Autobiography

Answers

• Q22HABIT

  Does organizing daily life by fixed schedules strengthen or weaken self-government?

  Strengthens. To reach moral perfection he adopted the virtue of Order and a written scheme assigning each hour of the day, which he credits with his improvement.

  Summary disputed by reviewer: Franklin reports that Order gave him the most trouble and that the hourly scheme could not be exactly observed by a master; the improvement he reports is a decrease in his faults generally.

  The precept of _Order_ requiring that _every part of my business should have its allotted time_, one page in my little book contain'd the following scheme of employment for the twenty-four hours of a natural day. … I enter'd upon the execution of this plan for self-examination, and continu'd it with occasional intermissions for some time. I was surpris'd to find myself so much fuller of faults than I had imagined; but I had the satisfaction of seeing them diminish. … My scheme of Order gave me the most trouble;[70] and I found that, tho' it might be practicable where a man's business was such as to leave him the disposition of his time, that of a journeyman printer, for instance, it was not possible to be exactly observed by a master, who must mix with the world, and often receive people of business at their own hours.

  Downloaded Gutenberg #20203; confirmed 'bold and arduous project' and 'scheme of employment for the twenty-four hours'. The 1791 date is the first (French) publication; the scheme is in Part Two, first published later.