autobiography of benjamin franklin apush definition

Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (The)

By Rachel Lewis

Over eighteen years, from 1771 until his death, Benjamin Franklin (1706-90) composed an unfinished record of his life’s tribulations and successes. Written in simple, often humorous language, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin offered readers in the new United States an accessible, exemplary narrative of American upward mobility. An integral thread in the fabric of Franklin’s history, Philadelphia is the setting for much of the autobiography and the site where Franklin composed portions of the work.

The Autobiography is arranged in four parts, each with a distinct purpose and tone, though Franklin intended for the work to be read fluidly as a whole. He began writing The Autobiography in 1771, during a stay in London of more than ten years as a mediator between England and the American colonies. Although Philadelphia was Franklin’s home, this trip marked his third sojourn to England. As a young man, Franklin traveled to England in 1724-26 to expand his knowledge of the printing trade and then returned to Philadelphia where he would seize production of The Pennsylvania Gazette from Samuel Keimer (c. 1688-1742) and begin Poor Richard’s Almanack . After thirty years of building his reputation as a printer and civic leader, Franklin also spent five years in England as a diplomat for the Pennsylvania Assembly beginning in 1757.

Written during the era of tension between the British and the colonies caused by seemingly arbitrary taxation, Part One of The Autobiography takes the form of a letter addressed to Franklin’s son William (1731-1814), then serving as royal governor of New Jersey. Franklin documents his childhood and adolescence, including his arrival in Philadelphia and his achievements in the printing business. He recounts his lineage, depicts his early life in Boston, and documents his apprenticeship with his brother James (1697-1735), a printer. After a dispute with his brother, at the young age of seventeen Franklin leaves his apprenticeship and resolves to move secretly to New York. There, he has trouble finding work and thus moves to Philadelphia.

Part One chronicles Franklin’s eventful journey to Philadelphia, including his arrival by boat on October 6, 1723, after first docking in Burlington, New Jersey. Franklin calls attention to the contrast between his humble beginnings and entrance into Philadelphia and his eventual status as a businessman, civic leader, and public servant, addressing the reader directly: “You may in your Mind compare such unlikely Beginning with the Figure I have since made there.” Recalling the experience of arriving in his new city, he writes, “I knew no Soul, nor where to look for Lodging,” and then describes his first day in Philadelphia: “I walk’d up [Market] Street , gazing about, till near the Market House I met a Boy with Bread. I had many a Meal on Bread and inquiring where he got it, I went immediately to the Baker’s he directed me to in Second Street; and ask’d for Biscuit, intending such as we had in Boston, but they it seems were not made in Philadelphia.” Franklin’s first walk through the city took him west on Market Street to Fourth Street, then to Chestnut Street and Walnut Street, and “coming round found [himself] again at Market Street Wharf,” near where his boat was docked. At the end of his walk, Franklin entered “the Great meeting house of the Quakers near the market.” Although Franklin himself was not a Quaker, in The Autobiography he recounts the courtesy shown him by the Society of Friends: “I sat down among them, and, after looking round awhile and hearing nothing said, being very drowsy thro’ labour and want of rest the preceding night, I fell fast asleep, and continu’d so till the meeting broke up, when one was kind enough to rouse me. This was, therefore, the first house I was in, or slept in, in Philadelphia.”

Early Years in Philadelphia

In Philadelphia, Franklin creates a life for himself. He attempts to find work as a printer and struggles with financial burdens. Eventually he finds lodging with John Read (1677-1724), a carpenter and building contractor, and begins to court Read’s daughter, Deborah (1707-74). Throughout his young adulthood, Franklin spends time in London studying the printing trade (1724-26). In Philadelphia Franklin establishes “ The Junto ,” an intellectual and philosophical conversation group, where he first introduces the concept of the lending library. Franklin finds work as a printer with Samuel Keimer and in 1729 buys his newspaper, The Pennsylvania Gazette, and eventually becomes the official printer for the Pennsylvania Assembly.

Franklin’s writings became associated with American mythologies of success early on. A contemporary of Franklin, his friend and fellow diplomat Benjamin Vaughan (1751-1835), read Part One of the memoir-in-progress in 1783 and noted that it exemplified the American ideal of upward social mobility: “All that has happened to you, is connected with the detail of the manners and situation of a rising people.” Vaughan’s statement, written in the aftermath of the American Revolution, speaks not only to Franklin’s achievement as an individual but also to the milieu in which he was writing and his audience of Americans in search of national and individual identities.

Franklin began writing Part Two of his autobiography in 1784 while serving as the United States minister plenipotentiary to France. This section is perhaps the best known of The Autobiography because it includes Franklin’s list of thirteen virtues for self-improvement: Temperance, Silence, Order, Resolution, Frugality, Industry, Sincerity, Justice, Moderation, Cleanliness, Tranquility, Chastity, and Humility. Franklin puts forth a plan to develop one virtue per week, intending to eventually perfect all thirteen virtues. Franklin’s virtues are meant to appeal to people of all religions, making his tenets for moral perfection a viable option for all people. Franklin’s emphasis on these thirteen virtues in The Autobiography has been cited as the impetus for self-help literature. Although inspirational for many, the message of self-improvement also drew negative criticism from such notable and varied figures as John Adams (1735-1826) and Abigail Adams (1744-1818), Mark Twain (1835-1910), and D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930), who found Franklin’s Puritan-like self-criticism to be inaccessible and improbable. Nevertheless, Franklin developed Puritan and Quaker influences into a message that mass audiences found instructive.

Franklin returned to writing his autobiography from 1788 to 1789, following his return from France in 1785 and his participation in the Constitutional Convention (May 25-September 17, 1787). Now in his eighties, Franklin in Part Three reflects on his life from 1730 through the late 1750s and highlights his involvement in politics, science, and publishing. At this time, Franklin also began to revise the already completed parts of The Autobiography manuscript.

Franklin as Publisher

In Part Three, Franklin describes his continuing involvement in the publishing industry with Poor Richard’s Almanack , first published in 1732 and subsequently for the next twenty-five years. Franklin uses the almanac and his newspaper, The Pennsylvania Gazette, to achieve his goal of educating common people. Franklin becomes clerk of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania and then deputy postmaster of Philadelphia, which allows him to distribute his Gazette by mail. In 1753, Franklin is appointed postmaster general of America. Franklin also publishes influential pamphlets, such as Plain Truth (1747), which outlines the need for colonial unity, and Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Philadelphia (1749), which leads to the creation of the Academy of Philadelphia in 1751 (in 1791, renamed the University of Pennsylvania). Franklin’s political agenda also includes advocating for the education of women. In Part Three, Franklin speculates on creating a political “Party of Virtue,” whose members would subscribe to his thirteen virtues as well as a compilation of virtues distilled from various religions. He also recounts his activities in science and invention, including the invention of the stove in 1742 and the notable 1752 kite experiment, which concluded that lightning and electricity are, in fact, one and the same. Culminating two decades of publishing, political, and scientific, advancements, the Pennsylvania Assembly appoints Franklin to the role of commissioner to England in 1756.

Part Four, written between November 1789 and his death on April 17, 1790, briefly documents Franklin’s journey to London from 1757 to 1762, where he petitions the Penn family for financial assistance on behalf of the Pennsylvania Assembly. In 1762, after the Penn family agreed to provide financial assistance to Pennsylvania for events transpiring in the colony, such as the French and Indian War (1754-63), Franklin returns to Philadelphia. The brevity of Part Four reflects Franklin’s declining health.

Franklin’s autobiography has a complex publication history. After Franklin’s death in 1790, his grandson William Temple Franklin (1762-1823) served as his literary executor. However, without his approval, unauthorized excerpts of The Autobiography appeared in Philadelphia magazines, Universal Asylum and Columbian Magazine (May 1790-June 1791), and American Museum (July and November 1790). The text made its debut as a book in Paris in 1791 as a French translation of Franklin’s manuscript of Part One, subsequently translated into German and Swedish. An English translation of the French edition, titled The Private Life of the Late Benjamin Franklin , was published in London in 1793. By the next year, American editions based on the retranslated edition circulated in New York and Philadelphia. More than two decades passed before William Temple Franklin released his own edition, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Benjamin Franklin , in 1818. Although this edition became viewed as the standard version, it remained flawed; based on an unrevised manuscript, it did not include Franklin’s revisions of the text or Franklin’s Part Four. In 1828 Part Four made its debut in Mémoires Sur La Vie De Benjamin Franklin , a Paris edition written in French.

A Resurgence in Popularity

Finally, in 1868, seventy-eight years after Franklin’s death, all four parts of Franklin’s Autobiography appeared in an edition produced by John Bigelow (1817-1911), an American author, journalist, and diplomat. This edition, titled Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin used Franklin’s final manuscript. The autobiography’s resurgence in the late nineteenth century mirrored the publication of “rags-to-riches” young adult novels by Horatio Alger Jr. (1832-99), in which impoverished boys rise through hard work and determination to lives of middle-class security and comfort. The life of Benjamin Franklin fits into this schema that became known as the “Horatio Alger Myth.”

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin has served as source material for Franklin’s many biographers and continues to be republished in various forms, including digital e-books and audiobooks. The manuscript of Franklin’s autobiography was made available digitally through the Huntington Digital Library. An accessible text, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin continues to be read widely by students and scholars in the twenty-first century.

Rachel Lewis is enrolled in the Rutgers University-Camden Graduate School, where she is pursuing her master’s degree in English and New Jersey Teacher Certification in secondary education of English. (Author information current at time of publication.)

Copyright 2018, Rutgers University

Thomas Holme’s A Portraiture of the City of Philadelphia, 1683

Historical Society of Pennsylvania

On the 1683 map pictured here, High Street, or Market Street, runs horizontally through the center square of the Philadelphia grid and is denoted in fine script handwriting. In his Autobiography, Franklin recounted his first day in Philadelphia: “I walk’d up [Market] Street, gazing about, till near the Market House I met a Boy with Bread. I had many a Meal on Bread and inquiring where he got it, I went immediately to the Baker’s he directed me to in Second Street; and ask’d for Biscuit, intending such as we had in Boston, but they it seems were not made in Philadelphia.” Franklin’s first walk through the city took him west on Market Street to Fourth Street, then to Chestnut Street and Walnut Street, and “coming round found [himself] again at Market Street Wharf,” where his boat was docked.

Poor Richard's Almanack, 1733

In December 1732, under the pseudonym Richard Saunders or “Poor Richard,” Benjamin Franklin published the first installment of Poor Richard’s Almanack. Each edition of Poor Richard typically included information regarding the calendar, the weather, local court dates, and astrological movements, in addition to Poor Richard’s “witticisms.” This photograph depicts the “Third Impression” of Poor Richard’s, the January 1733 edition in which Franklin first published the saying, “He that lies down with Dogs, shall rise up with fleas.” Poor Richard’s became a very profitable enterprise for Franklin and continued to be published continuously for twenty-five years, selling an average of 10,000 copies annually. Franklin used the almanac and his newspaper, The Pennsylvania Gazette, to achieve his goal of educating common people.

Various Notes Printed by Benjamin Franklin, 1760

Pennsylvania first began using paper currency in 1723, after two acts approved in 1723 and 1726 by the Pennsylvania governor, Sir William Keith (1669-1749). As a contentious issue, concern about paper currency circulated among members of Benjamin Franklin’s conversation group, the Junto. On April 3, 1729, Franklin anonymously published a pamphlet titled “A Modest Inquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency,” arguing in favor of paper currency as a mode to successfully conduct business and trade. Franklin’s support of paper currency also permeated his work as a printer: in 1731 he printed money for the Pennsylvania Assembly, and he did the same for other colonies, including Delaware and New Jersey. Franklin also pioneered anti-counterfeiting techniques by printing images of leaves onto paper money, making it difficult to replicate. Pictured here is an example of Franklin’s technique on notes printed in 1760.

Franklin continued to have a presence on American currency in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. His portrait has been on $100 Federal Reserve notes since they were first issued in 1914. Most United States currency features portraits of former United States presidents, but Franklin’s $100 note and the $10 bill featuring Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804) are exceptions. The back of Franklin’s $100 bill portrays Philadelphia’s Independence Hall.

