Excerpt:
Last month I wrote about Ben Franklin in my column about Daylight Savings Time. Imagine my surprise when I would come across Ben again in this week’s research.
Franklin’s wisdom and understanding of paying it forward was exemplified in April of 1784 when he wrote in a letter to a Benjamin Webb: “I do not pretend to give such a Sum; I only lend it to you. When you meet with another honest Man in similar Distress, you must pay me by lending this Sum to him; enjoining him to discharge the Debt by a like operation, when he shall be able, and shall meet with another opportunity. I hope it may thus go thro’ many hands, before it meets with a Knave that will stop its Progress. This is a trick of mine for doing a deal of good with a little money.”
(And while Ben Franklin gets the credit for writing the letter above we must give credit where credit is due. Robert Heinlein actually coined the phrase, “paying it forward” in his book “Between Planets,” in 1951.)
