The life and destiny of Benjamin Franklin can be seen as an embodiment of the American dream. Franklin was born in a family f a maker of candles and soap belonging to the low class. Thus, his great desire to achieve personal growth and development helped him to become one of the prominent political figures in the history of America. This early fusion of deed and thought, common enough in childhood, is especially important in Franklin’s case because, more than with most of the world’s great thinkers, he was a life of action. Virtually all of his writing arose from particular circumstances, served an immediate purpose, and had a deliberate intent.
Hard work and persistence, clear career goals, and good oratory skills are the main values followed by Franklin. “I drew a sketch of the plan and rules that would be necessary, and got a skillful conveyancer” (Franklin 75). If we may judge from the abundant written remains, his thought and philosophy grew hand in hand with the full life he led. Thus, though Franklin’s education, beyond what has been said of the imponderable effect of his childhood experiences, must be described in terms of the books he read and the ideas he might have gleaned from them, it is necessary to remember that as soon as he is old enough to act importantly his mental biography is interwoven inextricably with the events of his life in the unique environment of the new world.
To some extent, Franklin was limited by Hochschild’s tenets, but he overcame these barriers and created his unique life path and career. The contents of the books Franklin remembered as important to him as a boy have been recounted in some detail to emphasize the furnishings of mind which underwent the alleged conversion. He had a thorough indoctrination in the conventional wisdom of his day based on readings and personal philosophy.
This wisdom, by its very commonness and by its almost inevitable overthrow by new ideas already at work on more sophisticated. However much he might ridicule the Establishment and satirize its hypocrisy, he generally admired the personal qualities of New Englanders. In a very deep sense, he brought to Philadelphia a clear notion of what he admired in human beings; an especially important foundation for one whose life was spent dealing with people, not secluded in a study. Following Hochschild, Franklin holds: ‘out to you an example of diligence, economy, and virtue, and personifying the triumphant success ” (21).
The ideas important in forming the minds of men who themselves later make contributions to intellectual history are too seldom sought in the popular wisdom, the events and causes dominant during their youth. A person with Franklin’s value system would not be free in modern society limited by secular dogmas and norms. “I never was without some religious principles. I never doubted, for instance, the existence of a Deity — that he made the world and governed it by his providence” (Franklin 77).
Thus, his progressive ideas concerning equal rights and cultural homogeneity would help a person to live and understand the world around them. Though Franklin never ceased to search for and welcome new ideas and more than most men grew mentally all his life, his attention as a youth to fundamentals left him with habits of mind he never revised systematically. Rather, he made an amendment, an extension, and continually redefined precepts in the face of altering circumstances. A description of Franklin’s mind, soon after he departs from Boston, shows that the reservoir from which he drew the rest of his life. His eagerness to get started in business showed him to be a diligent Puritan lad, not a vagrant, licentious youth.
Works Cited
Franklin, B. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. Macmillan, 1914.
Hochschild, J. L. “What is the American Dream”. In Facing Up to the American Dream, Princeton University Press, 1996, pp. 15-39.