This university mural features a Ben Franklin quote he never said

SILVER CITY — The J. Cloyd Miller Library, named for a past Western New Mexico University president, looks over Silver City from a hilltop on the university campus.

A few years ago, the library’s entrance was spruced up by a youth art project including tile art and two inspirational quotations credited to famous authors.

To the right, spelled out in tile, is, “I am not a teacher but an awakener,” widely attributed to Robert Frost on the internet; and on the left, another online favorite, ascribed to Benjamin Franklin: “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”

Community volunteers, led by elementary and high school students, sculpted clay facsimiles of the spines of their favorite books and represented rare books in the library’s collection. The mural also features a tree with foliage composed of ceramic hands, a visual reference to early childhood education studies at WNMU.

The mural, titled “A Community Reads,” was a project of the Youth Mural Program, which has executed community murals in downtown Silver City, on WNMU’s campus and other locations in Grant County. Work on the mural began in 2018 and finished in 2020.

Artist Diana Ingalls Leyba, who oversaw the mural, told the Journal, “It was designed by kids … there are probably 2,000 pieces up there.”

The quotations flanking the entrance were researched and selected by students and not double-checked by teachers or others, Leyba said.

Yet the authorship of the quotes is in doubt. Although the Frost quotation has been widely shared online, many articles are careful to describe the statement as “attributed to Robert Frost,” in the absence of a primary source.

As for the Franklin quote, also popular online, the nonprofit Franklin Institute, which maintains a museum in Philadelphia devoted to the 18th-century inventor, statesman and author, includes the quotation on a list of “7 Things Benjamin Franklin Never Said” on its website.

Yet one expert on misquotations expressed sympathy over the WNMU monument, pointing out that the artists are in fine company, including the U.S. Postal Service and even a former president.

‘Misquotations are prevalent’

As the great Russian novelist Sun-Tzu once said, “Don’t believe everything you read on the internet.”

False quotations are nothing new and some are well established in folklore: There is no evidence, for instance, that George Washington ever said, “I cannot tell a lie,” and historians attest that Marie Antoinette did not actually say, “Let them eat cake.”

Mistaken attributions are also widespread. For instance, according to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, an “overwhelming ocean of bogus quotations” attributed to the third president of the United States include several that actually originate in an introduction to a book about Jefferson, not from Jefferson’s own pen.

Garson O’Toole — a pseudonym for Gregory Sullivan, the author behind the website QuoteInvestigator.com as well as the book, “Hemingway Didn’t Say That: The Truth Behind Familiar Quotations” — researches inaccurate or wrongly-attributed quotations that spread online and traces them to their original sources, when possible. He likens his work to “trying to solve a whodunit mystery.”

The QI website includes an article about the “Tell me and I forget” quotation.

“Misquotations are prevalent in popular culture,” O’Toole told the Journal. “A monument with a misquotation is embarrassing, but not unprecedented. I am sympathetic. A bigger mistake was arguably made by the U.S. Postal Service in 2015 when it released a commemorative stamp for Maya Angelou emblazoned with a quotation she did not create.”

The quotation was “A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song,” and was actually written by author Joan Walsh Anglund. It was widely attributed to Angelou online, however, and had even been cited in a public address by President Barack Obama in 2013.

With the speed and global reach of social media, misinformation about who said what gains currency faster than ever. Reference books full of researched and carefully cited quotations have been supplanted by websites such as BrainyQuote.com, GoodReads.com and others that depend on user submissions that are not verified.

‘A great quote either way’

O’Toole says confronting individuals about misquotations often provokes defensive reactions, but added, “employing inaccurate quotations is hazardous, especially if you are a leader in politics, academia, or business. The resultant mockery may be public or private.”

O’Toole recommended, as a reference book, “The New Yale Book of Quotations.”

The university acknowledged that the epigram was wrongly attributed to Franklin, but expressed appreciation for the mural as whole, including its “thought-provoking quotations about teaching and learning.”

“The WNMU community is grateful to the Youth Mural Program for the significant contributions it has made toward beautifying the university’s campus through inspirational public art,” the statement concluded.

“It’s a great quote either way, and so true,” Leyba responded. “When we update the website (YouthMurals.org), we’ll add a correction.”