Portrait of Benjamin Franklin, 1778-79

Philadelphia Museum of Art

While Franklin lived in France, the artist Anne-Rosalie Bocquet Filleul (1752-94) painted this portrait depicting Franklin in his early seventies, gesturing toward a piece of paper accompanied by a pair of bifocals. In 1779 Louis Jacques Cathelin (1738-1804) made an engraving of Filleul’s painting and labeled the map on the table “Philadelphia.”

Franklin's Return to Philadelphia, 1785

Library of Congress

Benjamin Franklin began writing Part Two of his Autobiography in 1784 while living abroad in France. After the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the Continental Congress sent Franklin to join Silas Deane (1738-89) to seek political and financial support from France for the American struggle for independence. Later Franklin and Deane, joined by Arthur Lee (1740-92), a lawyer in London and American diplomat, negotiated the Treaty of Alliance and Treaty of Amity and Commerce with France, which were signed on February 6, 1778. Franklin was then elected minister plenipotentiary to France and the sole representative of America in France. Franklin lived in Passy, France, for nine years and returned to America in 1785, as depicted in this 1932 painting by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris (1863-1930).

Following his return to Philadelphia from France, Franklin composed Part Three of the Autobiography during 1788-89, after he participated in the drafting and signing of the new U.S. Constitution. Franklin died April 17, 1790, five years after his return to Philadelphia.

Horatio Alger Jr.

The resurgence of Franklin’s Autobiography in the late nineteenth century with the publication of the 1868 edition of Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by John Bigelow (1817-1911) mirrored the popularity of the “rags to riches” young adult novels by Horatio Alger Jr. (1832-99). Alger told stories of the rise of impoverished boys to lives of middle-class security and comfort through hard work and determination. Ben the Luggage Boy, shown here, was published in 1867 as the fifth installment in the Ragged Dick Series. The book follows the story of Ben as he runs away from home and lives on the streets of New York City, where he finds work as a newsboy and as a “luggage boy.” Alger's young adult novels fed the "Horatio Alger Myth": a teenage boy works hard to escape poverty. The life of Benjamin Franklin fits into the schema of the Horatio Alger Myth.

The American ideal of upward mobility in Franklin’s autobiography was noted as early as 1783, when Benjamin Vaughan (1751-1835), a diplomat instrumental in the creation of the Treaty of Paris and a friend to Franklin, wrote to the author: “All that has happened to you, is connected with the detail of the manners and situation of a rising people.” Vaughan’s statement spoke not only to Franklin’s achievement as an individual but also to the milieu in which he wrote and his audience: people of a new nation searching for American identity and individual identities. Franklin has been dubbed the “first American” for his social mobility, and his ability to depict this ascension in his Autobiography made the rags-to-riches narrative widely accessible. Written in simple, often humorous language, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin became an exemplar of the “American Dream.”

The Benjamin Franklin National Memorial

Visit Philadelphia

Between 1906 and 1911 American sculptor James Earle Fraser (1876-1953) created the monumental sculpture of Benjamin Franklin that later became featured in the Benjamin Franklin National Memorial. The sculpture and the Franklin Institute’s Memorial Hall, designed by John Windrim (1866-1934), were designated as a national memorial by Congress on October 25, 1972. The 20-feet-tall sculpture weighs 30 tons and sits upon a pedestal of white Seravezza marble weighing 92 tons. Unlike other national memorials, the Benjamin Franklin National Memorial is not included in the National Register of Historic Places. Instead, it is administered by the National Park Service.

Samuel Vaughan Merrick (1801-70) and William H. Keating (1799-1844) founded the Franklin Institute of the State of Pennsylvania for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts on February 5, 1824. At its inception, the Franklin Institute offered science and technology classes as well as significant K-12 child outreach to Philadelphians. The institute was so popular that a little over a year after its founding it needed a new home. Architect John Haviland (1792-1852) designed the building, and construction began in June 1825 on Seventh Street (later the site of the Phildelphia History Museum). In 1932, during the Great Depression, the Franklin Institute built a new building at Twentieth Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. The reimagined Franklin Institute opened to the public on January 1, 1934, as one of the first museums in the country to offer a hands-on approach to the understanding of science and technology. The Franklin Institute charges an admission fee, but entrance to Memorial Hall is free for community members and tourists who wish to gaze upon the prodigious sculpture of Benjamin Franklin.

The Ghost House of Benjamin Franklin

Franklin lived in the home represented in this photograph throughout his time as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention until his death in 1790. Earlier, Franklin’s family, including his wife, Deborah (1708-74), and their daughter, Sarah Franklin Bache (l1743-1808) and her family, lived in the home beginning in 1763 while Franklin was in London. Sally and her family continued to live in the home after Deborah’s death in 1774.

Following Franklin’s death, Sarah and her family inherited the Franklin home, and beginning in 1794 they rented it to tenants. Then, the home became a boarding house, an academy, a coffee house, and a hotel. By 1812, the land had increased in value and the Bache heirs decided to tear down the house and rebuild the land with rental row houses. In 1948, Congress created Independence National Historical Park, which included the Franklin Court site. The complex including a “ghost structure,” designed by the firm Venturi, Rauch and Scott Brown, opened in 1976 as part of the United States Bicentennial celebration.

The ghost structure of steel beams traces the outline of Franklin’s home and print shop, as shown in this photograph. The structure is located adjacent to the Benjamin Franklin Museum, which opened on September 20, 2013, and has continued to teach visitors about the various roles Franklin played throughout his lifetime as a printer, scientist, and civic leader.

Related Topics

• Philadelphia and the World
• Philadelphia and the Nation
• Cradle of Liberty

Time Periods

• Colonial Era
• Nineteenth Century after 1854
• American Revolution Era
• Center City Philadelphia
• Book Publishing and Publishers
• Franklin Institute
• Library Company of Philadelphia
• Market Street
• Printing and Publishing
• Revolutionary Crisis (American Revolution)

Related Reading

Baker, Jennifer Jordan. “Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography and the Credibility of Personality.” Early American Literature, no. 3 (2000): 274-93.

Bobker, Danielle. “Intimate points: The Dash in The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.” Papers On Language & Literature, no. 4 (2013): 415-43.

Effing, Mercé Mur. “The Origin and Development of Self-Help Literature in the United States: The Concept of Success and Happiness, an Overview.” Atlantis: Revista De La Asociación Española De Estudios Ingleses Y Norteamericanos 31, no. 2 (December 2009): 125-41.

Fichtelberg, Joseph. “The Complex Image: Text and Reader in the ‘Autobiography’ of Benjamin Franklin.” Early American Literature, no. 2 (1988): 202-16.

Forde, Steven. “Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography and the Education of America.” The American Political Science Review, no. 2 (1992): 357-68.

Franklin, Benjamin, and Joyce E. Chaplin. Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography: An Authoritative Text, Contexts, Criticism . New York: W.W. Norton, 2012.

Franklin, Benjamin, and Paul M. Zall. Franklin On Franklin . Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2000.

Seavey, Ormond. Becoming Benjamin Franklin: The Autobiography and the Life . University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1988.

Related Collections

• Miscellaneous Benjamin Franklin Collections American Philosophical Society 105 S. Fifth Street, Philadelphia. 
• Benjamin Franklin Collection Princeton University Library Department of Rare Books and Special Collections Manuscripts Division 1 Washington Road, Princeton, N.J.
• The Papers of Benjamin Franklin https://www.yale.edu P.O. Box 208240, New Haven, Conn.

Related Places

• The American Philosophical Society
• Benjamin Franklin Museum
• The Library Company of Philadelphia
• University of Pennsylvania
• Benjamin Franklin (American Philosophical Society Library)
• The Benjamin Franklin Papers (The Library of Congress)
• Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. Edited by John Bigelow, 1868 (Hathi Trust Digital Library)
• The World of Benjamin Franklin (The Historical Society of Pennsylvania)
• Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. Handwritten by Author, 1771-1789 (Huntington Digital Library)
• Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. Edited by Frank Woodworth Pine, 2006 (Project Gutenberg)
• Histories of the University and Published Articles (University of Pennsylvania Archives and Records Center)

Connecting the Past with the Present, Building Community, Creating a Legacy

Literature of Enlightenment, Revolution, & the New Nation

Benjamin franklin, autobiography, introduction: benjamin franklin (1706-1790).

Franklin took to printing and the printed word, reading voraciously not only the business’s publications but also the books loaned to him by its patrons and friends. Through reading and using texts as models, Franklin acquired great facility in writing. An editorial he wrote under the pseudonym of “Silence Dogood” was published by his brother, who had no idea of the piece’s true authorship. James was imprisoned after quarreling with Massachusetts authorities, leaving Franklin to run the business during his absence. Franklin was only sixteen.

James also quarreled with Benjamin, who sought freedom from James’s temper and tyranny by running away, determined to make his own way in the world. In 1723, he arrived in Philadelphia and walked up the Market Street wharf munching on one of three large puffy rolls and carrying small change in his pocket. He found work as a printer there until, upon what proved to be the groundless encouragement of William Keith (1669–1749), a governor of the province, Franklin traveled to England to purchase printing equipment and start a new printing business of his own. He worked for others at printing houses for two years before returning home. While in England, he also read widely, and saw first-hand the growing importance of the periodical, the long periodical essay, and the persona of an author who served as intermediary between a large audience of readers and the news and events of the day.

He put this knowledge to good purpose once he returned to Philadelphia, first co-owning then owning outright a new printing business that published The Pennsylvania Gazette; books from the Continent; and, from 1733 to 1758, an almanac using the persona of Poor Richard, or Richard Saunders. Poor Richard’s Almanac became immensely popular, eventually selling 10,000 copies per year. With wit, puns, and word play, Franklin offered distinctly American aphorisms, maxims, and proverbs on reason versus faith, household management, thrift, the work ethic, and good manners.

In 1730, he married Deborah Read who bore two children and helped raise Franklin’s illegitimate son William. It was for William that Franklin wrote the first part of The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. The quintessential selfmade man, his business success allowed Franklin to retire at the age of forty-two and focus his energies on the common good and public affairs. He had already contributed a great deal to both, including inventing an eponymous stove and founding the first circulating library; the American Philosophical Society; and the Pennsylvania Hospital. He also promoted the establishment of the University of Pennsylvania, an institution of higher learning grounded in secular education.

He applied the tenets of this education in first-hand observation and study of the natural world, from earthquakes to electricity. His Experiments and Observations on Electricity (1751–1753) won him the respect of scientists around the world. Like other humanist-deist thinkers of his day, Franklin used reason to overcome institutional tyrannies over mind and body. Between the years 1757 and 1775, he actively sought to overcome England’s tyranny over the colonies in two separate diplomatic missions to England, representing Pennsylvania, Georgia, Massachusetts, and New Jersey and also protesting the Stamp Act.

The rising sense of injustice against England led to the First and then the Second Continental Congresses, at the latter of which Franklin represented Pennsylvania and served with Thomas Jefferson on the committee that drafted the 1776 Declaration of Independence, a declaration that represented all thirteen colonies. Central to the beginning of the American Revolution, Franklin was also central to its end in 1783 through the Treaty of Paris that he, John Jay, and John Adams shaped and signed. And he helped shape the future of the United States of America by serving on the Constitutional Convention that wrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Throughout all these great actions and events, Franklin wrote didactic works leavened by an extraordinary blend of worldliness and earnestness and enlivened by wit, humor, and sometimes deceptive irony.

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (Excerpts)

Part i (1789).

I have been the more particular in this description of my journey, and shall be so of my first entry into that city [Philadelphia], that you may in your mind compare such unlikely beginnings with the figure I have since made there. I was in my working dress, my best cloaths being to come round by sea. I was dirty from my journey; my pockets were stuff’d out with shirts and stockings, and I knew no soul nor where to look for lodging. I was fatigued with travelling, rowing, and want of rest, I was very hungry; and my whole stock of cash consisted of a Dutch dollar, and about a shilling in copper. The latter I gave the people of the boat for my passage, who at first refus’d it, on account of my rowing; but I insisted on their taking it. A man being sometimes more generous when he has but a little money than when he has plenty, perhaps thro’ fear of being thought to have but little.

