The mysterious Enoch Root meets 8-year-old Benjamin Franklin, Boston, 1713: "Do I look like a schoolmaster to you?" "No, but you talk like one." "You know something of schoolmasters, do you?""Yes, sir," the boy says, faltering a bit as he sees the jaws of the trap swinging toward his leg. "Yet here it is the middle of Monday—" "The place was empty 'cause of the Hanging. I didn't want to stay and—" "And what?" "Get more ahead of the others than I was already." "If you are ahead, the correct thing is to get used to it—not to make yourself into an imbecile. Come, you belong in school.
O vitae Philosophia dux! O virtutum indagatrix expultrixque vitiorum! Unus dies, bene et ex praeceptis tuis actus, peccanti immortalitati est anteponendus.translation (non-literal):O philosophy, life’s guide! O searcher of virtues and expeller of vices! Just a single day lived well and according to your lessons is to be preferred to an eternity of errors.— Cicero, As quoted in Ben Franklin’s Autobiography