1706. He was the fifteenth child in a family of seventeen kids. His
parents, Josiah and Abiah Franklin, were hard working devout
Puritan/Calvinist people. Josiah Franklin made candles for a living.
Since the Franklin�s were so poor, little Benjamin couldn't afford to
go to school for longer than two years. In those two years, however,
Franklin learned to read which opened the door to further education
for him. Since he was only a fair writer and had very poor
mathematical skills, he worked to tutor himself at home.
Benjamin Franklin was a determined young man. As a boy, he
taught himself to be a very good writer. He also learned basic
algebra and geometry, navigation, grammar, logic, and natural and
physical science. He partially mastered French, German, Italian,
Spanish, and Latin. He was soon to be named the best educated man in
the country. When he was 12-years-old, he was apprentice to his
brother in printing. Benjamin's brother founded the second newspaper
in America. Many people told him that one newspaper was enough for
America and that the paper would soon collapse. On the contrary, it
became very popular. Occasionally, young Benjamin would write an
article to be printed and slip it under the printing room's door
signed as "Anonymous". The following is a direct quote from
Franklin's Autobiography. It describes his writing the articles as a
boy. "He (Benjamin's older brother) had some ingenious men among his
friends, who amus'd themselves by writing little pieces for this
paper, which gain'd it credit and made it more in demand, and these
gentlemen often visited us. Hearing their conversations, and their
accounts of the approbation their papers were received with, I was
excited to try my...
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