Chapter XIII: Interviews

"To be a well-favored man is the gift of fortune; but to write
and read comes by nature."--SHAKESPEARE.

I. Introduction

For most of his material a reporter must rely upon his success as an interviewer. This, it has already been pointed out, requires courage, tact, persistence, and some knowledge of human nature. Its performance is beyond the powers of most boys and girls, and besides, if they tried it, they would annoy people. As a substitute, the exercises that follow have been devised. They involve interviews, it is true, but only with the members of a pupil's own family.

There are two ways to manage an interview. One may go directly at it, which is sometimes the best method, or one may approach the subject cautiously. It depends on the disposition of the person interviewed. The direct method will probably work well with mother, who is never out of sorts, but as to father--well, the case may be different; while sisters, brothers, cousins, aunts, and uncles present endless problems and opportunities.

Before interviewing anybody, it is a good plan always to write down the questions you wish to ask. But do not read them to the person interviewed. Get them so thoroughly into your own mind that you will forget none of them. As an exercise, make a set of questions such as you would need to ask in order to learn the facts contained in the following paragraphs from Franklin's _Autobiography_.

II. Assignments

Write the opening paragraphs of your own biography, covering the topics suggested below:

Week 1--My Ancestors.
Week 2--My Uncles.
Week 3--My Parents.

III. Model I

MY ANCESTORS

One of my uncles furnished me with several particulars relating
to our ancestors. From his notes I learned that the family had
lived in the same village, Ecton, in Northamptonshire, for three
hundred years, and how much longer he knew not (perhaps from the
time when the name of Franklin, that before was the name of an
order of people, was assumed by them as a surname when others
took surnames all over the kingdom), on a freehold of about
thirty acres, aided by the smith's business, which had continued
in the family until his time, the eldest son being always bred
to that business, a custom which he and my father followed as to
their eldest sons. When I searched the records of Ecton, I found
an account of their births, marriages, and burials from the year
1555 only, there being no registers kept in that parish at any
time preceding. By that register I perceived that I was the
youngest son of the youngest son for five generations back. My
grandfather Thomas, who was born in 1598, lived at Ecton till he
grew too old to follow business longer, when he went to live
with his son John, a dyer at Banbury, in Oxfordshire, with whom
my father served an apprenticeship. There my grandfather died
and lies buried. We saw his gravestone in 1758. His eldest son
Thomas lived in the house at Ecton, and left it with the land to
his only child, a daughter. My grandfather had four sons that
grew up, viz: Thomas, John, Benjamin, and Josiah. I will give
you what account I can of them.

IV. Queries

1. Who was Benjamin Franklin? Answer in a five-minute speech.

2. What is the difference between a biography and an autobiography?

3. Locate Ecton, Northamptonshire, Banbury, and Oxfordshire.

4. Point out all of the adjective phrases.

5. Does Franklin use simple, compound, or complex sentences, and in
what proportion?

6. Make a list of the topics he discusses. Can you improve his
order?

7. Are his sentences long or short?

8. Do they lack unity?

9. Can you find any metaphors or antitheses in the model?

10. Discuss the origin of the name Franklin. What is a surname?
When did the English assume surnames?

V. Composition

Write an account of your own ancestors, choosing either your father's or your mother's family. Let the length be about the same as that of the model. The topics discussed should include the following:

1. Origin of surname.
2. European home.
3. Occupations.
4. My grandfather.
5. His sons.

Your father, mother, uncles, aunts, grandfathers, and grandmothers will furnish you with the material for your composition; and their aid may be supplemented by the books of genealogy that you will find in the public library. Remember that the items listed above were suggested to Franklin by his material; if you have interesting facts or traditions that cannot be included under the heads which he uses, put them in none the less. Matter should determine form.

VI. Model II

MY UNCLES

Thomas was bred a smith under his father; but, being ingenious,
and encouraged in learning (as all my uncles were) by an
Esquire, then the principal gentleman in that parish, he
qualified himself for the business of scrivener; became a
considerable man in the county; was a chief mover of all
public-spirited undertakings for the county or town of
Northampton, and his own village, of which many instances were
related of him, and much taken notice of and patronized by the
then Lord Halifax. He died in 1702, January 6, old style, just
four years to a day before I was born. The account we received
of his life and character from some old people at Ecton, I
remember, struck you as something extraordinary. "Had he died on
the same day," you said, "one might have supposed a
transmigration."