Then I walked up the street, gazing about till near the market-house I met a boy with bread. I had made many a meal on bread, and, inquiring where he got it, I went immediately to the baker’s he directed me to, in Second-street, and ask’d for bisket, intending such as we had in Boston; but they, it seems, were not made in Philadelphia. Then I asked for a three-penny loaf, and was told they had none such. So not considering or knowing the difference of money, and the greater cheapness nor the names of his bread, I made him give me three-penny worth of any sort. He gave me, accordingly, three great puffy rolls. I was surpriz’d at the quantity, but took it, and, having no room in my pockets, walk’d off with a roll under each arm, and eating the other. Thus I went up Market-street as far as Fourth-street, passing by the door of Mr. Read, my future wife’s father; when she, standing at the door, saw me, and thought I made, as I certainly did, a most awkward, ridiculous appearance. Then I turned and went down Chestnut-street and part of Walnut-street, eating my roll all the way, and, coming round, found myself again at Market-street wharf, near the boat I came in, to which I went for a draught of the river water; and, being filled with one of my rolls, gave the other two to a woman and her child that came down the river in the boat with us, and were waiting to go farther.

Thus refreshed, I walked again up the street, which by this time had many clean-dressed people in it, who were all walking the same way. I joined them, and thereby was led into the great meeting-house of the Quakers near the market. I sat down among them, and, after looking round awhile and hearing nothing said, being very drowsy thro’ labor and want of rest the preceding night, I fell fast asleep, and continued so till the meeting broke up, when one was kind enough to rouse me. This was, therefore, the first house I was in, or slept in, in Philadelphia.

Walking down again toward the river, and, looking in the faces of people, I met a young Quaker man, whose countenance I lik’d, and, accosting him, requested he would tell me where a stranger could get lodging. We were then near the sign of the Three Mariners. “Here,” says he, “is one place that entertains strangers, but it is not a reputable house; if thee wilt walk with me, I’ll show thee a better.” He brought me to the Crooked Billet in Water-street. Here I got a dinner; and, while I was eating it, several sly questions were asked me, as it seemed to be suspected from my youth and appearance, that I might be some runaway.

After dinner, my sleepiness return’d, and being shown to a bed, I lay down without undressing, and slept till six in the evening, was call’d to supper, went to bed again very early, and slept soundly till next morning. Then I made myself as tidy as I could, and went to Andrew Bradford the printer’s. I found in the shop the old man his father, whom I had seen at New York, and who, travelling on horseback, had got to Philadelphia before me. He introduc’d me to his son, who receiv’d me civilly, gave me a breakfast, but told me he did not at present want a hand, being lately suppli’d with one; but there was another printer in town, lately set up, one Keimer, who, perhaps, might employ me; if not, I should be welcome to lodge at his house, and he would give me a little work to do now and then till fuller business should offer.

The old gentleman said he would go with me to the new printer; and when we found him, “Neighbor,” says Bradford, “I have brought to see you a young man of your business; perhaps you may want such a one.” He ask’d me a few questions, put a composing stick in my hand to see how I work’d, and then said he would employ me soon, though he had just then nothing for me to do; and, taking old Bradford, whom he had never seen before, to be one of the town’s people that had a good will for him, enter’d into a conversation on his present undertaking and prospects; while Bradford, not discovering that he was the other printer’s father, on Keimer’s saying he expected soon to get the greatest part of the business into his own hands, drew him on by artful questions, and starting little doubts, to explain all his views, what interests he reli’d on, and in what manner he intended to proceed. I, who stood by and heard all, saw immediately that one of them was a crafty old sophister, and the other a mere novice. Bradford left me with Keimer, who was greatly surpris’d when I told him who the old man was.

Keimer’s printing-house, I found, consisted of an old shatter’d press, and one small, worn-out font of English which he was then using himself, composing an Elegy on Aquila Rose, before mentioned, an ingenious young man, of excellent character, much respected in the town, clerk of the Assembly, and a pretty poet. Keimer made verses too, but very indifferently. He could not be said to write them, for his manner was to compose them in the types directly out of his head. So there being no copy, but one pair of cases, and the Elegy likely to require all the letter, no one could help him. I endeavor’d to put his press (which he had not yet us’d, and of which he understood nothing) into order fit to be work’d with; and, promising to come and print off his Elegy as soon as he should have got it ready, I return’d to Bradford’s, who gave me a little job to do for the present, and there I lodged and dieted. A few days after, Keimer sent for me to print off the Elegy. And now he had got another pair of cases, and a pamphlet to reprint, on which he set me to work.

These two printers I found poorly qualified for their business. Bradford had not been bred to it, and was very illiterate; and Keimer, tho’ something of a scholar, was a mere compositor, knowing nothing of presswork. He had been one of the French prophets, and could act their enthusiastic agitations. At this time he did not profess any particular religion, but something of all on occasion; was very ignorant of the world, and had, as I afterward found, a good deal of the knave in his composition. He did not like my lodging at Bradford’s while I work’d with him. He had a house, indeed, but without furniture, so he could not lodge me; but he got me a lodging at Mr. Read’s, before mentioned, who was the owner of his house; and, my chest and clothes being come by this time, I made rather a more respectable appearance in the eyes of Miss Read than I had done when she first happen’d to see me eating my roll in the street.

I began now to have some acquaintance among the young people of the town, that were lovers of reading, with whom I spent my evenings very pleasantly; and gaining money by my industry and frugality, I lived very agreeably, forgetting Boston as much as I could, and not desiring that any there should know where I resided, except my friend Collins, who was in my secret, and kept it when I wrote to him. At length, an incident happened that sent me back again much sooner than I had intended. I had a brother-in-law, Robert Holmes, master of a sloop that traded between Boston and Delaware. He being at Newcastle, forty miles below Philadelphia, heard there of me, and wrote me a letter mentioning the concern of my friends in Boston at my abrupt departure, assuring me of their good will to me, and that every thing would be accommodated to my mind if I would return, to which he exhorted me very earnestly. I wrote an answer to his letter, thank’d him for his advice, but stated my reasons for quitting Boston fully and in such a light as to convince him I was not so wrong as he had apprehended.

Sir William Keith, governor of the province, was then at Newcastle, and Captain Holmes, happening to be in company with him when my letter came to hand, spoke to him of me, and show’d him the letter. The governor read it, and seem’d surpris’d when he was told my age. He said I appear’d a young man of promising parts, and therefore should be encouraged; the printers at Philadelphia were wretched ones; and, if I would set up there, he made no doubt I should succeed; for his part, he would procure me the public business, and do me every other service in his power. This my brother-in-law afterwards told me in Boston, but I knew as yet nothing of it; when, one day, Keimer and I being at work together near the window, we saw the governor and another gentleman (which proved to be Colonel French, of Newcastle), finely dress’d, come directly across the street to our house, and heard them at the door.

Keimer ran down immediately, thinking it a visit to him; but the governor inquir’d for me, came up, and with a condescension of politeness I had been quite unus’d to, made me many compliments, desired to be acquainted with me, blam’d me kindly for not having made myself known to him when I first came to the place, and would have me away with him to the tavern, where he was going with Colonel French to taste, as he said, some excellent Madeira. I was not a little surprised, and Keimer star’d like a pig poison’d. I went, however, with the governor and Colonel French to a tavern, at the corner of Third-street, and over the Madeira he propos’d my setting up my business, laid before me the probabilities of success, and both he and Colonel French assur’d me I should have their interest and influence in procuring the public business of both governments. On my doubting whether my father would assist me in it, Sir William said he would give me a letter to him, in which he would state the advantages, and he did not doubt of prevailing with him. So it was concluded I should return to Boston in the first vessel, with the governor’s letter recommending me to my father. In the mean time the intention was to be kept a secret, and I went on working with Keimer as usual, the governor sending for me now and then to dine with him, a very great honor I thought it, and conversing with me in the most affable, familiar, and friendly manner imaginable.

About the end of April, 1724, a little vessel offer’d for Boston. I took leave of Keimer as going to see my friends. The governor gave me an ample letter, saying many flattering things of me to my father, and strongly recommending the project of my setting up at Philadelphia as a thing that must make my fortune. We struck on a shoal in going down the bay, and sprung a leak; we had a blustering time at sea, and were oblig’d to pump almost continually, at which I took my turn. We arriv’d safe, however, at Boston in about a fortnight. I had been absent seven months, and my friends had heard nothing of me; for my br. Holmes was not yet return’d, and had not written about me. My unexpected appearance surpriz’d the family; all were, however, very glad to see me, and made me welcome, except my brother. I went to see him at his printing-house. I was better dress’d than ever while in his service, having a genteel new suit from head to foot, a watch, and my pockets lin’d with near five pounds sterling in silver. He receiv’d me not very frankly, look’d me all over, and turn’d to his work again.

The journeymen were inquisitive where I had been, what sort of a country it was, and how I lik’d it. I prais’d it much, the happy life I led in it, expressing strongly my intention of returning to it; and, one of them asking what kind of money we had there, I produc’d a handful of silver, and spread it before them, which was a kind of raree-show they had not been us’d to, paper being the money of Boston. Then I took an opportunity of letting them see my watch; and, lastly (my brother still grum and sullen), I gave them a piece of eight to drink, and took my leave. This visit of mine offended him extreamly; for, when my mother some time after spoke to him of a reconciliation, and of her wishes to see us on good terms together, and that we might live for the future as brothers, he said I had insulted him in such a manner before his people that he could never forget or forgive it. In this, however, he was mistaken.

My father received the governor’s letter with some apparent surprise, but said little of it to me for some days, when Capt. Holmes returning he showed it to him, ask’d him if he knew Keith, and what kind of man he was; adding his opinion that he must be of small discretion to think of setting a boy up in business who wanted yet three years of being at man’s estate. Holmes said what he could in favor of the project, but my father was clear in the impropriety of it, and at last gave a flat denial to it. Then he wrote a civil letter to Sir William, thanking him for the patronage he had so kindly offered me, but declining to assist me as yet in setting up, I being, in his opinion, too young to be trusted with the management of a business so important, and for which the preparation must be so expensive.

My friend and companion Collins, who was a clerk in the post-office, pleas’d with the account I gave him of my new country, determined to go thither also; and, while I waited for my father’s determination, he set out before me by land to Rhode Island, leaving his books, which were a pretty collection of mathematicks and natural philosophy, to come with mine and me to New York, where he propos’d to wait for me.

My father, tho’ he did not approve Sir William’s proposition, was yet pleas’d that I had been able to obtain so advantageous a character from a person of such note where I had resided, and that I had been so industrious and careful as to equip myself so handsomely in so short a time; therefore, seeing no prospect of an accommodation between my brother and me, he gave his consent to my returning again to Philadelphia, advis’d me to behave respectfully to the people there, endeavor to obtain the general esteem, and avoid lampooning and libeling, to which he thought I had too much inclination; telling me, that by steady industry and a prudent parsimony I might save enough by the time I was one-and-twenty to set me up; and that, if I came near the matter, he would help me out with the rest. This was all I could obtain, except some small gifts as tokens of his and my mother’s love, when I embark’d again for New York, now with their approbation and their blessing.

I believe I have omitted mentioning that, in my first voyage from Boston, being becalm’d off Block Island, our people set about catching cod, and hauled up a great many. Hitherto I had stuck to my resolution of not eating animal food, and on this occasion consider’d, with my master Tryon, the taking every fish as a kind of unprovoked murder, since none of them had, or ever could do us any injury that might justify the slaughter. All this seemed very reasonable. But I had formerly been a great lover of fish, and, when this came hot out of the frying-pan, it smelt admirably well. I balanc’d some time between principle and inclination, till I recollected that, when the fish were opened, I saw smaller fish taken out of their stomachs; then thought I, “If you eat one another, I don’t see why we mayn’t eat you.” So I din’d upon cod very heartily, and continued to eat with other people, returning only now and then occasionally to a vegetable diet. So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.

Keimer and I liv’d on a pretty good familiar footing, and agreed tolerably well, for he suspected nothing of my setting up. He retained a great deal of his old enthusiasms and lov’d argumentation. We therefore had many disputations. I used to work him so with my Socratic method, and had trepann’d him so often by questions apparently so distant from any point we had in hand, and yet by degrees lead to the point, and brought him into difficulties and contradictions, that at last he grew ridiculously cautious, and would hardly answer me the most common question, without asking first, “What do you intend to infer from that?” However, it gave him so high an opinion of my abilities in the confuting way, that he seriously proposed my being his colleague in a project he had of setting up a new sect. He was to preach the doctrines, and I was to confound all opponents. When he came to explain with me upon the doctrines, I found several conundrums which I objected to, unless I might have my way a little too, and introduce some of mine.

