Mrs. Dogood's Dream

As a young man Franklin wrote under the pseudonym of "Mrs. Dogood" in order to get published in his brother's newspaper, the Courant (Van Doren, 20-23). Mrs. Dogood wrote to the paper concerning a recent dream in which the gates of Harvard College were kept by Riches and Poverty. "Poverty rejected those whom Riches did not recommend," and inside the gates sat a Temple of Learning, "where, for want of a suitable genius, [students] learn little more than how to carry themselves handsomely and enter a room genteelly... and from whence they return, after abundance of trouble and charge, as great blockheads as ever, only more proud and self-conceited."

Thankfully, I go to Columbia where something like this would never happen! One of Benjamin Franklin's most interesting qualities is that of his self-education. I think this is one reason why he was chosen to be the co-Narrator of Epcot's American Animatronic Extravaganza (along with Mark Twain). Franklin fully embodies the American myth of the self-made man, and throughout Van Doren's biography I found myself admiring this idea more and more. Fops beware!