Franklin, Benjamin (1706–1790)

Benjamin Franklin was an eminent American inventor, author, politician, and international diplomat. Students probably remember, for example, that Franklin invented the lightning rod and took part in the writing of the U.S. Constitution. Most, however, do not fully understand the impact Franklin had on the education of the middle classes, mainly in the colonial days prior to the American Revolution. Education can be thought of as a process of imparting knowledge, and that knowledge can take the form of facts, skills, or ideas. Benjamin Franklin educated middle-class citizens in the colonies through his ideas and opinions, which often represented dissent from accepted thinking. He initiated reforms that improved the lives of these average citizens.

America's first four colonial colleges—Harvard, Princeton, William and Mary, and Yale—were affiliated with religious bodies and served a select portion of the population. As a dissenter to all aspects of colonial life that gave opportunities only to the elite, Franklin started The Academy, which today is the University of Pennsylvania. The Academy was created, with no religious affiliation, to educate the children of the middle classes in practical knowledge and skills that would prepare them for careers in government, business, and teaching rather than the clergy. Classes were taught in English instead of Greek and Latin. The curriculum included subjects like natural history, geology, geography, modern languages, and math, but not the Greek and Latin classics.

As an avid reader throughout his life, Franklin in his early years took a frugal approach to everyday life so he could buy books, even skipping meals at times. In colonial America the only libraries of any significance were at the four existing colleges or in the homes of the wealthy. Franklin and his close tradesmen friends in Philadelphia decided to make books more available to the farmers and common citizens by organizing the first lending library, which they called The Library Company of Philadelphia, an institution that still exists today. Biographer Walter Isaacson found evidence that this lending library led to the establishment of other libraries throughout the colonies.

As a result of his fascination with electricity, Franklin was able to reform the way philosophy (including what we call science) analyzed lightning by showing that it consisted of electrical charges. He created new terms, like positive charge and negative charge. His famous kite experiment during an electrical storm resulted in the invention that had a greater impact on Franklin's fame than any other single event, that is, the lightning rod. The grounding of lightning strikes during thunderstorms, by placing on rooftops a metal rod that connected to the ground, thereby safely discharging the electricity, eliminated huge amounts of property damage and often personal injuries as well.

Several examples illustrate Franklin's attempts to provide dissenting opinions to the middle classes through his writings. During his early years in Boston, before escaping his printing apprenticeship to go to Philadelphia, Franklin distributed do-it-yourself instructions to all the households, [Page 387]explaining how to administer the newly developed smallpox vaccination to children. This was done in direct defiance of the teachings of the powerful Cotton Mather family, which did not believe in the inoculation.

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