116 THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



controversy, Plutarch's Lives, filled with the spirit 

 of Greek freedom, Dr. Mather's Bonifacius, and 

 Defoe's Essay on Projects. The last two seemed to 

 give him a way of thinking, to adopt Franklin's 

 phraseology, that had an influence on some of the 

 principal events of his life. Defoe, an ardent non- 

 conformist, educated in one of the Academies (estab- 

 lished on Milton's model) and especially trained in 

 English and current history, advocated among other 

 projects a military academy, an academy for improv- 

 ing the vernacular, and an academy for women. He 

 thought it barbarous that a civilized and Christian 

 country should deny the advantages of learning to 

 women. They should be brought to read books and 

 especially history. Defoe could not think that God 

 Almighty had made women so glorious, with souls 

 capable of the same accomplishments with men, and 

 all to be only stewards of our houses, cooks, and 

 slaves. 



Benjamin still had a hankering for the sea, but he 

 recognized in the printing-office and access to books 

 other means of escape from the narrowness of the 

 Boston of 1720. Between him and another bookish 

 boy, John Collins, arose an argument in reference to 

 the education of women. The argument took the form 

 of correspondence. Josiah Franklin's judicious criti- 

 cism led Benjamin to undertake the well-known plan 

 of developing his literary style. 



Passing over his reading of the Spectator, however, 

 it is remarkable how soon his mind sought out and 

 assimilated its appropriate nourishment, Locke's Es- 

 say on the Human Understanding, which began the 

 modern epoch in psychology ; the Port Royal Logic, 



