The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin: Part 8
Bonus:
Summary: Ben sets up a library.
Commentary: I read part of this section for 15MAD!
But I'm going to focus my comments tonight on an earlier section.
Our debates possessed me so fully of the subject, that I wrote and printed an anonymous pamphlet on it, entitled “The Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency.” It was well received by the common people in general; but the rich men disliked it, for it increased and strengthened the clamor for more money, and they happening to have no writers among them that were able to answer it, their opposition slackened, and the point was carried by a majority in the House. My friends there, who conceived I had been of some service, thought fit to reward me by employing me in printing the money; a very profitable job and a great help to me. This was another advantage gained by my being able to write.
As a teacher, there's inevitably some amount of "why are we learning/doing" this every year. I often share some version of this story with them for why learning how to write a decent looking essay is worthwhile:
When I was working generic summer retail, I noticed that my store won a lot more employee of the month, quarter, etc. awards than the other stores in our district. This was odd, since we were smaller, not a flagship store, etc. I'd been to the other stores, they had perfectly good employees as well.
I asked my manager about it one day, and she took me back to the office to show me the latest round of nomination emails from the managers.
Hers was four or five short paragraphs explaining who the employee was, what they had done, etc.
Most of the other stores looked like awkward mid aughts text messages with weird abbreviations, no capitals, etc.
Learn to write decently and your boss will listen to ou.
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