Keimer wore his beard at full length, because somewhere in the Mosaic law it is said, “Thou shalt not mar the corners of thy beard.” He likewise kept the Seventh day, Sabbath; and these two points were essentials with him. I dislik’d both; but agreed to admit them upon condition of his adopting the doctrine of using no animal food. “I doubt,” said he, “my constitution will not bear that.” I assur’d him it would, and that he would be the better for it. He was usually a great glutton, and I promised myself some diversion in half starving him. He agreed to try the practice, if I would keep him company. I did so, and we held it for three months. We had our victuals dress’d, and brought to us regularly by a woman in the neighborhood, who had from me a list of forty dishes to be prepar’d for us at different times, in all which there was neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, and the whim suited me the better at this time from the cheapness of it, not costing us above eighteenpence sterling each per week. I have since kept several Lents most strictly, leaving the common diet for that, and that for the common, abruptly, without the least inconvenience, so that I think there is little in the advice of making those changes by easy gradations. I went on pleasantly, but poor Keimer suffered grievously, tired of the project, long’d for the flesh-pots of Egypt, and order’d a roast pig. He invited me and two women friends to dine with him; but, it being brought too soon upon table, he could not resist the temptation, and ate the whole before we came.

I had made some courtship during this time to Miss Read. I had a great respect and affection for her, and had some reason to believe she had the same for me; but, as I was about to take a long voyage, and we were both very young, only a little above eighteen, it was thought most prudent by her mother to prevent our going too far at present, as a marriage, if it was to take place, would be more convenient after my return, when I should be, as I expected, set up in my business. Perhaps, too, she thought my expectations not so well founded as I imagined them to be.

My chief acquaintances at this time were Charles Osborne, Joseph Watson, and James Ralph, all lovers of reading. The two first were clerks to an eminent scrivener or conveyancer in the town, Charles Brogden; the other was clerk to a merchant. Watson was a pious, sensible young man, of great integrity; the others rather more lax in their principles of religion, particularly Ralph, who, as well as Collins, had been unsettled by me, for which they both made me suffer. Osborne was sensible, candid, frank; sincere and affectionate to his friends; but, in literary matters, too fond of criticising. Ralph was ingenious, genteel in his manners, and extremely eloquent; I think I never knew a prettier talker. Both of them great admirers of poetry, and began to try their hands in little pieces. Many pleasant walks we four had together on Sundays into the woods, near Schuylkill, where we read to one another, and conferr’d on what we read.

Ralph was inclin’d to pursue the study of poetry, not doubting but he might become eminent in it, and make his fortune by it, alleging that the best poets must, when they first began to write, make as many faults as he did. Osborne dissuaded him, assur’d him he had no genius for poetry, and advis’d him to think of nothing beyond the business he was bred to; that, in the mercantile way, tho’ he had no stock, he might, by his diligence and punctuality, recommend himself to employment as a factor, and in time acquire wherewith to trade on his own account. I approv’d the amusing one’s self with poetry now and then, so far as to improve one’s language, but no farther.

On this it was propos’d that we should each of us, at our next meeting, produce a piece of our own composing, in order to improve by our mutual observations, criticisms, and corrections. As language and expression were what we had in view, we excluded all considerations of invention 39 by agreeing that the task should be a version of the eighteenth Psalm, which describes the descent of a Deity. When the time of our meeting drew nigh, Ralph called on me first, and let me know his piece was ready. I told him I had been busy, and, having little inclination, had done nothing. He then show’d me his piece for my opinion, and I much approv’d it, as it appear’d to me to have great merit. “Now,” says he, “Osborne never will allow the least merit in any thing of mine, but makes 1000 criticisms out of mere envy. He is not so jealous of you; I wish, therefore, you would take this piece, and produce it as yours; I will pretend not to have had time, and so produce nothing. We shall then see what he will say to it.” It was agreed, and I immediately transcrib’d it, that it might appear in my own hand.

We met; Watson’s performance was read; there were some beauties in it, but many defects. Osborne’s was read; it was much better; Ralph did it justice; remarked some faults, but applauded the beauties. He himself had nothing to produce. I was backward; seemed desirous of being excused; had not had sufficient time to correct, etc.; but no excuse could be admitted; produce I must. It was read and repeated; Watson and Osborne gave up the contest, and join’d in applauding it. Ralph only made some criticisms, and propos’d some amendments; but I defended my text. Osborne was against Ralph, and told him he was no better a critic than poet, so he dropt the argument. As they two went home together, Osborne expressed himself still more strongly in favor of what he thought my production; having restrain’d himself before, as he said, lest I should think it flattery. “But who would have imagin’d,” said he, “that Franklin had been capable of such a performance; such painting, such force, such fire! He has even improv’d the original. In his common conversation he seems to have no choice of words; he hesitates and blunders; and yet, good God! how he writes!” When we next met, Ralph discovered the trick we had plaid him, and Osborne was a little laught at.

This transaction fixed Ralph in his resolution of becoming a poet. I did all I could to dissuade him from it, but he continued scribbling verses till Pope cured him. He became, however, a pretty good prose writer. More of him hereafter. But, as I may not have occasion again to mention the other two, I shall just remark here, that Watson died in my arms a few years after, much lamented, being the best of our set. Osborne went to the West Indies, where he became an eminent lawyer and made money, but died young. He and I had made a serious agreement, that the one who happen’d first to die should, if possible, make a friendly visit to the other, and acquaint him how he found things in that separate state. But he never fulfill’d his promise.

[Franklin is now in London] I immediately got into work at Palmer’s, then a famous printing-house in Bartholomew Close, and here I continu’d near a year. I was pretty diligent, but spent with Ralph a good deal of my earnings in going to plays and other places of amusement. We had together consumed all my pistoles, and now just rubbed on from hand to mouth. He seem’d quite to forget his wife and child, and I, by degrees, my engagements with Miss Read, to whom I never wrote more than one letter, and that was to let her know I was not likely soon to return. This was another of the great errata of my life, which I should wish to correct if I were to live it over again. In fact, by our expenses, I was constantly kept unable to pay my passage.

At Palmer’s I was employed in composing for the second edition of Wollaston’s “Religion of Nature.” Some of his reasonings not appearing to me well founded, I wrote a little metaphysical piece in which I made remarks on them. It was entitled “A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain.” I inscribed it to my friend Ralph; I printed a small number. It occasion’d my being more consider’d by Mr. Palmer as a young man of some ingenuity, tho’ he seriously expostulated with me upon the principles of my pamphlet, which to him appear’d abominable. My printing this pamphlet was another erratum. While I lodg’d in Little Britain, I made an acquaintance with one Wilcox, a bookseller, whose shop was at the next door. He had an immense collection of second-hand books. Circulating libraries were not then in use; but we agreed that, on certain reasonable terms, which I have now forgotten, I might take, read, and return any of his books. This I esteem’d a great advantage, and I made as much use of it as I could.

My pamphlet by some means falling into the hands of one Lyons, a surgeon, author of a book entitled “The Infallibility of Human Judgment,” it occasioned an acquaintance between us. He took great notice of me, called on me often to converse on those subjects, carried me to the Horns, a pale alehouse in ——— Lane, Cheapside, and introduced me to Dr. Mandeville, author of the “Fable of the Bees,” who had a club there, of which he was the soul, being a most facetious, entertaining companion. Lyons, too, introduced me to Dr. Pemberton, at Batson’s Coffee-house, who promis’d to give me an opportunity, some time or other, of seeing Sir Isaac Newton, of which I was extreamely desirous; but this never happened.

I had brought over a few curiosities, among which the principal was a purse made of the asbestos, which purifies by fire. Sir Hans Sloane heard of it, came to see me, and invited me to his house in Bloomsbury Square, where he show’d me all his curiosities, and persuaded me to let him add that to the number, for which he paid me handsomely.

In our house there lodg’d a young woman, a milliner, who, I think, had a shop in the Cloisters. She had been genteelly bred, was sensible and lively, and of most pleasing conversation. Ralph read plays to her in the evenings, they grew intimate, she took another lodging, and he followed her. They liv’d together some time; but, he being still out of business, and her income not sufficient to maintain them with her child, he took a resolution of going from London, to try for a country school, which he thought himself well qualified to undertake, as he wrote an excellent hand, and was a master of arithmetic and accounts. This, however, he deemed a business below him, and confident of future better fortune, when he should be unwilling to have it known that he once was so meanly employed, he changed his name, and did me the honor to assume mine; for I soon after had a letter from him, acquainting me that he was settled in a small village (in Berkshire, I think it was, where he taught reading and writing to ten or a dozen boys, at sixpence each per week), recommending Mrs. T——— to my care, and desiring me to write to him, directing for Mr. Franklin, schoolmaster, at such a place.

He continued to write frequently, sending me large specimens of an epic poem which he was then composing, and desiring my remarks and corrections. These I gave him from time to time, but endeavor’d rather to discourage his proceeding. One of Young’s Satires was then just published. I copy’d and sent him a great part of it, which set in a strong light the folly of pursuing the Muses with any hope of advancement by them. All was in vain; sheets of the poem continued to come by every post. In the mean time, Mrs. T———, having on his account lost her friends and business, was often in distresses, and us’d to send for me, and borrow what I could spare to help her out of them. I grew fond of her company, and, being at that time under no religious restraint, and presuming upon my importance to her, I attempted familiarities (another erratum) which she repuls’d with a proper resentment, and acquainted him with my behaviour. This made a breach between us; and, when he returned again to London, he let me know he thought I had cancell’d all the obligations he had been under to me. So I found I was never to expect his repaying me what I lent to him, or advanc’d for him. This, however, was not then of much consequence, as he was totally unable; and in the loss of his friendship I found myself relieved from a burthen. I now began to think of getting a little money beforehand, and, expecting better work, I left Palmer’s to work at Watts’s, near Lincoln’s Inn Fields, a still greater printing-house. Here I continued all the rest of my stay in London.

At my first admission into this printing-house I took to working at press, imagining I felt a want of the bodily exercise I had been us’d to in America, where presswork is mix’d with composing. I drank only water; the other workmen, near fifty in number, were great guzzlers of beer. On occasion, I carried up and down stairs a large form of types in each hand, when others carried but one in both hands. They wondered to see, from this and several instances, that the Water-American, as they called me, was stronger than themselves, who drank strong beer! We had an alehouse boy who attended always in the house to supply the workmen. My companion at the press drank every day a pint before breakfast, a pint at breakfast with his bread and cheese, a pint between breakfast and dinner, a pint at dinner, a pint in the afternoon about six o’clock, and another when he had done his day’s work. I thought it a detestable custom; but it was necessary, he suppos’d, to drink strong beer, that he might be strong to labor. I endeavored to convince him that the bodily strength afforded by beer could only be in proportion to the grain or flour of the barley dissolved in the water of which it was made; that there was more flour in a pennyworth of bread; and therefore, if he would eat that with a pint of water, it would give him more strength than a quart of beer. He drank on, however, and had four or five shillings to pay out of his wages every Saturday night for that muddling liquor; an expense I was free from. And thus these poor devils keep themselves always under.

He [Franklin’s friend, Mr. Denham] now told me he was about to return to Philadelphia, and should carry over a great quantity of goods in order to open a store there. He propos’d to take me over as his clerk, to keep his books, in which he would instruct me, copy his letters, and attend the store. He added that, as soon as I should be acquainted with mercantile business, he would promote me by sending me with a cargo of flour and bread, etc., to the West Indies, and procure me commissions from others which would be profitable; and, if I manag’d well, would establish me handsomely. The thing pleas’d me; for I was grown tired of London, remembered with pleasure the happy months I had spent in Pennsylvania, and wish’d again to see it; therefore I immediately agreed on the terms of fifty pounds a year, Pennsylvania money; less, indeed, than my present gettings as a compositor, but affording a better prospect.

I now took leave of printing, as I thought, for ever, and was daily employed in my new business, going about with Mr. Denham among the tradesmen to purchase various articles, and seeing them pack’d up, doing errands, calling upon workmen to dispatch, etc.; and, when all was on board, I had a few days’ leisure. On one of these days, I was, to my surprise, sent for by a great man I knew only by name, a Sir William Wyndham, and I waited upon him. He had heard by some means or other of my swimming from Chelsea to Blackfriar’s, and of my teaching Wygate and another young man to swim in a few hours. He had two sons, about to set out on their travels; he wish’d to have them first taught swimming, and proposed to gratify me handsomely if I would teach them. They were not yet come to town, and my stay was uncertain, so I could not undertake it; but, from this incident, I thought it likely that, if I were to remain in England and open a swimming-school, I might get a good deal of money; and it struck me so strongly, that, had the overture been sooner made me, probably I should not so soon have returned to America. After many years, you and I had something of more importance to do with one of these sons of Sir William Wyndham, become Earl of Egremont, which I shall mention in its place.

