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On Humility, it seemed that Socrates was of the admission-of-ignorance school; I suppose he probably invented it. That, at least, was consistent with Chris’s four stages of learning. But that wasn’t really what interested me about what Dr. Murray said. The theme that I kept coming back to was this: Socrates was, above all else, a teacher. (I should note that he was an unpaid teacher and was ultimately tried and sentenced to death for teaching. Where were the teachers’ unions in ancient Greece?)

That was the missing piece, the common element, the theme that bound up Jesus, Socrates, and Benjamin Franklin. They were all, in their way, teachers. That was what Humility was for me.

{ He was so learned that he could name a horse in nine languages; so ignorant that he bought a cow to ride on.}

For Franklin, I decided, Humility—imitating Jesus and Socrates—was about being a teacher. Had I done that? Had I been a teacher? No, I didn’t think so. Instead, I had been taught. I thought back over the week. Chris had taught me about Jesus and the four stages of learning. My cousin’s twelve-year-old son had taught me about tolerance and Humility, and finally, Dr. Murray had tied the entire week up in a nice big bow.

Of all, I think I appreciated Dr. Murray’s lesson the most. Not because of what it told me about Socrates but for what it compelled me to do next. Dr. Murray’s lesson was responsible for my last act as a devotee of Benjamin Franklin.

My last Franklinian gesture was a telephone call to a teacher to say thanks.

An Apple for the Teacher

I love the symmetry of life—the way things come full circle. There is something satisfying and poetic about a resolution that takes the long view to appreciate. Thus, I decided that my course of Franklin’s virtues and, particularly, my week of Humility needed a spectacular finish—a symmetrical, symbolic ending to a virtue that has been my undoing for nearly four decades. Given that the last week was the week of Humility, the course should end with gratitude.

I reached into my past, into the days when I had strived too hard to be somebody, to offer a long overdue thank-you to the teacher who made an effort to take a long view of my potential. I had started the week of Humility with Bob Gillis on my mind—Bob, who had gone beyond the simple obligations of curriculum and course materials and tried to teach me a real life lesson. I’m sure my vice of arrogance was apparent to all of my teachers, but he was the only one who pulled me aside and tried to teach me the virtue of Humility—to teach me that achieving Humility raises us above our base selves. He tried to get me to recognize the benefit of communal living, of shared experience, of our place in the grand scheme.

In this week of Humility, I decided it was time to let Bob know what that gesture, and he himself, had meant to me.

“Hello, Cameron, it’s good to hear from you.” It was a pleasant start, and as we shared bits of our recent history, I was reminded of why Bob was my favorite teacher. He understood us, our needs and desires, our frustrations at being restrained from running headlong into the wide world that lay before us. He loosened the reins just a bit (and in my case, snapped them back at least once).

“Bob, the real reason I’m calling is to say thanks.” I had never done this before. I had never called someone to offer thanks for something done years before. It felt awkward but, at the same time, strangely right. “I wanted to thank you,” I repeated.

“For what?” he asked.

Here it was. The circle was closing. A lesson had finally been learned and was about to be acknowledged. “Do you remember,” I asked, “taking me aside and telling me that I needed to be more humble?”

There was only the briefest of pauses before he replied, “No, not really.”

“Oh.” I was stunned. “I see.” I couldn’t think of what else to say.

Why had I thought that this instant in a school hallway was as important a moment in his life as it had been