AMERICAN HISTORY

Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography

Benjamin Franklin's autobiography

Introduction

Benjamin Franklin's autobiography is perhaps the most famous and widely read autobiography, but he never got around to completing it. Benjamin Franklin--printer, scientist, inventor, author, philosopher, and statesman--was also one of the great travelers of the eighteenth century. Living in Europe for more than a quarter of a century, first as a young entrepreneur, then in service to colonial Pennsylvania, and finally as a representative of the United States, Franklin made the dangerous Atlantic crossing eight times. One of his great strengths, according to biographer Esmond Wright, was "his almost total freedom from the limits of his own environment" and the ease with which he assimilated into European life. Renowned and respected for his many accomplishments, Franklin was, arguably, America's premier diplomat during the eighteenth century, a role he played until he was nearly eighty years old. This essay will discuss about the key ways that Franklin presents his story as an illustration of self-improvement.

Discussion

A voracious reader, at the age of eight Franklin was put into grammar school but removed to a less expensive one a year later. During his two years of formal education he excelled in writing but failed arithmetic. At the age of ten he was taken home to work in his father's cottage business, boiling soap and making candles.

He was not successful in Josiah's shop. At the age of twelve he was coerced by his father to sign indenture papers to apprentice with his older brother James, who owned a print shop. During his time in James's shop he learned the basics of the print business that, in the next decade, he would use as a foundation for technical invocations for print media. He also absorbed much from James Franklin's unconventional journalistic experiment, the New-England Courant, the newspaper James had founded in August 1721 . The formula Franklin later devised for spicing up his own Philadelphia weekly with hoaxes and moral essays owed much to his brother's iconoclasm in print, though Benjamin would never become as radical a journalist as his brother. The key ways that Franklin presents his story as an illustration of self-improvement.

Experiments in living

Franklin never tried to show superiority; he spoke directly to the reader and laced the book with subtle humour, giving it the intimate feel of a fireside chat. The first part detailed experiences with family, friends, bosses, and work colleagues, in addition to travels and attempts to start new businesses, all of which will strike chords with today's reader .

The problem with his form of moral relativism is that it denies an absolute truth. Without absolute truth, any individual can justify nearly any action and consider it good and moral. As Christians, we know and understand that there is absolute truth and that it is found in Jesus Christ and his church. Many of these absolute truths do not even require a religious belief, but they are written on each of our hearts. Not every action is a good or moral ...