Thus I spent about eighteen months in London; most part of the time I work’d hard at my business, and spent but little upon myself except in seeing plays and in books. My friend Ralph had kept me poor; he owed me about twenty-seven pounds, which I was now never likely to receive; a great sum out of my small earnings! I lov’d him, notwithstanding, for he had many amiable qualities. I had by no means improv’d my fortune; but I had picked up some very ingenious acquaintance, whose conversation was of great advantage to me; and I had read considerably.

About this time [1729] there was a cry among the people for more paper money, only fifteen thousand pounds being extant in the province, and that soon to be sunk. The wealthy inhabitants oppos’d any addition, being against all paper currency, from an apprehension that it would depreciate, as it had done in New England, to the prejudice of all creditors. We had discuss’d this point in our Junto, where I was on the side of an addition, being persuaded that the first small sum struck in 1723 had done much good by increasing the trade, employment, and number of inhabitants in the province, since I now saw all the old houses inhabited, and many new ones building: whereas I remembered well, that when I first walk’d about the streets of Philadelphia, eating my roll, I saw most of the houses in Walnut-street, between Second and Front streets, with bills on their doors, “To be let”; and many likewise in Chestnut-street and other streets, which made me then think the inhabitants of the city were deserting it one after another.

Our debates possess’d me so fully of the subject, that I wrote and printed an anonymous pamphlet on it, entitled “The Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency.” It was well receiv’d by the common people in general; but the rich men dislik’d it, for it increas’d and strengthen’d the clamor for more money, and they happening to have no writers among them that were able to answer it, their opposition slacken’d, and the point was carried by a majority in the House. My friends there, who conceiv’d I had been of some service, thought fit to reward me by employing me in printing the money; a very profitable jobb and a great help to me. This was another advantage gain’d by my being able to write.

The utility of this currency became by time and experience so evident as never afterwards to be much disputed; so that it grew soon to fifty-five thousand pounds, and in 1739 to eighty thousand pounds, since which it arose during war to upwards of three hundred and fifty thousand pounds, trade, building, and inhabitants all the while increasing, tho’ I now think there are limits beyond which the quantity may be hurtful.

I soon after obtain’d, thro’ my friend Hamilton, the printing of the Newcastle paper money, another profitable jobb as I then thought it; small things appearing great to those in small circumstances; and these, to me, were really great advantages, as they were great encouragements. He procured for me, also, the printing of the laws and votes of that government, which continu’d in my hands as long as I follow’d the business.

I now open’d a little stationer’s shop. I had in it blanks of all sorts, the correctest that ever appear’d among us, being assisted in that by my friend Breintnal. I had also paper, parchment, chapmen’s books, etc. One Whitemash, a compositor I had known in London, an excellent workman, now came to me, and work’d with me constantly and diligently; and I took an apprentice, the son of Aquila Rose.

I began now gradually to pay off the debt I was under for the printing-house. In order to secure my credit and character as a tradesman, I took care not only to be in reality industrious and frugal, but to avoid all appearances to the contrary. I drest plainly; I was seen at no places of idle diversion. I never went out a fishing or shooting; a book, indeed, sometimes debauch’d me from my work, but that was seldom, snug, and gave no scandal; and, to show that I was not above my business, I sometimes brought home the paper I purchas’d at the stores thro’ the streets on a wheelbarrow. Thus being esteem’d an industrious, thriving young man, and paying duly for what I bought, the merchants who imported stationery solicited my custom; others proposed supplying me with books, and I went on swimmingly. In the mean time, Keimer’s credit and business declining daily, he was at last forc’d to sell his printing-house to satisfy his creditors. He went to Barbadoes, and there lived some years in very poor circumstances.

His apprentice, David Harry, whom I had instructed while I work’d with him, set up in his place at Philadelphia, having bought his materials. I was at first apprehensive of a powerful rival in Harry, as his friends were very able, and had a good deal of interest. I therefore propos’d a partnership to him which he, fortunately for me, rejected with scorn. He was very proud, dress’d like a gentleman, liv’d expensively, took much diversion and pleasure abroad, ran in debt, and neglected his business; upon which, all business left him; and, finding nothing to do, he followed Keimer to Barbadoes, taking the printing-house with him. There this apprentice employ’d his former master as a journeyman; they quarrel’d often; Harry went continually behindhand, and at length was forc’d to sell his types and return to his country work in Pensilvania. The person that bought them employ’d Keimer to use them, but in a few years he died.

There remained now no competitor with me at Philadelphia but the old one, Bradford; who was rich and easy, did a little printing now and then by straggling hands, but was not very anxious about the business. However, as he kept the postoffice, it was imagined he had better opportunities of obtaining news; his paper was thought a better distributer of advertisements than mine, and therefore had many more, which was a profitable thing to him, and a disadvantage to me; for, tho’ I did indeed receive and send papers by the post, yet the publick opinion was otherwise, for what I did send was by bribing the riders, who took them privately, Bradford being unkind enough to forbid it, which occasion’d some resentment on my part; and I thought so meanly of him for it, that, when I afterward came into his situation, I took care never to imitate it.

And now I set on foot my first project of a public nature, that for a subscription library. I drew up the proposals, got them put into form by our great scrivener, Brockden, and, by the help of my friends in the Junto, procured fifty subscribers of forty shillings each to begin with, and ten shillings a year for fifty years, the term our company was to continue. We afterwards obtain’d a charter, the company being increased to one hundred: this was the mother of all the North American subscription libraries, now so numerous. It is become a great thing itself, and continually increasing. These libraries have improved the general conversation of the Americans, made the common tradesmen and farmers as intelligent as most gentlemen from other countries, and perhaps have contributed in some degree to the stand so generally made throughout the colonies in defense of their privileges.

Memo. Thus far was written with the intention express’d in the beginning and therefore contains several little family anecdotes of no importance to others. What follows was written many years after in compliance with the advice contain’d in these letters, and accordingly intended for the public. The affairs of the Revolution occasion’d the interruption.

Not having any copy here of what is already written, I know not whether an account is given of the means I used to establish the Philadelphia public library, which, from a small beginning, is now become so considerable, though I remember to have come down to near the time of that transaction (1730). I will therefore begin here with an account of it, which may be struck out if found to have been already given.

At the time I establish’d myself in Pennsylvania, there was not a good bookseller’s shop in any of the colonies to the southward of Boston. In New York and Philad’a the printers were indeed stationers; they sold only paper, etc., almanacs, ballads, and a few common school-books. Those who lov’d reading were oblig’d to send for their books from England; the members of the Junto had each a few. We had left the alehouse, where we first met, and hired a room to hold our club in. I propos’d that we should all of us bring our books to that room, where they would not only be ready to consult in our conferences, but become a common benefit, each of us being at liberty to borrow such as he wish’d to read at home. This was accordingly done, and for some time contented us.

Finding the advantage of this little collection, I propos’d to render the benefit from books more common, by commencing a public subscription library. I drew a sketch of the plan and rules that would be necessary, and got a skilful conveyancer, Mr. Charles Brockden, to put the whole in form of articles of agreement to be subscribed, by which each subscriber engag’d to pay a certain sum down for the first purchase of books, and an annual contribution for increasing them. So few were the readers at that time in Philadelphia, and the majority of us so poor, that I was not able, with great industry; to find more than fifty persons, mostly young tradesmen, willing to pay down for this purpose forty shillings each, and ten shillings per annum. On this little fund we began. The books were imported; the library was opened one day in the week for lending to the subscribers, on their promissory notes to pay double the value if not duly returned. The institution soon manifested its utility, was imitated by other towns, and in other provinces. The libraries were augmented by donations; reading became fashionable; and our people, having no publick amusements to divert their attention from study, became better acquainted with books, and in a few years were observ’d by strangers to be better instructed and more intelligent than people of the same rank generally are in other countries.

When we were about to sign the above-mentioned articles, which were to be binding upon us, our heirs, etc., for fifty years, Mr. Brockden, the scrivener, said to us, “You are young men, but it is scarcely probable that any of you will live to see the expiration of the term fix’d in the instrument.” A number of us, however, are yet living; but the instrument was after a few years rendered null by a charter that incorporated and gave perpetuity to the company.

The objections and reluctances I met with in soliciting the subscriptions, made me soon feel the impropriety of presenting one’s self as the proposer of any useful project, that might be suppos’d to raise one’s reputation in the smallest degree above that of one’s neighbors, when one has need of their assistance to accomplish that project. I therefore put myself as much as I could out of sight, and stated it as a scheme of a number of friends, who had requested me to go about and propose it to such as they thought lovers of reading. In this way my affair went on more smoothly, and I ever after practis’d it on such occasions; and, from my frequent successes, can heartily recommend it. The present little sacrifice of your vanity will afterwards be amply repaid. If it remains a while uncertain to whom the merit belongs, some one more vain than yourself will be encouraged to claim it, and then even envy will be disposed to do you justice by plucking those assumed feathers, and restoring them to their right owner.

This library afforded me the means of improvement by constant study, for which I set apart an hour or two each day, and thus repair’d in some degree the loss of the learned education my father once intended for me. Reading was the only amusement I allow’d myself. I spent no time in taverns, games, or frolicks of any kind; and my industry in my business continu’d as indefatigable as it was necessary. I was indebted for my printing-house; I had a young family coming on to be educated, and I had to contend with for business two printers, who were established in the place before me. My circumstances, however, grew daily easier. My original habits of frugality continuing, and my father having, among his instructions to me when a boy, frequently repeated a proverb of Solomon, “Seest thou a man diligent in his calling, he shall stand before kings, he shall not stand before mean men,” I from thence considered industry as a means of obtaining wealth and distinction, which encourag’d me, tho’ I did not think that I should ever literally stand before kings, which, however, has since happened; for I have stood before five, and even had the honor of sitting down with one, the King of Denmark, to dinner.

We have an English proverb that says, “He that would thrive, must ask his wife.” It was lucky for me that I had one as much dispos’d to industry and frugality as myself. She assisted me cheerfully in my business, folding and stitching pamphlets, tending shop, purchasing old linen rags for the papermakers, etc., etc. We kept no idle servants, our table was plain and simple, our furniture of the cheapest. For instance, my breakfast was a long time bread and milk (no tea), and I ate it out of a twopenny earthen porringer, with a pewter spoon. But mark how luxury will enter families, and make a progress, in spite of principle: being call’d one morning to breakfast, I found it in a China bowl, with a spoon of silver! They had been bought for me without my knowledge by my wife, and had cost her the enormous sum of three-and-twenty shillings, for which she had no other excuse or apology to make, but that she thought her husband deserv’d a silver spoon and China bowl as well as any of his neighbors. This was the first appearance of plate and China in our house, which afterward, in a course of years, as our wealth increas’d, augmented gradually to several hundred pounds in value.

I had been religiously educated as a Presbyterian; and tho’ some of the dogmas of that persuasion, such as the eternal decrees of God, election, reprobation, etc., appeared to me unintelligible, others doubtful, and I early absented myself from the public assemblies of the sect, Sunday being my studying day, I never was without some religious principles. I never doubted, for instance, the existence of the Deity; that he made the world, and govern’d it by his Providence; that the most acceptable service of God was the doing good to man; that our souls are immortal; and that all crime will be punished, and virtue rewarded, either here or hereafter. These I esteem’d the essentials of every religion; and, being to be found in all the religions we had in our country, I respected them all, tho’ with different degrees of respect, as I found them more or less mix’d with other articles, which, without any tendency to inspire, promote, or confirm morality, serv’d principally to divide us, and make us unfriendly to one another. This respect to all, with an opinion that the worst had some good effects, induc’d me to avoid all discourse that might tend to lessen the good opinion another might have of his own religion; and as our province increas’d in people, and new places of worship were continually wanted, and generally erected by voluntary contributions, my mite for such purpose, whatever might be the sect, was never refused.

