' His advice and opinion were sought for on
all occasions, by all sorts of people, and he was looked upon, she
said, by some, as something of a conjurer. He died just four years
before I was born, on the same day of the same month."
Such kind of men are not given to foolish conversation. They are too
sensible to indulge in mere twaddle about the weather. Their talents
raise them to a higher plane of thought and remark. Josiah Franklin
only observed the custom of his ancestors, no doubt unwittingly, when
he sought to improve the minds and hearts of his children by
instructive conversation at the table and fireside. Benjamin had a
right to claim for it a decided educational influence in the family.
Pythagoras set so great value upon useful conversation that he
commanded his disciples to maintain silence during the first two years
of their instruction. He would have their minds thoroughly furnished,
that their conversation might be worthy of the pupils of so
illustrious a teacher. He was wont to say: "Be silent, or say
something better than silence." No men ever put this wise counsel into
practice more thoroughly than Josiah Franklin and his son Benjamin.
Cicero said of the mother of the Gracchi: "We have read the letters of
Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, from which it appears that the
sons were educated not so much in the lap of the mother as by her
_conversation_.
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