A legacy worth leaving -By Minabere Ibelema

How about this question: Whose legacy has impacted and continues to impact humanity the most? If you are a Christian, you would probably pick Jesus and if you are Muslim, you would similarly pick Prophet Mohammed. Great choices, of course, but let’s try the secular realm.

How about the duo of Copernicus and Galileo? Their postulates and discoveries about the universe dramatically altered humanity’s understanding of our place in it. We got to learn that our Earth is not the centre of the universe but just another planet revolving around the Sun. They demonstrated too that the Earth is round and not flat, thus taking away the fear of falling off the edges.

Their discoveries gave a boost to astronomy, physics, and above all world explorations. With that in mind, ground-breaking scientists such as Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton and Michael Faraday may be candidates for the most impactful. Einstein’s theories of relativity and optics and Newton’s laws of motion spurred spectacular developments in aviation and electronics, among others. As for Faraday, what would life be like without his discovery of electricity?

It is entirely possible that you chose early explorers such as Ferdinand Magellan, Vasco da Gama, and Christopher Columbus. It was their explorations that accelerated contacts among people in the various continents—for better and for worse.

If you are a millennial — or close enough in age — you will probably pick Mark Zuckerberg as the most impactful person in history. Even older people will be excused to pick him. After all, life today virtually revolves around Facebook and the related social media that Zuckerberg has corralled.

And talking of Zuckerberg, his 15th century equivalent, Johannes Gutenberg, has been deemed the most consequential inventor of all time. Gutenberg’s moveable type gave rise to the revolution in printing, which set the stage for the development of computers.

These are all great contributors to life as we know it. And we haven’t even listed the great emperors who accelerated human civilisation by bringing vast territories under one administrative umbrella. Perhaps, it is a mistake to ask for the most impactful person in history. There are too many yardsticks and too many meritorious people.

Still, if Benjamin Franklin didn’t cross your mind, you overlooked one of them. It happens that this month marks the 252nd anniversary of his death in April 1790.During his 84-year life, he had no peer—and still does not have one—in the sheer number of arrears impacted by his innovations.

Above all, he had a vision for lifting America’s underclass, not just in the 18th century, but centuries thereafter. And, in his will, he allocated a sizable portion of his fortunes to accomplish that goal. As they say, he didn’t just talk the talk, he walked the walk. More about that later.

First, the career, inventions and innovations that earned him the terms genius and a polymath. Franklin started his career as a printer. From there, he became, among other things, a publisher, a journalist, an inventor, a scientist, a philosopher, a diplomat, and one of America’s founding fathers. He is most known for his invention of the lightning rod, but he also invented many other gadgets and instruments, including bifocals and flexible catheter (the instrument inserted into the mouth or anus to remove fluids).

For long there were world-wide mythologies about thunder and lightning. To many people, they were manifestations of the wrath of God or combat among gods. It was Franklin who discovered that clouds contain electricity, and that it was the collision of the negatively- and positively-charged particles that causes flashes and seeming explosions. In fact, the concepts of negative and positive charges were coined by Franklin, along with the name battery.

Franklin is also widely remembered as the founder of one of the world’s most prestigious universities, the University of Pennsylvania. What is not as well known is that he also established America’s first public hospital, lending library, mutual life insurance, learned society, among many other institutions and services.

In much of his accomplishments, Franklin had an eye for the welfare of the masses. His most well-known publication was appropriately named Poor Richard’s Almanack. It was a folksy magazine that veered from the ponderous prose and intellectualising of other publications of the time. Among other things, Franklin included titbits, information about the weather, folk wisdom, and the like.

You’ve probably used or heard the saying, “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”It first appeared in the Almanac. So did, “He that lies down with dogs, shall rise up with fleas.” These are sayings that are as relevant today as they apparently were when Franklin coined them.

On this 232nd anniversary of his death though, what is being especially commemorated is Franklin’s bequest of two thousand pounds to be used to help working class men get on their feet. That was a lot of money in the late-18th century.

In the will, Franklin instructed that one thousand pounds should go to Boston, the city of his birth and the other one thousand to Philadelphia, the city where he lived much of his life and made his fortune. Each city government was to lend small amounts to recently married men who have completed apprenticeship. They were to use the money to establish their trades and then pay back at generous interest rates over a period of 10 years.

Franklin looked 200 years further down the road. In 100 years, he stated in the will, the bequest would have grown immensely. He instructed the cities to use a chunk of the money to build whatever in their judgment would enhance the lives of ordinary people.

“I think our founders all wrestled with the question, what does America mean? But only Franklin seemed to continue that conversation after his death,” said Michael Meyer, a professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh and author of Benjamin Franklin’s Last Bet. “And I think if Franklin came back today, he’d probably be really happy to see that his money still survives.”

To Nigerians, this has to be the most amazing point of this story. To begin with, how many public people think of their legacy in Franklin’s terms? How many of the herd of politicians seeking the presidency next year will be inspired by his story? And what are the odds that a bequest made 232 years ago to help the working class move up the economic ladder will still be doing exactly that today?