Tho’ I seldom attended any public worship, I had still an opinion of its propriety, and of its utility when rightly conducted, and I regularly paid my annual subscription for the support of the only Presbyterian minister or meeting we had in Philadelphia. He us’d to visit me sometimes as a friend, and admonish me to attend his administrations, and I was now and then prevail’d on to do so, once for five Sundays successively. Had he been in my opinion a good preacher, perhaps I might have continued, notwithstanding the occasion I had for the Sunday’s leisure in my course of study; but his discourses were chiefly either polemic arguments, or explications of the peculiar doctrines of our sect, and were all to me very dry, uninteresting, and unedifying, since not a single moral principle was inculcated or enforc’d, their aim seeming to be rather to make us Presbyterians than good citizens.

At length he took for his text that verse of the fourth chapter of Philippians, “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, or of good report, if there be any virtue, or any praise, think on these things.” And I imagin’d, in a sermon on such a text, we could not miss of having some morality. But he confin’d himself to five points only, as meant by the apostle, viz.: 1. Keeping holy the Sabbath day. 2. Being diligent in reading the holy Scriptures. 3. Attending duly the publick worship. 4. Partaking of the Sacrament. 5. Paying a due respect to God’s ministers. These might be all good things; but, as they were not the kind of good things that I expected from that text, I despaired of ever meeting with them from any other, was disgusted, and attended his preaching no more. I had some years before compos’d a little Liturgy, or form of prayer, for my own private use (viz., in 1728), entitled, Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion. I return’d to the use of this, and went no more to the public assemblies. My conduct might be blameable, but I leave it, without attempting further to excuse it; my present purpose being to relate facts, and not to make apologies for them.

It was about this time I conceiv’d the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I wish’d to live without committing any fault at any time; I would conquer all that either natural inclination, custom, or company might lead me into. As I knew, or thought I knew, what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might not always do the one and avoid the other. But I soon found I had undertaken a task of more difficulty than I had imagined. While my care was employ’d in guarding against one fault, I was often surprised by another; habit took the advantage of inattention; inclination was sometimes too strong for reason. I concluded, at length, that the mere speculative conviction that it was our interest to be completely virtuous, was not sufficient to prevent our slipping; and that the contrary habits must be broken, and good ones acquired and established, before we can have any dependence on a steady, uniform rectitude of conduct. For this purpose I therefore contrived the following method.

In the various enumerations of the moral virtues I had met with in my reading, I found the catalogue more or less numerous, as different writers included more or fewer ideas under the same name. Temperance, for example, was by some confined to eating and drinking, while by others it was extended to mean the moderating every other pleasure, appetite, inclination, or passion, bodily or mental, even to our avarice and ambition. I propos’d to myself, for the sake of clearness, to use rather more names, with fewer ideas annex’d to each, than a few names with more ideas; and I included under thirteen names of virtues all that at that time occurr’d to me as necessary or desirable, and annexed to each a short precept, which fully express’d the extent I gave to its meaning.

These names of virtues, with their precepts, were:

• Temperance. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
• Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
• Order. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
• Resolution. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
• Frugality. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.
• Industry. Lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
• Sincerity. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
• Justice. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
• Moderation. Avoid extreams; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
• Cleanliness. 84 Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.
• Tranquillity. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
• Chastity. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dulness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.
• Humility. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

My intention being to acquire the habitude of all these virtues, I judg’d it would be well not to distract my attention by attempting the whole at once, but to fix it on one of them at a time; and, when I should be master of that, then to proceed to another, and so on, till I should have gone thro’ the thirteen; and, as the previous acquisition of some might facilitate the acquisition of certain others, I arrang’d them with that view, as they stand above. Temperance first, as it tends to procure that coolness and clearness of head, which is so necessary where constant vigilance was to be kept up, and guard maintained against the unremitting attraction of ancient habits, and the force of perpetual temptations. This being acquir’d and establish’d, Silence would be more easy; and my desire being to gain knowledge at the same time that I improv’d in virtue, and considering that in conversation it was obtain’d rather by the use of the ears than of the tongue, and therefore wishing to break a habit I was getting into of prattling, punning, and joking, which only made me acceptable to trifling company, I gave Silence the second place. This and the next, Order, I expected would allow me more time for attending to my project and my studies. Resolution, once become habitual, would keep me firm in my endeavors to obtain all the subsequent virtues; Frugality and Industry freeing me from my remaining debt, and producing affluence and independence, would make more easy the practice of Sincerity and Justice, etc., etc. Conceiving then, that, agreeably to the advice of Pythagoras in his Golden Verses, daily examination would be necessary, I contrived the following method for conducting that examination.

I made a little book, in which I allotted a page for each of the virtues. I rul’d each page with red ink, so as to have seven columns, one for each day of the week, marking each column with a letter for the day. I cross’d these columns with thirteen red lines, marking the beginning of each line with the first letter of one of the virtues, on which line, and in its proper column, I might mark, by a little black spot, every fault I found upon examination to have been committed respecting that virtue upon that day.

I determined to give a week’s strict attention to each of the virtues successively. Thus, in the first week, my great guard was to avoid every the least offence against Temperance, leaving the other virtues to their ordinary chance, only marking every evening the faults of the day. Thus, if in the first week I could keep my first line, marked T, clear of spots, I suppos’d the habit of that virtue so much strengthen’d, and its opposite weaken’d, that I might venture extending my attention to include the next, and for the following week keep both lines clear of spots. Proceeding thus to the last, I could go thro’ a course compleat in thirteen weeks, and four courses in a year. And like him who, having a garden to weed, does not attempt to eradicate all the bad herbs at once, which would exceed his reach and his strength, but works on one of the beds at a time, and, having accomplish’d the first, proceeds to a second, so I should have, I hoped, the encouraging pleasure of seeing on my pages the progress I made in virtue, by clearing successively my lines of their spots, till in the end, by a number of courses, I should be happy in viewing a clean book, after a thirteen weeks’ daily examination.

This my little book had for its motto these lines from Addison’s Cato:

“Here will I hold. If there’s a power above us (And that there is, all nature cries aloud Thro’ all her works), He must delight in virtue; And that which he delights in must be happy.”

Another from Cicero,

“O vitæ Philosophia dux! O virtutum indagatrix expultrixque vitiorum! Unus dies, bene et ex præceptis tuis actus, peccanti immortalitati est anteponendus.”

Another from the Proverbs of Solomon, speaking of wisdom or virtue:

“Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand riches and honour. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.” iii. 16, 17.

And conceiving God to be the fountain of wisdom, I thought it right and necessary to solicit his assistance for obtaining it; to this end I formed the following little prayer, which was prefix’d to my tables of examination, for daily use.

“O powerful Goodness! bountiful Father! merciful Guide! Increase in me that wisdom which discovers my truest interest. Strengthen my resolutions to perform what that wisdom dictates. Accept my kind offices to thy other children as the only return in my power for thy continual favors to me.”

I used also sometimes a little prayer which I took from Thomson’s Poems, viz.:

“Father of light and life, thou Good Supreme! O teach me what is good; teach me Thyself! Save me from folly, vanity, and vice, From every low pursuit; and fill my soul With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure; Sacred, substantial, never-fading bliss!”

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. To avoid the trouble of renewing now and then my little book, which, by scraping out the marks on the paper of old faults to make room for new ones in a new course, became full of holes, I transferr’d my tables and precepts to the ivory leaves of a memorandum book, on which the lines were drawn with red ink, that made a durable stain, and on those lines I mark’d my faults with a black-lead pencil, which marks I could easily wipe out with a wet sponge. After a while I went thro’ one course only in a year, and afterward only one in several years, till at length I omitted them entirely, being employ’d in voyages and business abroad, with a multiplicity of affairs that interfered; but I always carried my little book with me.

My scheme of ORDER gave me the most trouble; 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. Order, too, with regard to places for things, papers, etc., I found extreamly difficult to acquire. I had not been early accustomed to it, and, having an exceeding good memory, I was not so sensible of the inconvenience attending want of method. This article, therefore, cost me so much painful attention, and my faults in it vexed me so much, and I made so little progress in amendment, and had such frequent relapses, that I was almost ready to give up the attempt, and content myself with a faulty character in that respect, like the man who, in buying an ax of a smith, my neighbour, desired to have the whole of its surface as bright as the edge. The smith consented to grind it bright for him if he would turn the wheel; he turn’d, while the smith press’d the broad face of the ax hard and heavily on the stone, which made the turning of it very fatiguing. The man came every now and then from the wheel to see how the work went on, and at length would take his ax as it was, without farther grinding. “No,” said the smith, “turn on, turn on; we shall have it bright by-and-by; as yet, it is only speckled.” “Yes,” said the man, “but I think I like a speckled ax best.” And I believe this may have been the case with many, who, having, for want of some such means as I employ’d, found the difficulty of obtaining good and breaking bad habits in other points of vice and virtue, have given up the struggle, and concluded that “a speckled ax was best”; for something, that pretended to be reason, was every now and then suggesting to me that such extream nicety as I exacted of myself might be a kind of foppery in morals, which, if it were known, would make me ridiculous; that a perfect character might be attended with the inconvenience of being envied and hated; and that a benevolent man should allow a few faults in himself, to keep his friends in countenance.

In truth, I found myself incorrigible with respect to Order; and now I am grown old, and my memory bad, I feel very sensibly the want of it. But, on the whole, tho’ I never arrived at the perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far short of it, yet I was, by the endeavour, a better and a happier man than I otherwise should have been if I had not attempted it; as those who aim at perfect writing by imitating the engraved copies, tho’ they never reach the wish’d-for excellence of those copies, their hand is mended by the endeavor, and is tolerable while it continues fair and legible.

It may be well my posterity should be informed that to this little artifice, with the blessing of God, their ancestor ow’d the constant felicity of his life, down to his 79th year, in which this is written. What reverses may attend the remainder is in the hand of Providence; but, if they arrive, the reflection on past happiness enjoy’d ought to help his bearing them with more resignation. To Temperance he ascribes his long-continued health, and what is still left to him of a good constitution; to Industry and Frugality, the early easiness of his circumstances and acquisition of his fortune, with all that knowledge that enabled him to be a useful citizen, and obtained for him some degree of reputation among the learned; to Sincerity and Justice, the confidence of his country, and the honorable employs it conferred upon him; and to the joint influence of the whole mass of the virtues, even in the imperfect state he was able to acquire them, all that evenness of temper, and that cheerfulness in conversation, which makes his company still sought for, and agreeable even to his younger acquaintance. I hope, therefore, that some of my descendants may follow the example and reap the benefit.

It will be remark’d that, tho’ my scheme was not wholly without religion, there was in it no mark of any of the distinguishing tenets of any particular sect. I had purposely avoided them; for, being fully persuaded of the utility and excellency of my method, and that it might be serviceable to people in all religions, and intending some time or other to publish it, I would not have any thing in it that should prejudice any one, of any sect, against it. I purposed writing a little comment on each virtue, in which I would have shown the advantages of possessing it, and the mischiefs attending its opposite vice; and I should have called my book The Art of Virtue, because it would have shown the means and manner of obtaining virtue, which would have distinguished it from the mere exhortation to be good, that does not instruct and indicate the means, but is like the apostle’s man of verbal charity, who only without showing to the naked and hungry how or where they might get clothes or victuals, exhorted them to be fed and clothed.—James ii. 15, 16.

But it so happened that my intention of writing and publishing this comment was never fulfilled. I did, indeed, from time to time, put down short hints of the sentiments, reasonings, etc., to be made use of in it, some of which I have still by me; but the necessary close attention to private business in the earlier part of my life, and public business since, have occasioned my postponing it; for, it being connected in my mind with a great and extensive project, that required the whole man to execute, and which an unforeseen succession of employs prevented my attending to, it has hitherto remain’d unfinish’d.

In this piece it was my design to explain and enforce this doctrine, that vicious actions are not hurtful because they are forbidden, but forbidden because they are hurtful, the nature of man alone considered; that it was, therefore, every one’s interest to be virtuous who wish’d to be happy even in this world; and I should, from this circumstance (there being always in the world a number of rich merchants, nobility, states, and princes, who have need of honest instruments for the management of their affairs, and such being so rare), have endeavored to convince young persons that no qualities were so likely to make a poor man’s fortune as those of probity and integrity.

