Chapter 3: Enlightened Education

Printing Trade

I continued to work in my fathers God-awful tallow chandlery and soap-making business for two more years until I was twelve. My brother, John, had previously learned the trade and now set up his own business in Rhode Island with his wife. It looked like I was destined to become his apprentice there. I was pretty vocal in disgust at the prospect. Josiah realized that if he didn’t find me a different business, I was most likely going to run away to become a sailor. This happened to one of my older brothers. He was never heard of again. So Pops was pretty invested in finding a more agreeable profession for me. So he took me on a walk through Boston, showing me the various different trades of the town, with the hope of finding one that I showed interest in.

Throughout these trips with him, I came to truly appreciate the work of the various tradesmen. It cannot be denied that, he that has a trade has an office of profit and honor. There is something satisfying about seeing skilled workmen handle their tools. I learned a lot by simply watching these men at work. In fact, thanks to these observations, I became pretty handy with tools in my own house when I could not find a professional. It also made it easier for me to quickly construct the machines I needed for for my experiments when an idea crossed my mind.

After a while, my father decided to set me up with a cutler trade. I would make knives and scissors, etc. I was so sharp after all. Uncle Benjamin’s son, Samuel, had been trained in that trade in London. Since then, he moved to Boston and set up his own shop. I was sent to work with him on a trial run. However, this abruptly ended when Samuel demanded a fee from my father. Josiah had not realized that bargaining has no friends, nor relations.

My scholarly and “nerd”-ish character influenced Josiah to make me a printer despite the fact that he already had one son for a printer, James. In 1717, James had arrived in Boston with a press and letters he bought in England. He aimed to establish his own print shop in the town. While I preferred this job to boiling fat, I still was ready to run away to the sea. Realizing this, Josiah was eager to get me legally bound to James by signing an indentured servitude contract with James. I initially held back from signing my name. However, I eventually gave in. Keep in mind, it was 1718, and I was only twelve. The contract stipulated that I would serve in his shop until my 21st birthday, though I’d be paid for full-time work as a journeyman printer for the last year of the contract. That’s nine years. A long time.

Quickly, I became skilled at the printing trade, which made me incredibly valuable to James’s operation. I also had access to better books. I was able to connect with the apprentices of different booksellers in town. This way, I began to bargain for books with them. The apprentices. Not the owners. I would borrow one and return it promptly in perfect condition. Because of this agreement, I regularly stayed up late into the night so that I could return the book the next morning without the bookshop owners ever knowing. Eventually, my brother’s friend, Matthew Adams, allowed me to borrow from his own excellent collection.

Around this time, I began to try writing poetry. After reading a few of my pieces, my brother encouraged me to write more, to sell for profit. He hired me me to write two ballads. The one, called the Lighthouse Tragedy, was about the drowning of Captain Worthilake and his two daughters. The other was a sailor song written about the Taking of Teach, or the arrest of Blackbeard the Pirate. It was pretty shitty poetry. But we printed them and James sent me out to sell them. The copies sold surprisingly well. This, of course, inflated my ego until my father came in with a needle and popped it. He ridiculed the verses and assured me that poets were generally impoverished beggars. This caused me to distance myself from a career in poetry. I would have probably been terrible at it, anyway. That being said, poetry helped me develop my prose writing - which is the normal paragraph style of writing – and that type of writing has helped me further my career immensely. Here’s how I taught myself.

The Writing

A good friend of mine, John Collins, was also a bookish guy. We read an equal amount and so we felt the need to compete over whose brain was bigger, as boys tend to do. We would argue often with the goal of not only winning the argument, but of completely shutting down and demolishing the other’s argument. I should note that, while we did enjoy our scholarly battles, our argumentative nature became very bad habits. A quarrelsome man has no good neighbors. It not only ruins good conversations, but also develops animosity from people who could have otherwise been friends. Even if you prove your point in a debate, you will offend, embarrass, or frustrate your opponent. What good does that do?

