Lessons From The Founding Father of The United States
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin is known as one of the founding fathers of the United States. He is also known as a writer, painter, philosopher, scientist, and many more. There are many unique characteristics of Benjamin Franklin, which paved the way to be a well-recognized and respectable human-being of all time.
He was born in 1706 when the technological advancements are yet to be introduced. During that time, he became an expert on many aspects, even with minimal resources. A few of the admirable characteristics of his life are taken into consideration in this article, which will inspire many in today’s modern world.
Self-study is the Key
Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston, as the 17th child in his family. He went to school only for two years as his father cannot afford the expenses of his education. Soon he became an apprentice to his father at age of 10. At 12, he started to work under one of his elder brothers’ printer. Benjamin Franklin loved to read and write. The printing shop was a blessing for him, though he didn’t enjoy the work. He started to read articles every day and also started to write articles for that newspaper.
Starting from that, he traveled to many places in America in search of better career opportunities. In all those places he started to read more and more. He spent most of his time with books. He managed to learn languages on his own and was fluent in German and French. This was the time without the internet and one needs to work hard to be fluent in another language, especially without a college education or a teacher.
He was a bookaholic, who spent lots of time reading. He tried to see the world through books which enhanced his thinking ability. With the knowledge he got from working at his brother’s newspaper, he started to write articles for many other newspapers. He used to enlighten people and also address the issues of the society by giving his opinions. At the inception, he wrote the articles anonymously. However, as the people accepted his opinions, he published his name and also started his newspaper called, ‘The Pennsylvania Gazette’. It became one of the prominent newspapers at that time.
He engaged in many other businesses and became a successful businessman within a short period. Behind all these achievements, the self-studying played a critical role. He learned things by himself and work hard to achieve the goals.
Finding Solutions
Benjamin Franklin was good at giving solutions to the issues. This is one of the reasons he was known as one of the founding fathers of the United States. As he was a book lover, he found the difficult to reach the books to find the knowledge.
Most of the people at that time were poor and couldn’t afford to buy books. Hence, he introduced the concept of libraries, where the books were given free for a given period. A fine was charged if they were unable to return the book at the given date. Through this system municipal councils earned a little money while many people reached the knowledge for free. This concept rapidly spread through the country within a short period. Today, we have libraries all around the world thanks to the concept of Benjamin Franklin.
He also introduced the concept of road pavements to escape from the muddy roadsides. Soon many cities around the globe adopted road pavements as a safe and clean place for passengers.
Benjamin Franklin also invented many products to ease the life of people. But he never had the desire to keep the patents for himself. He believed that the people need to get benefits from his thinking and didn’t expect a financial return. ‘Franklin stove’ is a good example of this, which is a metal-lined fireplace to make the homes warm during the winter. Among his inventions lightning rod, bifocal glass, and flexible urinary catheter are prominent.
He also did scientific experiments on lightning and studied the possibilities of generating electricity from this natural phenonium. He did his popular kite experiment to investigate more on this subject. Apart from this, he did many scientific researches including the studies of ocean currents. He also developed theories on economics as well as sociology which were latterly developed as concepts and theories by the next generation academics.
Through the knowledge he acquired, Benjamin Franklin tried to create a better world for his fellow citizens, without expecting any financial return. This also shows one of his unique human qualities.
Desire to serve the people
Benjamin Franklin is known as a philosopher as he introduced 13 virtues to follow. He created those virtues and adopted them into his life, with the expectation of improving him. He practiced these in his life as much as possible and expected his descendants to follow these and reap the benefits of life. Few of the virtues can be named as temperance, silence, order, justice, and cleanliness.
Some of Benjamin Franklin’s ideas can be mentioned as the early version of the constitution which has developed through centuries.
Benjamin Franklin is one of the most intelligent men to live on the planet. He self-studied to be proficient in many aspects. He gave solutions to real-time issues, which are still adopted by modern society even with the technological advancements. He invented many but was generous enough to share them without patents. And above all, he dedicated his life to the betterment of the people who are yet to be born in the world.
Due to all these reasons, Benjamin Franklin is becoming one of the true gentlemen in history, whose image is replicated in each 100-dollar printed. If he could achieve all these things during the time of least resources, the people live in the modern world can do wonders. Hence, the lessons from the life of Benjamin Franklin will be a stepping stone to achieve the next best thing in everyone’s life!