My list of virtues contain’d at first but twelve; but a Quaker friend having kindly informed me that I was generally thought proud; that my pride show’d itself frequently in conversation; that I was not content with being in the right when discussing any point, but was overbearing, and rather insolent, of which he convinc’d me by mentioning several instances; I determined endeavouring to cure myself, if I could, of this vice or folly among the rest, and I added Humility to my list, giving an extensive meaning to the word.

I cannot boast of much success in acquiring the reality of this virtue, but I had a good deal with regard to the appearance of it. I made it a rule to forbear all direct contradiction to the sentiments of others, and all positive assertion of my own. I even forbid myself, agreeably to the old laws of our Junto, the use of every word or expression in the language that imported a fix’d opinion, such as certainly, undoubtedly, etc., and I adopted, instead of them, I conceive, I apprehend, or I imagine a thing to be so or so; or it so appears to me at present. When another asserted something that I thought an error, I deny’d myself the pleasure of contradicting him abruptly, and of showing immediately some absurdity in his proposition; and in answering I began by observing that in certain cases or circumstances his opinion would be right, but in the present case there appear’d or seem’d to me some difference, etc. I soon found the advantage of this change in my manner; the conversations I engag’d in went on more pleasantly. The modest way in which I propos’d my opinions procur’d them a readier reception and less contradiction; I had less mortification when I was found to be in the wrong, and I more easily prevail’d with others to give up their mistakes and join with me when I happened to be in the right.

And this mode, which I at first put on with some violence to natural inclination, became at length so easy, and so habitual to me, that perhaps for these fifty years past no one has ever heard a dogmatical expression escape me. And to this habit (after my character of integrity) I think it principally owing that I had early so much weight with my fellow-citizens when I proposed new institutions, or alterations in the old, and so much influence in public councils when I became a member; for I was but a bad speaker, never eloquent, subject to much hesitation in my choice of words, hardly correct in language, and yet I generally carried my points.

In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself; you will see it, perhaps, often in this history; for, even if I could conceive that I had compleatly overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.

[Thus far written at Passy, 1784.]

historical background

You may be interested in videos about Franklin from Kahn Academy’s U.S. History course. Here are two that provide context for the Autobiography, although there are many others that talk about different aspects of Franklin’s life.

• An Introduction to Benjamin Franklin
• Takeaways from Benjamin Franklin’s Life

questions to Consider

• In The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, what literary works does Franklin cite as important to the shaping of his mind? What, if anything, do these works have in common? What power does Franklin attribute to the written word?
• What human behaviors and qualities does Franklin list in his virtues and precepts? What, if anything, do they have in common? How do they compare to Puritan virtues? How do they contrast?
• Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography. Authored by : Susan Oaks. Project : American Literature 1600-1865. License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Introduction text and image from Becoming America. Authored by : Wendy Kurant. Provided by : University of North Georgia. Located at : https://human.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Literature_and_Literacy/Book%3A_Becoming_America_-_An_Exploration_of_American_Literature_from_Precolonial_to_Post-Revolution/03%3A_Revolutionary_and_Early_National_Period_Literature/3.03%3A_Benjamin_Franklin . Project : Becoming America: An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, sourced from GALILEO Open Learning Materials. License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Benjamin Franklin Autobiography Excerpt, from Becoming America. Authored by : Wendy Kurant. Provided by : University of North Georgia. Located at : https://human.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Literature_and_Literacy/Book%3A_Becoming_America_-_An_Exploration_of_American_Literature_from_Precolonial_to_Post-Revolution/03%3A_Revolutionary_and_Early_National_Period_Literature/3.03%3A_Benjamin_Franklin/3.3.04%3A_The_Autobiography_of_Benjamin_Franklin . Project : Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, sourced from GALILEO Open Learning Materials. License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike . License Terms : The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is public domain, Project Gutenberg, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/148/148.txt
• image of candle with lit wick. Authored by : Thomas Wolter. Provided by : Pixabay. Located at : https://pixabay.com/photos/candle-wick-light-flame-3872777/ . License : CC0: No Rights Reserved
• image of old printing press. Authored by : Ray Holloway. Provided by : Pixabay. Located at : . License : CC0: No Rights Reserved
• image of type set and ready for printing. Authored by : Mari77. Provided by : Pixabay. Located at : https://pixabay.com/photos/old-print-press-press-printing-press-1520124/ . License : CC0: No Rights Reserved
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The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

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• The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin

• Literature Notes
• About The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
• Book Summary
• Character List
• Summary and Analysis
• Part 1: Section 1
• Part 1: Section 2
• Part 1: Section 3
• Part 1: Section 4
• Part 1: Section 5
• Part 1: Section 6
• Part 1: Section 7
• Part 2: Section 8
• Part 2: Section 9
• Part 3: Section 10
• Part 3: Section 11
• Part 3: Section 12
• Part 3: Section 13
• Part 3: Section 14
• Part 3: Section 15
• Part 3: Section 16
• Part 3: Section 17
• Part 4: Section 18
• Critical Essays
• Franklin's Writing Style
• Franklin's Humor
• Franklin and the American Dream
• Franklin and the Spirit of Capitalism
• Critical Opinions of The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
• Essay Questions
• Cite this Literature Note

Introduction

Benjamin Franklin, 1706-1790, printer, scientist, statesman, wrote an Autobiography that poses a riddle never completely solved: How could such an incomplete, disjointed, inaccurate, mangled manuscript be so perennially popular? Translated into dozens of languages and reprinted in hundreds of editions, it continues to be one of the most successful books of all time, even though Franklin himself is sometimes viewed with suspicion by the haters of industry and frugality. An answer to the riddle of the Autobiography is partially hinted at by the ways in which it has been described, for if it has not been all things to all men, it has at least been remarkable to most men who have read it. Its most admired qualities have changed as fashions, philosophies, and needs have changed. But, significantly, the book continues to survive such changes.

For the diminishing numbers interested in obtaining moral instruction through their entertainment — a group including an apparent majority of nineteenth-century readers — Franklin's Autobiography is indeed a prize. His friends had urged him to complete his story in order to direct young people in the ways they should go; and it was primarily as a moral tract that expurgated versions of the Autobiography were first taught in American schools. Less didactic historians, however, have found the book equally valuable as the first detailed study of the American middle-class, a map of the road to wealth that that WASPish congregation traveled after secularizing their Protestant energies. Still others have seen it as a revolutionary document — an assertion of proletarian dignity and the tangible portrayal of a mind confident enough to seek new forms of government.

For those uninterested in questions of history or morality, the Autobiography gratifies the longing for a success story, for a book about a virtuous hero who survives many trials and makes good. Indeed, the Autobiography just begins to hint of ' the astonishing triumphs in store for Franklin before his death. Long before his years of public service were over he had been referred to in Parliament as one of the wisest men of Europe, and had been courted by kings.

During his 1764-1775 term as colonial agent in England, Franklin was considered by the British the quintessential American. Later, in France, he seemed to romantics an ideal — a noble savage miraculously comfortable at court. His character indicated to Europeans just what the provinces could produce. Many have therefore valued his Autobiography for the insight it affords into the mind of an American leader, a Founding Father, and for the picture of life in colonial America that it provides. And those interested in dissecting the components of the American character have perforce studied Franklin's Autobiography , if only because the reverence with which it was viewed made it a shaping influence on American thought.

Finally, for those uninterested in history, personality, or colonial sociology, there is still the language of the Autobiography to admire. When other considerations fade, Franklin is the master of the well-turned phrase, the succinctly pointed anecdote, the balanced sentence, humanized with an undercurrent of wry, sophisticated, self-critical, and ironic wit.

How the Autobiography Was Written

In 1771, when Franklin was 65 years old and had been serving in England seven years as Agent for Pennsylvania (his second stay in this capacity), he visited for two weeks at the home of Jonathan Shipley, Bishop of St. Asaph, at Twyford. As part of his vacation, be outlined the story of his life and then wrote 86 pages, bringing his account up to 1730. But the leisurely rest at Twyford ended and he laid his Memoirs, as he called the Autobiography , aside, not to return to them for 13 years. He had carried his story only up to the point at which he began to be locally prominent in Philadelphia.

The intervening years, before Franklin began to write about himself again, were turbulent ones, encompassing the American Revolution. Almost as soon as the Declaration of Independence was signed, the American Congress sent Franklin as its Commissioner to France. While living just outside Paris at Passy, Franklin began Part Two (Sections 8 and 9 here) of his story in 1784, when he was over 78 years old. But he found time to pen only 17 pages before he laid the work aside again for four more years.

Increasingly ill with gout and gallstones, Franklin was finally allowed to return to America, but had no sooner arrived than he was elected President of Pennsylvania and then Delegate to the Federal Convention of 1787. Thus he found himself once more too busy with public affairs to indulge in personal reminiscences.

But in July 1788, he made his will, and in August began his Memoirs again, this time writing 117 pages (Sections 10-17). Franklin was now 83, and so constantly in pain that he had to resort to opium for respite. Sometime before his death on April 17, 1790, at the age of 84, he wrote his last seven and one-half pages, comprising what scholars call Part Four (Section 18).

Publication History of the Autobiography

For writing usually characterized by simplicity and clarity, Franklin's Autobiography comes to us with an extraordinarily complicated and murky publishing history. When he returned from England in 1775, Franklin brought with him the unrevised manuscript of Part One. He left it, along with other important papers, in the care of a friend, Joseph Galloway, when Congress sent him to France in 1776. But Galloway sided with the British during the Revolution and therefore had to flee from Philadelphia when the British troops withdrew. His wife stayed to protect their home, but died soon thereafter, apparently leaving the manuscript of Franklin's Autobiography in the hands of her executor, Abel James, a lawyer. James then wrote Franklin urging him to continue the story and sending him his original outline of proposed topics.

One mystery about the manuscript begins brewing while only Part One exists, hypothetically in James's possession as executor of Mrs. Galloway's will: later unauthorized editions of Part One are easiest explained by supposing that one of James's clerks stealthily made a copy of it while it was still in James's office, and that the secret copy somehow got to England immediately after Franklin's death.

While in France, Franklin was visited by his close friend Benjamin Vaughan, who had been sent by the British government to discuss peace negotiations. Franklin showed Vaughan James's letter, asking his opinion of it, and Vaughan found even more reasons than James had for urging Franklin to continue. Both letters are inserted at the beginning of Part Two, apparently to explain why Franklin continued to write after being estranged from his son William Temple, for whom the Memoirs were planned originally.

When Franklin, back in Philadelphia, finally began writing again in 1788, he apparently reread and probably revised his draft of Part One. Then he had his grandson, Benjamin Franklin Bache, make two copies of his first three parts and sent them to Benjamin Vaughan in England and to his friend Le Veillard in France, asking them for their suggestions and comments. At this point another mystery is born, for we have no way of knowing to what extent Franklin personally authorized the many changes in Bache's copies, and to what extent they were editorial corrections Bache himself supplied. To complicate matters further, though the first authorized edition of the Autobiography was based on one of Bache's copies, neither copy survives today. The exact wording of Bache's versions must be reconstructed from printed editions of the book and from translations supposedly based on Bache's copies rather than the original manuscript.

Le Veillard began translating the Autobiography into French as soon as he received one of Bache's copies. He proceeded meticulously, attempting to render as exactly as possible Franklin's English expressions and comparisons into French. But Franklin, after adding the last short section before his death, left the publication rights for the book to his illegitimate grandson, William Temple Franklin, Jr. And Temple, hoping to make a great deal of money out of a book for which the public was clamoring, forbade its publication in English or French, except in authorized editions which he himself would edit. But Temple found working from the original manuscript difficult, since the handwriting was often illegible, so at some point he apparently exchanged manuscripts with Le Veillard, taking to his printer Bache's neater copy to use, and failing to notice that Part Four had been added at the end of the original. He did not bring out his edition until 1818.

Within a year after Franklin's death in 1790, an unauthorized French translation of Part One appeared, followed two years later by London editions which were supposedly unauthorized re-translations into English from the poor French translation. Several mysteries arise because of these works: first, from what possible text was the French translation made (Le Willard convincingly denied having anything to do with it); and second, what sources were used for the English re-translations, since occasional wordings resemble the original manuscript more than the supposed French source? The simplest explanation is that all these pirated editions were taken from a copy of Part One made in Abel James's office.

