"In Franklin there is something of Socrates, and there is specially noticeable a happy vein of humor; Franklin enjoys also a good laugh.
"Franklin is, through and through, good prose, intelligible, transparent, compact.
"We do not have to educate geniuses in the world. Every genius trains himself, and can have no other trainer. In the world we have to form substantial, energetic members of the common weal. What thou dost specially, whether thou makest shoe-pegs or marble statues, is not my business but thine.
"We shall never be in a right position in regard to the world, if we do not believe in purity, in the noblest motives; the inmost of humanity is revealed to us only on this condition. There is no better coat-of-mail against assaults, than faith in the good which others do, and which one is to do himself; one hears then, within, the inspiring tones of martial music, and marches with light and free step onward through the contest of life.
"It is the distinguishing and favorable feature in Franklin's life, that he is the self-made man; he is self-taught, and has discovered by himself the forces of nature and the treasures of science; he is the representative of those, who, transplanted from Europe to America and in danger of deterioration and decay, attained a wholly new development.
"If we could have, like antiquity, a mythological embodiment of that world which is called America, which carried with it the gods of Europe,—I mean those historical ideas which the colonists carried over with them, and yet freely adopted into their own organic life,—would you have these ideas embodied in a human form,—here stands Benjamin Franklin. He was wise, and no one taught him; he was religious, and had no church; he was a lover of men, and yet knew very well how bad they were.
"He not only knew how to draw the lightning from the clouds, but also the stormy elements of passion from the tempers of men; he has laid hold of those prudential maxims which are a security against destruction, and which fit one for self-guidance.
"The reason why I should take him for a master and a guide in the education of a human being, is this:—he represents the simple, healthy, human understanding, the firmly established and the safe; not the erratic spirit of genius, but those virtues of head and of heart which steadily and quietly promote man's social happiness and his moral well-being.
"Luther was the conqueror of the middle ages; Franklin is the first in modern times to make himself. The modern man is no longer a martyr; Luther was none, and Franklin still less. No martyrdom.
"Franklin has introduced into the world no new maxim, but he has expressed with simplicity those which an honest man can find in himself.