John was bred a dyer, I believe, of woolens. Benjamin was bred a
silk dyer, serving an apprenticeship at London. He was an
ingenious man. I remember him well, for when he was a boy he
came over to my father in Boston, and lived in the house with us
for some years. He lived to a great age. His grandson, Samuel
Franklin, now lives in Boston. He left behind him two quarto
volumes, MS., of his own poetry, consisting of little occasional
pieces addressed to his friends and relations. He had formed a
shorthand of his own, which he taught me; but, never practicing
it, I have now forgot it. I was named after this uncle, there
being a particular affection between him and my father. He was
very pious, a great attender of sermons of the best preachers,
which he took down in his shorthand. He was also much of a
politician.

VII. Topics for Oral Composition

1. What is an Esquire? A gentleman? A parish? A scrivener?

2. Explain the term "old style."

3. What is meant by transmigration?

4. What is an apprenticeship? An occasional piece?

5. Explain the terms "quarto," "folio," and "octavo."

VIII. Written Composition

Write an account of your uncles. Make it as rich as possible in concrete facts, for facts are the life and soul of composition. Let the length be about the same as that of the model. Note that Franklin discusses his uncles in an order determined by the principle that first and last places are the most conspicuous. He put the uncle about whom he knows most in last place, so as to have a strong ending, which grows, so to speak, to a climax; he puts the uncle who is entitled to second place first in order of discussion; and the uncle who is least important is mentioned in the middle.

IX. Model III

MY PARENTS

Josiah, my father, married young, and carried his wife with
three children into New England about 1682. The conventicles
having been forbidden by law and frequently disturbed induced
some considerable men of his acquaintance to remove to that
country, and he was prevailed with to accompany them thither,
where they expected to enjoy their mode of religion with
freedom. By the same wife he had four children more born there,
and by a second wife ten more, in all seventeen, of whom I
remember thirteen sitting at one time at his table, who all grew
up to be men and women and married. I was the youngest son and
the youngest child but two, and was born in Boston, New England.
My mother, the second, was Abiah Folger, daughter of Peter
Folger, one of the first settlers of New England, of whom
honorable mention is made by Cotton Mather, in his church
history of that country, as "a godly, pious, learned
Englishman." I have heard that he wrote sundry small occasional
pieces, but only one of them was printed, which I saw now many
years since. It was written in 1675, in the home-spun verse of
that time and people, and addressed to those then concerned in
the government there. It was in favor of liberty of conscience
and in behalf of the Baptists, Quakers, and other sectaries
that had been under persecution. The whole appeared to me to be
written with a good deal of decent plainness and manly freedom.
The six concluding lines I remember, though I have forgotten the
two first of the stanza; but the purport of them was that his
censures proceeded from good will and therefore he would be
known to be the author:

"Because to be a libeller
I hate it with my heart.
From Sherburne town, where now I dwell,
My name I do put here;
Without offence your real friend,
It is Peter Folgier!"

X. Questions and Topics for Oral Composition

1. What is the subject of "disturbed," line 3?
2. Discuss the subject of "conventicles."
3. To what religious sect did Josiah Franklin belong?
4. Why did he come to America?
5. Who was Cotton Mather?
6. Define "sundry" and "occasional."
7. What is "homespun verse"? Explain the figure.
8. Define "sectaries" and "stanza."

XI. Exercises

1. Rewrite Model III in modern English.

2. Write an account of your own parents of about the same length as
Model III.

3. Before deciding finally on the style of this account of your
parents, seek in the corresponding sections of several
biographies for hints. Good ones may be discovered in Boswell's
_Johnson_, Lockhart's _Scott_, Southey's _Nelson_, Trevelyan's
_Macaulay_, and Hallam Tennyson's _Tennyson_.

XII. Suggested Reading

O. W. Holmes's _Grandmother's Story of Bunker Hill_ and _Dorothy Q_.

XIII. Memorize

PROCRASTINATION

Be wise to-day; 'tis madness to defer;
Next day the fatal precedent will plead.
Procrastination is the thief of time.
At thirty, man suspects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
At fifty chides his infamous delay,
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve,
In all the magnanimity of thought
Resolves, and re-resolves; then dies the same.
EDWARD YOUNG.