As it turns out, the best way to win an argument is to not engage in it.  People with good sense know this except for lawyers and academics. Then again, it’s commonly said that good lawyers make bad neighbors. While this criticism of argumentation was valuable insight later on in my life, it did not stop me from being obnoxious as a teenager. Go figure!

I distinctly remember one specific question that caused an excellent debate series between me and Collins. The topic regarded the appropriateness of educating women and whether or not they had the ability to learn. Collins felt that women were inherently inferior to men and that it was improper to educate them. I argued in favor of women’s education, though it was, admittedly, partially for the sake of the dispute. Understand, I thought that women were not mentally equal to me. But that’s because I also thought that men weren’t either. If you are to be vain, be sure to distribute your vanity equally amongst all peoples. I didn’t discriminate, you see. Everyone was inferior to me, according to my arrogant teenage brain.

Anyway, this specific debate exposed my weakness in verbal disputes. Collins was naturally more eloquent in speech. He had an arsenal of vocabulary at his disposal, which he fluidly fired out. I’m pretty sure his argument was more effective because of his fluent way with words more than the actual strength of his reasoning, which was based off of his bias. We left each other that night without settling the dispute. During the time apart, I sat down and wrote out my arguments. I then sent it out to him. He responded. I returned a reply. We went back-and-forth for a few letters and then my father found the letters. Without ever commenting on the subject matter, he criticized my style of writing. While I had stronger spelling and structure than Collins, my argument was less elegant in both organization and clarity. After he pointed out a few examples of these errors, I acknowledged his point. I might be vain, but I don’t like to be not good at something. Always be improving! That’s my motto! From then on, I was determined to improve my writing style.

Around this time, 1722, I found a volume of essays from the Spectator Magazine in London. I had never seen any of them before. I bought the copy and read it and reread it multiple times. I loved it. They were written by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, two essayist, poet, playwright politicians. One Irish, the other English. That’s one hell of a tandem. Their Spectator essays were hugely influential in highlighting the value (and the flaws) of the Common Man. The writing was excellent and I wanted to imitate it.  So here were the steps that I took:

1.     I would read an essay and would write out the main idea of each individual paragraph on separate strips of paper. Each paragraph would be summarized on the strip. At the end, I’d have 15-20 pieces of paper.

2.     When I was completed, I would walk away from the pile of main ideas. I would distract myself and forget the order of the argument.

3.     I would come back to it several days later with a fresh mind and try to reorganize the paper stripped ideas in the order I thought would make the strongest point.

4.      I would then try to re-write it in my own words.

This improved my ability to arrange my thoughts in an effective order. After comparing my version with the original, I found some flaws and corrected them. The big problem, however, was that I was not satisfied with my limited vocabulary. You would have thought that I had a large capacity of words, but it turned out that it wasn’t the case.

 I thought back to my earlier days of poetry. I would constantly need to come up with synonyms for words so that they fit the rhyme. This initial want of words, had left me with a larger vocabulary at my disposal. So I decided to incorporate poetry into my writing practice. After I wrote out the main ideas, I would convert them into poetry. After some time, when I forgot the words of the original essay, I would re-write the poetry back into standard prose form. Then I would compare my writing to the original essay.

I have to admit it, my version of the essay was usually the “inferior” one. But I did also enjoy a few time where I felt my own essay was better than the original! These little victories built up my confidence and I began to believe that I could be a decent English writer. This had become a huge goal of mine by the time I was 16 years old.

Considering the difficult hours I worked in the print shop – 12 hour days, 6 days a week – I spent most of my spare time on these writing exercises and on my reading. I’d work long into the night, or early in the morning before work started. I often would spend Sundays in the print shop alone to continue my education. This also had the added bonus of allowing me to skip, you know, church. My father had always forced me to attend on Sundays when I was under his care. Don’t get me wrong, I still sort of felt obligated to attend service. But I just didn’t have time. A teacher is more valuable than a preacher. At least, that’s my opinion.

