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.
"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 )
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