In honor of the exam I've been cramming away for this week, I wanted to provide some background on a side of Benjamin Franklin we haven't touched on thus far -- Oceanographer! (Did this man even sleep?!) Mr. Franklin was Deputy Postmaster General for the United States from 1753-1774, and as such, he was concerned with the speed at which mail moved crossing the oceans. He noticed that ships that took a less direct route from England to the United States arrived faster, making the voyage in a full two weeks less. He asked his cousin, who was a whaling captain and he (Timothy Folger) explained to Franklin that there was a strong current, which flowed on their route. British ships often travelled against this current. Franklin researched the current with other ship captains, and combined the information to draw the first map of the Gulf Stream in 1777. The Gulf Stream is a strong warm surface current. He gave his map to all his mail ship captains to improve their efficiency. By distributing this map and researching the ocean, Franklin was one of the first American Oceanographers.
This is a copy of Franklin's map of the gulf stream, which is quite accurate
In this vein, I wonder what Franklin would have made of Crusoe, if they had met. I imagine that before he becomes shipwrecked Franklin could have taken Robinson under his wing, and mentored him on becoming his own man. Just as Crusoe flees to a life on the water, Franklin was forced to flee to lead a life of his own, separate from his brother, in Philadelphia. As Crusoe grows, and tries to make sense of his plight in life, he becomes skillful at a variety of useful trades both within his situation and in the real world -- just as Franklin researched in a variety of disciplines. Crusoe learns to build multiple complex shelters, make bread, transport grapes to make raisins, grow corn, and even becomes a potter, devising a means for his own wheel and kiln. He truly becomes a Jack-of-All-Trades, just as Franklin was. It’s intriguing how the themes of our course relate to each other, but also inform the other courses I’m enrolled in.
Your post made me think about how one actually becomes a Jack-of-All-Trades. We all attend a liberal arts school that stresses the importance of a well-rounded student, and I couldn't be more pleased by this. Though students may find things like AXLE requirements to be a burden, such measures do a wonderful job in ensuring that students graduate with as wide a scope of knowledge as possible. I do wonder, however, if every human is inherently capable of being a Jack-of-All-Trades, or if it is only through educational coaxing that one develops the ability to interact with such a variety of information at once.
ReplyDeleteFantastic link you are making here btw. Crusoe and Franklin - isn't Franklin's "discovery" of ocean currents oddly similar to that of Crusoe's figuring out the currents that encircle his island? After various repeated observations, he gets a more accurate sense of how those currents, which almost carried him away, move and change.
ReplyDeleteAs I hear your comment, I imagine Jack of All Trades is probably too trivial a term. With a Vanderbilt education we come out as well rounded individuals, who have excelled in their interests but who also have an understanding of how interdisciplinary the world is, certainly no subject exists individually, just as no one can inhabit an idealized economic state on a desert island -- we live in an interconnected environment, for better or worse.
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