Benjamin Franklin The Inveterate Character Analysis

Summary and Response to "Benjamin Franklin, the Inveterate (and Crafty) Public Instructor"

Introduction

In Patrick Sullivan’s Benjamin Franklin, the Inveterate (and Crafty) Public Instructor, Sullivan states there are two types of readers. states that there are two types of readers of Benjamin Franklin’s The Way to Wealth; the “less sophisticated readers” who are presented with a great collection of proverbial advice, and the “more sophisticated readers” who are challenged to think independently. I must admit when reading The Way to Wealth the first time I was the less sophisticated reader, seeing it as merely a collection of practical proverbs, but after reading Sullivan’s essay I see how much more Franklin meant for his writing to be. This

The biggest way I saw the point of the story demonstrated in this essay was through the character assessment of Father Abraham. Seeing him as more of a product and victim of passively accepting Richards proverbs shows his character more realistically. The fact that he refers back to Poor Richard so much, promises a short speech and gives a long one, and doesn’t refer to any different or higher authority than the almanacs substantially weaken rather than strengthen his credibility. This seems to be what Franklin wants, and it makes sense. He wants to encourage independent thought, unlike the thought of Father

This is the idea that the mind is like blank paper without any ideas and is furnished by experience alone. While I don’t believe this is entirely true I think the ideas that stem from it are valuable as it is valuable to an extent. Education as Locke desires is a thing to improve the general capacity of the mind, not stuff it with facts or perfect it at a specific task. We see this concept in Franklin’s writing where he says “Experience keeps a dear School, but Fools will learn in no other” which means that experience is the greatest way to learn, and the way that all can learn, even the fool. The idea that education should be “a formation of character, of habits…of mind and body” (256) is one that should be paid attention to, because in the end one’s whole life is the issue, not just learning individual tasks and