Currently I’m reading a book my father gave me last Christmas, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN by Edmund S. Morgan. It’s a pretty comprehensive biography that moves at an appropriately brisk pace, which is good because there is so much ground to cover. Something that caught my attention was the section about the lending library he founded, the first one this side of the Atlantic. This library, in turn, promoted the growth of many other libraries of its kind. Franklin proudly wrote the following:
“These Libraries have improv’d the general conversation of the Americans, made the common Tradesmen and Farmers as intelligent as most Gentlemen from other Countries, and perhaps have contributed in some degree to the Stand so generally made throughout the Colonies in Defence of their Privileges.”
Morgan adds, “Libraries helped to make Philadelphians and Americans what they became.” Personally, I think that books have played an enormous part in forming the person I am today. The first and mightiest influence is that of my parents, but books come in a strong second.
“made the common Tradesmen and Farmers as intelligent as most Gentlemen form other Countries…” I don’t know when Franklin wrote this, but he was an international figure so he must have known gentlemen from other countries so he would have had a basis for the comparison. I’d like to know how novel the idea was that Gentlemen and Tradesmen were comparable and how novel was the idea that a Farmer could be made as intelligent as a Gentleman if he read the same books. Were these notions American rather than English or French?
Books were my way out of the narrow, parochial world my parents expected me to live in. It was considered uppity (Who do you think you are?) to consider alternative possiblities for living one’s life. (Be a teacher. It’s something to fall back on.) Considering they had lived through the Great Depression and were trying to pass along practicality as a value, I don’t fault them as much as I used to. But when you’re young and trying to find your path in life, it’s disheartening to be told to stay as close to home as you possibly can. Books, even more than movies or television, offered viewpoints fired by the imagination. As much as the imagination may be misleading, it is also the vehicle for possible self-transformation. (That’s one of the reasons Gatsby is such a great book. It is so American to reimagine yourself and then transform yourself through this new vision.) Would I have been happy, marrying an Italian boy, living next door to my mother, and cooking and gossiping all day? Thank you, books.