Reflection-Franklin's Success

Benjamin Franklin had done a lot throughout his life. If you think about it, he really helped out mankind. He was the man that wrote the thirteen virtues to help mankind realize that you have to take life piece by piece. Tuckerman's critisism really talked about how much he liked Benjamin Franklin and for what he did. Just think about it, trying to think about ideas and trying to apply them to the world is a pretty big job. Benjamin really did think about what was happening around him and tried to piece that together in his virtues. Benjamin Franklin not only applied the virtues to people around his time, but he also applied them to some of the people in our time. Franklin was a hero in his time. The virtues he wrote were not supposed to be used all at once. You were supposed to aquire them through time. Just like it took time to make these virtues. Now the virtues that he made, he wanted to make sure that they were going to work so he tested them upon him starting with the first virtue. He tested one virtue a week so that would have thirteen weeks of his time to test out these virtues. After he got to the last virtue, he started over again. He completed this cycle three times, for a span of one year (Franklin 154). You talk about dedication, this man went above and beyond with these virtues.
Here is one of Tuckerman's quotes, "Its fame, however, had become so thoroughly identified with American institutions and life, that an artistic memorial is far more important as a tribute of gratitude and reverence, than as a method of keeping his example before our minds or his image in our hearts. Yet it is, on all accounts, a subject of congratulation, that at length we have, in the city of Franklin's birth, and from the hands of one of her own sons, a statue of the patriot and philospher worthy of the man and the place" (1). This just shows how much Tuckerman enjoys reading about Franklin and what he had done to society. Tuckerman throughout his critisism I noticed that he had a lot of information as to what he had thought of Benjamin Franklin. This is his opinion about Benjamin Franklin. Frankly, to me and probably everybody else it seems as though his opinion is quite high of Benjamin Franklin. Now there are some people out there that have no respect for Benjamin Franklin, but Franklin was a man with intelligence and had strong opinions on a lot of things. As you read Tuckerman's review you can see that he gives out his opinion a lot of the time, but then he backs it up with logic reasoning. Benjamin Franklin as I have said many times during this blog has done so much for society. I see Franklin as a man that will be remembered for a long time to come. Benjamin Franklin's virtues have been a big part of today's society and will be for some time.

Bibliography

Franklin, Benjamin, and Leonard Woods Labaree. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. New Haven: Yale UP, 1964. Print.

Tuckerman, Henry T. "The Character of Franklin." Facts on File. Web. 30 Oct. 2011.