2 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 



honourable family of the working class, " a man of strength and 

 prudence of character." His mother was the daughter of Peter 

 Folger, author of a volume of poems, A Looking Glass for the 

 Times, asserting liberty of conscience. 



Franklin's earlier years were spent in the soap and candle 

 factory of his father till the age of twelve, when he became an 

 apprentice in the printing office of his brother James, and 

 began to cultivate his literary tastes and write for publica- 

 tion. On account of disagreements with his brother he stole 

 away from Boston and went to Philadelphia in 1723, and there 

 met that curious series of adventures the story of which has 

 been, and continues to be, so entertaining to American youth. 

 Here, too, his active life, so far as it directly affected the 

 world, began. 



Franklin tells us in his autobiography that his father took 

 great pains to train his children to habits of honesty and 

 industry. One of the earliest lessons he taught the boy it 

 was in the affair of appropriating the building stones to make 

 a fishing wharf was, when he pleaded the usefulness of the 

 work, to convince him that nothing was useful which was not 

 honest. This father "was skilled a little in music," both with 

 the voice and on the violin, had a mechanical genius, and was 

 handy on occasion in the use of other trades than his own ; 

 " but his great excellence lay in a sound understanding and 

 solid judgment in prudential matters, both in private and 

 public affairs"; and he was frequently visited for consultation 

 in matters of both kinds. " At the table he liked to have, as 

 often as he could, some sensible friend or neighbour to con- 

 verse with, and always took care to start some ingenious or 

 useful topic for discourse, which might tend to improve the 

 minds of his children. By this means he turned our attention 

 to what was good, just, and prudent in the conduct of life." 

 The father had intended to devote the boy, " as the tithe of 

 his sons," to the service of the Church, and was encouraged in 

 this design by his early readiness in learning to read, and the 

 opinion of his friends, who discerned signs of scholarly promise 

 in him; but, in view of the expense of a college education, 

 "and the mean living many so educated were afterward able 

 to obtain," changed his first intention and took him from the 

 grammar school, where he had been preparing, and sent him to 

 a school for writing and arithmetic. Franklin " acquired fair 



