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“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.” — Neal Stephenson
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.