intention, took me from the grammar-school, and sent me to a school for writing and arithmetic, kept by a then famous man, Mr. George Brownell, very successful in his profession generally, and that by mild, encouraging methods. Under him I acquired fair writing pretty soon, but I failed in the arithmetic, and made no progress in it."

Thus began and ended all the regular tuition Franklin ever received; but slight as it was, he never forgot its benefits, and in his will was the clause:

"I was born in Boston, New England, and owe my first instructions in literature to the free grammar-schools established there. I therefore give one hundred pounds sterling to my executors, to be by them. . . paid over to the managers or directors of the free schools in my native town of Boston, to be by them. . . put out to interest, and so continued at interest for ever, which interest annually shall be laid out in silver medals, and given as honorary rewards annually by the directors of the said free schools belonging to the said town, in such manner as to the discretion of the selectmen of the said town shall seem meet."

Advertisements.

AT the Houfe of George Brownell in Second Street, (formerly the Houfe of Mr. John Knight, deccas'd) is taught, Reading, Writing, Cyphering, Dancing, Plain-work, Marking, with Variety of Needle-work. Where alfo Scholars may board.

ADVERTISEMENT OF GEORGE BROWNELL.

From the "Pennsylvania Gazette," in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

"The doors of Wisdom are never shut," affirmed Poor Richard, and if Franklin was a pupil for only two years, he seems never to have ceased to be a student.

The same proverb-maker asserted that "God helps them that help themselves," and by continuous selfculture his creator became almost encyclopedic in his knowledge, and one of the best-informed and most learned men of his generation. As early as 1756 John Adams had heard of "Mr. Franklin of Philadelphia, a prodigious genius, cultivated with prodigious industry.”

Franklin advised, "Read much, but not too many books"; but, as he himself said, "We may give Advice, but we cannot give Conduct," and during his whole life he was an omnivorous devourer of books. In his autobiography he mentions "my early readiness in learning to read, which must have been very early, as I do not remember when I could not read." The taste was the more remarkable when the literature at his command is considered. From the inventory of his father's property it is learned that Josiah Franklin died possessed of two large Bibles, a concordance, Willard's "Compleat Body of Divinity,”—as dull a folio of nearly a thousand pages as was probably ever printed, written by the clergyman who married Josiah and Abiah Franklin, and "a parcel of small books," more fully described by Franklin, who said: "My father's little library consisted of books in polemic divinity, most of which I read, and have since often regretted that, at a time when I had such a thirst for knowledge, more proper books had not fallen in my way." Yet even in this "parcel" of dry-as-dust theology the boy found some things to enjoy. "Plutarch's Lives there was, in which I read abundantly, and I still think that time spent to great advantage. There was also a book of

De Foe's, called an Essay on Projects, and another of Dr. Mather's, called Essays to do Good, which perhaps

gave me a turn of thinking that had an influence on some of the principal future events of my life." This little tractate made so great an impression on the youth

ful mind that, full seventy years after reading it, Franklin wrote to the author's son:

"Permit me to mention one little instance, which, though it relates to myself, will not be quite uninteresting to you. When I was a boy, I met with a book entitled 'Essays to do Good,' which I think was written by your father. It had been so little regarded by a former possessor, that several leaves of it were torn out; but the remainder gave me such a turn of thinking, as to have an influence on my conduct through life; for I have always set a greater value on the character of a doer of good, than on any other kind of reputation; and if I have been, as you seem to think, a useful citizen, the public owes the advantage of it to that book."

Whatever might be the paucity of his father's library, the boy had a natural bent for reading, and could not be kept from books. "From a child," he declared, "I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books. Pleased with the Pilgrim's Progress, my first collection was of John Bunyan's works in separate little volumes. I afterwards sold them to enable me to buy R. Burton's Historical Collections; they were small chapmen's books, and cheap, 40 or 50 in all." The taste was no doubt whetted by the influence of his uncle Benjamin, who lived for a time in Boston, and who took not a little interest in the intellectual development of his namesake. Before the boy was five years of age his uncle began sending him monitory poems, acrostics, and letters of advice. He was not merely a confirmed scribbler, but a book-collector as well, and many years after his death Franklin became possessed of part of his library by a curious chance.