I 



BENJAAUN FRANKLIN. 



age, — an uncle, whose namesake he was, and who appears to 

 have been an ingenious man, encouraging the project, by 

 offering to give him several volumes of sermons to set up with, 

 which he had taken down, in a shorthand of his own inven- 

 tion, from the different preachers he had been in the habit of 

 hearing. This person, who was now advanced in life, had 

 been only a common silk-dyer, but had been both a great 

 reader and writer in his day, having filled two quarto volumes 

 with his own manuscript poetry. What he was most proud of, 

 however, was his shorthand, which he was very anxious that his 

 nephew should learn. But young Franklin had not been quite 

 a year at the grammar-school, when his father began to reflect 

 that the expense of a college education for him was what he 

 could not very well afford ; and that, besides, the church in 

 America was a poor profession after all. He was accordingly 

 removed, and placed for another year under a teacher of writ- 

 ing and arithmetic ; after which his father took him home, 

 when he was no more than ten years old, to assist him in his 

 own business. Accordingly, he was employed, he tells us, in 

 cutting wicks for the candles, filling the moulds for cast candles, 

 attending the shop, going errands, and other drudgery of the 

 same kind. He showed so much dislike, however, to this 

 business, that his father, afraid he would break loose and go 

 to sea, as one of his elder brothers had done, found it advis- 

 able, after a trial of two years, to look about for another occu- 

 pation for him ; and taking him round to see a great many 

 different sorts of tradesmen at their work, it was at last agreed 

 upon that he should be bound apprentice to a cousin of his 

 own, who was a cutler. But he had been only for some days 

 on trial at this business, when, his father thinking the appren- 

 tice fee which his cousin asked too high, he was again taken 



