Boston was a city of statues. As soon as I left the train station I began to notice likenesses of patriots on almost every street. I stopped to admire a bronze statue of Daniel Webster in front of the State House. And on its back lawn was a statue of Horace Mann, wearing a long robe and looking more like Socrates than a modern educational reformer. As I passed City Hall, I spied the grandest statue of them all, taller than any man living. A plaque at the base of the statue read Benjamin Franklin. How imposing he was, yet at the same time how ordinary. He was in the everyday dress of his time, one hundred years ago, and he looked down as if he had been arrested in mid-step by the thought of some new invention.    Please subscribe to keep reading.