Vegetarianism

When I was 16 years old, I fell upon a book by someone named Tryon, who recommended a vegetarian diet. I felt motivated to try it but during my experiment, James often ridiculed me. He James was a bachelor and so he rented a few rooms for himself and his apprentices with a family in their house. They would cook for us and my experimental aversion to meat had become an inconvenience to them. So, I made a suggestion to my brother. I had learned about multiple vegetarian recipes and so I proposed to him that I would cook for myself if he would pay me, weekly, half of the money he would normally have used to pay for my meals. He immediately agreed.

Soon, I realized that this arrangement benefitted me in multiple ways. Firstly, I could save half of what he gave me if I kept my meal simple. I would then use the additional money to buy more books. It also gave me more time to study since my brother and the other workers would leave the shop to eat. I would stay there and quickly eat my meal – usually some bread, a handful of raisins, a tart, and some water – and I w would spend the rest of the time reading or writing. It actually greatly enhanced my progress since I had a clearer head and quicker understanding, which usually happens with moderation in food and drink. After all, a full belly makes a dull brain.

Socratic Method

My middle teenage years were critical years in my education. And it was almost all self-taught. I decided to tackle my weakness with mathematics. I was ashamed at my ignorance of numbers. I also hated that I had failed math twice in school. So I found a Book of Arithmetic, and plowed through the entire book. After that, I read several books on navigation and became familiar with the geometry that they contained, although I didn’t get much further than that. The mathematics that I really adored was the algebraic formulas required for theoretical reasoning. In other words: logic. In order to enhance my knowledge of it, I read John Locke’s Essay on Human Understanding and The Art of Thinking by the philosophers of Port Royal.

I was intent on improving my grammar and so I read a book on that too. I don’t remember much of it except that there were two illustrations on the Arts of Rhetoric and Logic. The latter ended with an example of the Socratic method of dispute. I was interested in learning more about this style so I got my hands on Xenophon’s Memorable Things of Socrates, which provided more examples of Socrates proving his point through asking his opponent a series of questions. This style of questioning rather than arguing was far more appealing than my normal contradictory style. I transformed myself from a combative debater into a humble enquirer who politely doubted the points of my argument. This enabled me to be involved in many discussions without embarrassing the others participants. My mother once told me that a soft tongue strikes hard.

Get your mind out of the gutter, it’s a good point.

After reading writings from the Earl of Shaftesbury, I became a real skeptic of many of the finer points of our province’s religious doctrine, Calvinism. It could have become a problem in Puritan Boston if I hadn’t adopted the Socratic method. As I practiced my questioning technique, I became really talented at drawing extremely intelligent people into making concessions in their arguments. My questioning led them toward consequences that they did not foresee. They would become so entangled in their own answers to my questions that they would unintentionally contradict themselves. I would even score victories in discussions that I, or the stance I took, didn’t deserve to win. Remember, you may talk too much on even the best of subjects because he that speaks much is much mistaken.

I continued using the Socratic method for years, but gradually abandoned it. I was too bull-headed to not assert my own point view. However, I did try to hold a position with modest humility and constraint. Any time I contended a point or advanced a point that could be disputed, I made sure that I didn’t use words like “certainly”, or “undoubtedly”, or any other word that gave a sense of that my opinion was the only logical conclusion. Instead, I would incorporate passive phrases into my argument such as: “I think”, “it appears to me”, or “I imagine”, or “if I am not mistaken”.