Le Willard died on the scaffold during the French Revolution, and Temple Franklin dawdled so in publishing Franklin's papers that gossips suggested he had been bribed by the British government to suppress them. But finally he brought out the first three parts of the Autobiography in 1818, the text based on Bache's copy. Years later, in 1868, the American minister to France, John Bigelow, located and brought from Le Willard's heirs the original manuscript. He then noted how widely it differed from the official edition and brought out what he claimed was the definitive edition of the Autobiography , in the process reviling Temple Franklin on a number of grounds. But since Bigelow simply made corrections on a printed copy of the Temple Franklin edition, his own "definitive edition" has as many errors as he claimed the original definitive edition contained.

Temple Franklin was unjustly accused of bowdlerizing his grandfather's powerful prose. Of course, since neither of Bache's copies exists, it is impossible to know for sure what changes each grandson contributed in the 1818 version. But neither can anyone know whether many of these changes were not made by Franklin himself, when he directed Bache's copying. Consequently, no absolutely foolproof and totally authoritative text representing Franklin's final wishes will probably ever exist.

What Happened After the Autobiography Ends

In many ways, Franklin's Autobiography stops when it approaches the period of activity that made such memoirs most desirable. Although his scientific and philosophical reputations were based largely on the electrical experiments he mentions briefly in the Autobiography , his most significant political contributions were made after 1758, when the Memoirs ended. Considering both aspects of his career, Turgot coined for Franklin the Latin motto Eripuit caelo fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis: "He snatched the lightning from the sky and the scepter from tyrants."

Franklin's first mission to England to negotiate about the taxes that the Pennsylvania Proprietors refused to pay lasted from 1757 to 1762. During this time Franklin, with his son William, visited the homes of their ancestors, as Franklin reminded William at the beginning of the Autobiography , and in 1759 was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of St. Andrews. Thereafter he was addressed as "Dr. Franklin." On this trip he spent an extended time in Scotland, with many intellectual luminaries then living around Edinburgh, and called the visit "six weeks of the densest happiness I have met with in any part of my life." He was later given a doctor's degree by Oxford, and had the satisfaction of seeing his son William, who had accompanied him on most of his official missions to this point, appointed governor of New Jersey. He also continued his experiments and perfected a musical instrument called the armonica, which involved glasses filled with varying amounts of water and played with a wet finger rubbed round the rims. The instrument was so popular that Mozart and Beethoven, as well as others, composed music for it.

Franklin arrived home in Philadelphia on November 1, 1762, settled hopefully into domestic routine, prepared to serve as an Assembly member, and began to build a new house for his family. But in early winter of the following year he was again embroiled in public controversy. Frontiersmen, inflamed by Indian uprisings, killed two groups of friendly Indians; and Franklin wrote a pamphlet strongly condemning this massacre. The same settlers then decided to march on Philadelphia to murder the friendly Indians being guarded there. But Franklin met them outside the city, talked with them, reminded them of the three companies of soldiers defending Philadelphia, and persuaded them to go home without causing further trouble.

At this point bitterness increased against the Proprietors, who controlled Pennsylvania under Royal chatters inherited from William Penn. A faction led by Franklin convinced a majority of the Assembly to petition the King to take direct control of the Province. Opponents argued that the King's representatives would govern as corruptly as the Proprietors' men, and that to lose the Proprietors would be to lose the excellent Pennsylvania charter. Franklin's allies won the vote to petition the King, but on October 1, 1764, after a bitter and vituperative campaign, Franklin lost his seat in the Assembly. By the end of the month., however, the Assembly discovered that it could not do without his services and voted to send him again to England in order to present their petition. Again his wife Deborah refused to sail across the ocean, so he left without her. He was never to see her again, for he was unable to return for ten more years; and before he arrived, Deborah died.

When Franklin arrived in England as Colonial agent for the second time, his purpose was to end Proprietary government in Pennsylvania. Since he was later appointed agent for Georgia in 1768, New Jersey in 1769, and Massachusetts in 1770, however, he came to be regarded as the representative for all the American colonies. As the breach between England and the Colonies widened, Franklin began to be feared and hated as the embodiment of selfish American demands.

Over Franklin's opposition, the Stamp Act decreeing that stamps must be placed on all official documents was passed on March 22, 1765, as a method of bringing revenue into the British treasury. Since the American Assemblies claimed as a primary right the privilege of taxing themselves, the Americans were outraged. Franklin unwisely recommended his friends as distributors of the stamps and so was suspected of framing the act himself. But he worked tirelessly for its repeal, his labors given more leverage by American riots and boycotts of English goods. The climax of his struggle came on February 13, 1766, with Franklin's brilliant performance before Parliament (partially arranged beforehand) in which he answered the members' questions and explained the American position. The whole transcript of his examination was published in England, France, and throughout the Colonies, making Franklin the major colonial hero of the day. A month later he received most of the credit when the unpopular Stamp Act was repealed by Parliament.

In the years that followed, Franklin apparently remained hopeful that a stable and powerful British Empire could be formed. But relations were slowly deteriorating between the American colonies and England. Franklin wrote newspaper articles explaining the American position and, when those failed to work, wrote several brilliant satires and hoaxes attacking the British government. While these cutting satires may have affected public opinion, making some of the British more sympathetic to the Americans, they certainly embittered the officials of the government. Inevitably, such men found a way to revenge themselves upon their troublesome American gadfly.

On December 2, 1772, Franklin had sent secretly to a committee of the Massachusetts Assembly a group of letters he had been given, which were written by the Governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson, and the Lieutenant-Governor, Andrew Oliver. Both men urged English officials to make stronger and better-enforced demands on the colonists as a means of suppressing rebellious American spirits. Against Franklin's wishes, the letters were eventually published and aroused an impassioned public demand that the Governor be removed from office. In the ensuing furor, Franklin admitted having sent the letters to Hutchinson's enemies. On January 29, 1774, Franklin was called before the Privy Council, excoriated publicly in the most excessive style, accused of stealing the letters and of plotting against representatives of the Crown, and denounced for nearly an hour, to the glee of the applauding audience, He stood silently and refused to answer. Two days later he was removed from his office of deputy postmaster general.

Obviously, Franklin could no longer work openly and effectively with the British government. There is evidence that by the end of the year various officials were again attempting to contact him, because he was the only man considered capable of engineering a satisfactory compromise with the increasingly angry colonies. But by this time the positions of the colonies and the mother country were virtually irreconcilable. Hope for a settlement flared briefly when William Pitt, Lord Chatham, presented a plan Franklin liked to the House of Lords. But the Lords rejected it and launched an insulting personal attack on Franklin, who was in the audience. Franklin finally gave up all hope of a peaceful settlement and sailed for Philadelphia in March 1775.

He landed at Philadelphia on May 5 and on May 6 was elected as delegate to the Second Continental Congress. The rest of 1775 was spent working endlessly on the numerous committees to which he was appointed (work which included reviewing Jefferson's draft of the Declaration of Independence). At the age of 70, he became a fervent revolutionary, proving his ardor by loaning the new Congress all the money he could personally raise, thereby encouraging others to do the same and aiding immeasurably the new government's finances.

In the autumn of 1776 Congress appointed Franklin one of three commissioners to the court of France. He quickly sailed to Europe on a warship, the capture of which would have meant his immediate execution by the British as a traitor. But once in Paris he was lionized, indeed idolized, by an adoring French public. His enormous personal prestige gave him more power than any other American could have wielded in negotiations with the French government. And by playing on the French desire to see the British Empire diminished, Franklin wheedled from the absolute monarchy of Louis XVI the funds that enabled the Colonies to successfully defend the independence they had declared. Though he was surrounded with British spies and American enemies, the latter either jealous of his adulation or disapproving of his courtly methods, Franklin traced in his French years one of the most successful diplomatic careers of the American Foreign Service. The period culminated with his personal direction of the negotiations for peace with England, and with the signing of the peace treaty on September 3, 1783. Franklin was officially replaced by Thomas Jefferson on May 2, 1785, and left his French home July 12, carried in one of the Queen's personal litters to spare him unnecessary pain from his gallstones.

Franklin landed in Philadelphia on September 14, 1785, greeted by cannon salutes, cheering crowds, and public celebrations befitting the arrival of America's most illustrious citizen. In October he was elected a member, and later president, of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania, and began another phase of his public service. From May through September of 1787 he also served as one of Pennsylvania's delegates to the Constitutional Convention. Though virtually none of his ideas were incorporated into the document this Convention eventually adopted, he has been convincingly credited with holding the warring factions together in order to work out the compromise structure that was eventually ratified. His last speech urging unanimous acceptance of the compromise was reprinted over 50 times as arguments about ratification raged throughout the Colonies: "I confess that there are several parts of this Constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them. . . . Though many . . . persons think . . . highly of their own infallibility . . . . few express it so naturally as a certain French lady, who . . . said, 'I don't know how it happens, sister, but I meet with nobody but myself that is always in the right. . . .' I cannot help expressing a wish that every member of the Convention . . . would with me, on this occasion, doubt a little of his own infallibility, and, to make manifest our unanimity, put his name to this instrument."

When Franklin ended his term as president of Pennsylvania's Supreme Executive Council in October 1788, his public career was finally finished. He spent the last two years of his life in "excruciating Pain," but wrote President Washington, "I am pleas'd that I have liv'd them, since they have brought me to see our present Situation." His last public act was to sign a congressional petition advocating the abolition of slavery. Then on an April evening in 1790, at the age of 84, Benjamin Franklin quietly died.

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The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Penn Reading Project Edition

Benjamin Franklin

Edited by Peter Conn

Contributions by Amy Gutmann

192 Pages , 6.00 x 9.00 in

• 9780812219296
• Published: July 2005
• 9780812200119
• Published: November 2010

Ebooks may be available from:

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• Combined Academic
• Description

Printer and publisher, author and educator, scientist and inventor, statesman and philanthropist, Benjamin Franklin was the very embodiment of the American type of self-made man. In 1771, at the age of 65, he sat down to write his autobiography, "having emerged from the poverty and obscurity in which I was born and bred to a state of affluence and some degree of reputation in the world, and having gone so far through life with a considerable share of felicity." The result is a classic of American literature. On the eve of the tercentenary of Franklin's birth, the university he founded has selected the Autobiography for the Penn Reading Project. Each year, for the past fifteen years, the University of Pennsylvania has chosen a single work that the entire incoming class, and a large segment of the faculty and staff, read and discuss together. For this occasion the University of Pennsylvania Press will publish a special edition of Franklin's Autobiography , including a new preface by University president Amy Gutmann and an introduction by distinguished scholar Peter Conn. The volume will also include four short essays by noted Penn professors as well as a chronology of Franklin's life and the text of Franklin's Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania , a document resulting in the establishment of an institution of higher education that ultimately became the University of Pennsylvania. No area of human endeavor escaped Franklin's keen attentions. His ideas and values, as Amy Gutmann notes in her remarks, have shaped the modern University of Pennsylvania profoundly, "more profoundly than have the founders of any other major university of college in the United States." Franklin believed that he had been born too soon. Readers will recognize that his spirit lives on at Penn today. Essay contributors: Richard R. Beeman, Paul Guyer, Michael Weisberg, and Michael Zuckerman.

Preface: The Power of Values, by Amy Gutmann Introduction: Benjamin Franklin and the American Imagination, by Peter Conn PART I. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, edited by Nathan G. Goodman PART II. CRITICAL ESSAYS Benjamin Franklin and the American Enlightenment, by Richard R. Beeman Freedom of Reason, by Paul Guyer An Inclination Joined with an Ability to Serve, by Michael Zuckerman The Key to Electricity, by Michael Weisberg APPENDICES Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania, by Benjamin Franklin A Chronology of Franklin's Life, compiled by Mark Frazier Lloyd Contributors

Peter Conn is Andrea Mitchell Term Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. His publications include The Divided Mind: Ideology and Imagination in America, 1898-1917, Literature in America, and Pearl S. Buck: A Cultural Biography, which was chosen as a New York Times Notable Book, was included among the five finalists for the National Book Critics Circle award in biography, and received the Athenaeum Award. Amy Gutmann is President of the University of Pennsylvania. Her most recent books are Identity in Democracy: Why Deliberative Democracy? with Dennis Thompson, and Color Conscious: The Political Morality of Race, with Anthony Appiah, which won the Ralph J. Bunche Award of the American Political Science Association, the North American Society for Social Philosophy Book Award, and the Gustavus Myers Human Rights Award.

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