I am reading a book by Walter Isaacson entitled "Benjamin Franklin". It is a carefully researched writing on this great man of earlier times. Since I haven't completed the 493 pages it is difficult to share a summary of impressions. You don't read long, however, before it becomes clear he was a brilliant, witty, resourceful person.
There were fourteen children in the Franklin home. For years they lived in a two-room house. At six his family moved to a larger house in Boston. His father's name was Josiah and his mother was Abiah. With a larger home Josiah began to invite dinner guests who were interesting to listen to and learn from. Benjamin Franklin wrote of this time: "At his table he liked to have, as often as he could, some sensible friend or neighbor to converse with, and always took care to start some ingenious or useful topic for discourse which might tend to improve the minds of his children." We are speaking of the early 1700's. Knowledge came from books even then, but also from people. Younger ones learned from those older. Conversations were held around the table. The children were affected by all this, and brilliant, learned men like Franklin came from such settings.
Today, we are largely fed by McDonald's and educated by whoever can get his/her mug on the tube. It is no wonder kids know so little about the past and history, even of their own families. I wonder how many can even name the fifty states. (There are fifty?)
O well, I cannot change anything, but some one can. We must simply stop hating and fighting each other in our own non-bloody civil wars, and target into the important and meaningful things and events to be learned and put into action in our country. All the information in the world is at our fingertips and we sit around and pick blackberries. Enough.