This humble habit has served me very well in my public and professional life. It actually has often proved to be advantageous in persuading others to my opinion or into the projects I am promoting. After all, the main purpose of a conversation is to inform, please, or persuade. I hope that sensible, well-meaning men would understand this more. Too often I see them reduce their ability to do good because they assume a manner that is too often offensive. This then defeats the main purposes of a conversation. No one wants to be informed by someone who is asserting their own point-of-view in such an arrogant and stubborn way. Any sensible person should be able to identify the irony in a person who expects others to improve while they remain firmly fixed in their own opinions. Most people will choose not to listen. At that point, that bull-headed speaker can barely expect to please or persuade an audience either. None preaches better than the ant, and she says nothing. Alexander Pope wisely stated:

Men should be taught as if you taught them not,

And things unknown proposed as things forgot,

To speak, though sure, with seeming diffidence

For lack of modesty is lack of sense,

Immodest words admit but this defense,

That lack of modesty, is a lack of sense

A Point on Logic

So there I am, a mostly self-educated brilliant prodigy. Unlike the elitist Harvardians (“Hardvardans”? “Harvardites”? Whatever, the jackasses of Harvard…) I was not getting an old fashioned “Classical” education which involved translating old Greek and Latin writings into English. They believed it created a deeper understanding of old men’s wisdom. Me, I’m a practical guy. I read the texts that were already translated. The most valuable part of the classical time-period is imitating the successful strategies of the great leaders while learning from their mistakes. Oh, and Socratic reasoning.

Oh and Aristotle’s views on Logic.

L:ogic is, in my opinion, the word of God. You can call it reasoning if you’d like, but the meaning remains. It is the most valuable tool used to understand the world and the universe. Aristotle taught me that the universe has organization, even when it appears to be completely chaotic. It’s like the inner workings of a clock. Each wheel is different in size, shape, and direction and yet each movement sparks a reaction that turns a different wheel. It’s advanced and complex, yet there is still order. The only way to understand the next turn is to understand the formula of the all of the movements together.

Everything in the world has a formula. Philosophers spend their entire lives trying to understand these formulas, specifically in regards to human nature. Writers do the same thing but with writing. All of life is just a large and complex equation. Our decisions, our motivations, our thoughts, all are impacted by variables. The successful leaders are the ones who figure out these variables and use them to motivate people.

Logic is a key part in understanding everything about society. There are levels to it though. Deep, deep, deep levels. The deeper you go, the more variables that you identify, the closer you get to being able to predict human responses to everything. I never got that deep, but it was still practical to have a basic knowledge and understanding of it.

The simplest way to explain what I mean is with syllogism, one of simpler form of logic. Syllogism provides two true statements to prove a third statement. Just like saying “If X = 7 and Y= 4, therefore, x + y = 11,” I could say, “If I always make mistakes and everyone learns from their mistakes, therefore I am always wrong,” It was deductive reasoning, or, in other words, prediction. It wasn’t perfect but had its benefits. Through the use of these types of exercises, I was able to strengthen my calculating and strategizing skills. It helped me identify and understand the ebbs and flows of the world around me.

Now of course, logical formulas only go so far to explain the world. I would eventually come to understand this. If there is one thing certain about human nature, it is never 100% certain what someone will do in any given situation. Human nature is logical until it isn’t. It is by far the most irrational and inconsistent. Human emotions are far more complex than a formula could dictate. Well, at least, any formula that I could create.

Despite the logical drawbacks to logic, however, I have found life to make more sense when you have a logical formula to follow. It serves as a training bar for me to hold onto while I learn a specific skill. I like to think of it as a scaffolding for to build on. Any step-by-step directions are nothing more than formulas. As I became a writer, I followed a certain formula to help me better construct a paragraph or an essay. An essay has a formula: introduction, body paragraphs, conclusion. Each of those types of paragraphs have a specific formula to them. An analytical paragraph has a formula: assertion, context, and commentary. Everything has a formula. At some point, I would no longer need to follow this structure, but in the learning and developing stages, these logical formulas are key. It always comes back to logic.

Now logic would tell me that I have, at this point, exhausted the discussion about logic. Either you get it and I don’t have to explain anymore or you didn’t because I did a terrible job of explaining it to you and I shouldn’t explain anymore. This concludes the section of my education.

If you find yourself at all confused or overwhelmed from my explanation on my various techniques and strategies I used to Enlighten myself, you can summarize it this way: reading makes a person “full”, meditation makes a person “profound”, and discourse makes a person “clear”.