RISEN BY PERSEVERANCE. 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 



!HE name we are now to mention is perhaps the 

 most distinguished to be found in the annals of 

 self - education. Of all those, at least, who, by 

 their own efforts, and without any usurpation of the rights 

 of others, have raised themselves to a high place in society, 

 there is no one, as has been remarked, the close of whose 

 history presents so great a contrast to its commencement as 

 that of Benjamin Franklin. It fortunately happens, too, 

 in his case, that we are in possession of abundant informa- 

 tion as to the methods by which he contrived to surmount 

 the many disadvantages of his original condition; to raise 

 himself from the lowest poverty and obscurity to affluence 

 and distinction ; and, above all, in the absence of instructors, 

 and of the ordinary helps to the acquisition of knowledge, to 

 enrich himself so plentifully with the treasures of literature 

 and science, as not only to be enabled to derive from that 



source the chief happiness of his life, but to succeed in placing 



c 



> 



