Benjamin Franklin’s Back-to-School Advice for Today’s Students

According to this Founding Father, education goes beyond the books to include fitness, history, and personal growth.

Like Benjamin Franklin, modern students can take ownership of their education by blending formal study with independent exploration. skynesher/Getty Images

School is cranking up, and students of all ages are getting advice from parents about keeping up their grades and staying on target with their homework. Elementary and secondary school teachers have already spent the first day of class distributing textbooks and perhaps a syllabus for the semester. Some college presidents have delivered an opening day address, reminding their audience that education is a privilege and exhorting them to make the most of their time on campus.

Nothing new here other than the particulars. Parents and teachers down through the ages have reiterated time and again the importance of an education and how it can shape a person and a life.

As we might expect, some of America’s Founders championed schools and learning. Thomas Jefferson, for instance, established the University of Virginia. Abigail Adams pushed for education for females, writing to her husband John during the Revolutionary War: “If we mean to have Heroes, Statesmen and Philosophers, we should have learned women.” George Washington was one of several Founding Fathers who called for a national university, one that would educate young men in “the science of government.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) received little in the way of formal education, spending one year in a classroom, another with a tutor, and leaving school altogether to work at the age of 10. Yet of all these early patriots, he was the most ardent in promoting books and studies and spotlighting the crucial importance of education, particularly in a republic.

And even today, Franklin has some great advice for students.

Learning Depends on the Learner

In 1749, Franklin wrote and published a pamphlet, “Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pensilvania.”

In the first sentence of “Proposals,” Franklin wrote, “It has long been regretted as a Misfortune to the Youth of this Province, that we have no ACADEMY, in which they might receive the Accomplishments of a regular Education.”

This piece of writing was instrumental in the establishment of the Academy of Philadelphia, which in 1791 merged with the University of the State of Pennsylvania to become the University of Pennsylvania.

The prose that follows Franklin’s introduction is crisp and clean and easily comprehended by modern readers. Sources Franklin cited in “Proposals” included the writings of John Milton and John Locke, as well as the works of lesser-known authors noted at the time for their writings on education.

That a man with so little formal schooling as Franklin could have read so much and written so well speaks volumes about his drive to learn, both from books and experience. From his teenage years onward, for example, he worked hard to develop his writing style. His time spent as a printer, which he began at about the same time and in which he took pride for his entire life, educated him in current affairs and literature and improved his spelling and reading abilities.

By means of this relentless self-education, Franklin became a celebrated scientist and inventor, the author of an autobiography regarded as one of the best ever written by an American, a statesman, and a public figure honored in Europe as well as in the United States. Philosopher Immanuel Kant declared this man of little formal schooling “the Prometheus of modern times.”

The lesson for today’s students is this: The old adage “Get yourself an education” is absolutely true. No matter where you are enrolled—a public high school, a homeschool, a private academy, a community college, or the finest university in your state—if you follow Franklin’s example and intentionally pursue an education, you’ll get one. And like Franklin, you can choose to become a lifelong learner.

Exercise and Eat Well

In “Proposals,” Franklin recommended that students eat “plainly, temperately, and frugally” and “that to keep them in Health, and to strengthen and render active their Bodies, they be frequently exercis’d in Running, Leaping, Wrestling, and Swimming.” In the notes that follow “Proposals,” he quoted Scottish educator and philosopher George Turnbull, “Corporal Exercise invigorates the Soul as well as the Body.”

Franklin practiced what he preached. He was an expert swimmer in his day—at age 11, he designed a pair of swim fins, his first attempt at invention—and as an adult coached others in swimming as well.

So here is Franklin’s second lesson for you: Diet and physical exercise matter. For those going off to college for the first time, you can avoid the “Freshman 15” by eating and drinking “temperately and frugally.” Whether you’re in high school, college, or the workforce, take Franklin’s advice and keep fit.

Study History

English composition, foreign languages, geometry, oratory, and astronomy were some of the recommended studies in “Proposals,” but Franklin clearly regarded history as the queen of all academia. He took the broadest view possible of that subject, incorporating into it geography, religion, nature, commerce, and more. He understood that history has lessons to teach us beyond dates and names.

“Indeed the general natural Tendency of Reading good History, must be, to fix in the Minds of Youth deep Impressions of the Beauty and Usefulness of Virtue of all Kinds, Publick Spirit, Fortitude,” he wrote.

That’s some rock-solid advice for young people. Take some history classes and dive into the past, and you’ll profit both as a citizen and as a student of human nature.

The World Is Your Classroom

Franklin’s “Proposals” is a predecessor to the Montessori method of education, for he several times advocated blending extracurricular activities with book-learning.

Franklin was himself a longtime practitioner of learning through doing. In his teenage years, for instance, after becoming aware of “The Spectator,” a British magazine with some of the best writing of its time, he turned the essays he found there into a sort of writer’s laboratory. He dissected paragraphs and even sentences to discover their appeal, then attempted to create the same effect in his own prose. He applied this same hands-on tactic to his printing, his inventions, and his study of electricity and ocean currents.

“Proposals” takes this same approach for students. Franklin recommended writing letters, making abstracts of readings in the student’s own words, and “telling or writing Stories lately read, in their own Expressions.” For students studying natural history, he advised that “a little Gardening, Planting, Grafting, Inoculating, &c. be taught and practised” and that they visit the best farms in the area. Students learning about “Mechanicks” should examine prints of machines, which they should then copy.

You can do the same. If you’re studying the Civil War, for instance, you might visit a battlefield or watch one of the many documentaries found online. If you want to become a better writer, keeping a journal, sending well-constructed notes via email, and studying the style of others are just a few ways to hone your talents.

Understand Why You Are in School

In his concluding paragraph of “Proposals,” Franklin summed up the endgame of education: “The Idea of what is true Merit, should also be often presented to Youth, explain’d and impress’d on their Minds, as consisting in an Inclination join’d with an Ability to serve Mankind, one’s Country, Friends and Family; which Ability is (with the Blessing of God) to be acquir’d or greatly encreas’d by true Learning; and should indeed be the great Aim and End of all Learning.”

Here is a key point of Franklin’s lessons for today’s students. If you have no real idea where you’re going, you’ll go nowhere. If instead you are clear on the aim and end of your learning, odds are you’ll excel in your studies.

Franklin is often credited with the following adage: “If a man empties his purse into his head, no one can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.”

By getting yourself an education, you’re piling up dividends for life.