The Story of American History Part 23

CHAPTER XIX.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN: HIS HIGHLY USEFUL CAREER.

=250. Benjamin Franklin, one of the most Useful and Influential Men of his Time.=--Among the many men who acted a conspicuous part as "makers of our country," Benjamin Franklin holds a unique and interesting place.

Combined with shrewd common sense and a practical philosophy was a genial and rare personality, which made him during his long lifetime a most useful and influential citizen.

Franklin did not fight and win battles like Was.h.i.+ngton and Greene, but he gained notable victories in diplomacy when the struggling colonies sorely needed them. For over sixty years he wrote hundreds of pamphlets, tracts, and newspaper articles, which moulded public opinion at critical times, and also served to increase the comfort and happiness of his fellow-men.

Most men who have attempted to write their own lives have made a sad failure of it. This busy man of the world, with no education save that which he was able to get in the "odds and ends" of time, told the story of his own life in a way that has commanded the interest and admiration of mult.i.tudes of readers for over a hundred years.

=251. Franklin's Early Life; his Genius for Useful Inventions.=--Benjamin Franklin, the fifteenth of a family of seventeen children, was born in Boston in 1706. His father was a poor man, who could afford his youngest boy only about two years of schooling. When he was ten, the lad left school to a.s.sist his father at his trade of making soap and tallow candles.

Nothing else pleased the boy so much as a book. He had access at this time to very few, and most of these were dull, but he read them eagerly.

He read and re-read Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_ until he knew it by heart. He disliked his father's trade and longed to do something more agreeable. He even thought of running away to sea as one of his brothers had done.

=252. Learns the Printer's Trade; how he learned to write Good English.=--Finally the boy was bound out as an apprentice to his older brother James, to learn the printer's trade. This was more to the boy's liking, for it gave him a better chance to read. For three years young Franklin worked hard to master the business. In a short time he could set type as well as any of the Boston printers. He went on errands to the bookstores, and, making friends with the clerks, he was often able to borrow books to read. He would carry them home, sit up most of the night reading, and return them on the next morning.

In his story of his own life, Franklin gives a most interesting account of his finding an odd volume of Addison's _Spectator_, and how charmed he was with the style. He would read one of Addison's essays with great care, close the book, and then write it out in his own words. This was carefully compared with the original, and corrected and re-corrected until he had improved upon his first effort.

This and other similar exercises were long continued, and they gave the ambitious boy the command of a singularly clear and interesting style.

=253. Writes for his Brother's Newspaper.=--For three years the young printer worked steadily at his trade, without a moment of leisure except such as he took from his sleep or from his meals. He often sat up late and rose early, that he might have more time for study.

His brother James, for whom he worked, so prospered in his business that he began to print in 1721 a weekly newspaper. It was young Benjamin's duty to set the type and strike off the edition of a few hundred papers, and then carry the little sheet to the houses of the subscribers.

The boy read his brother's paper and soon had confidence enough in himself to write articles for it. He did not dare to let his brother know it, but slipped them under the door at night. They were printed and eagerly read for some time before their authors.h.i.+p was known.

=254. Goes to Philadelphia; First Appearance in that City.=--Young Franklin and his brother did not, however, get along well together. They quarreled, and the young printer at last sold some of his books and set sail for New York on a sloop. Unable to find work there, he was advised to go to Philadelphia. After many hards.h.i.+ps and mishaps, he stepped ash.o.r.e at the Quaker City one Sunday morning with one silver dollar and about a s.h.i.+lling in copper in his pocket.

Franklin was at this time a st.u.r.dy youth of seventeen. He was dressed in the peculiar fas.h.i.+on of the times. He wore knee breeches of buckskin, also a huge coat, the pockets of which bulged out with his spare s.h.i.+rts and stockings. He hastened to the first baker's shop and asked for threepenny worth of bread. The baker handed him three long rolls. He took one under each arm, and ate the third as he walked along the streets.

A young girl happened to see him as he pa.s.sed her father's house, and she laughed aloud at the young man's comical appearance. The girl's name was Deborah Read, and she afterwards became the wife of Franklin. Hungry and tired, he ate his rolls, then walked down to the river for a drink of water, and at last went into a Quaker meeting and soon fell sound asleep.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FRANKLIN'S FIRST APPEARANCE IN PHILADELPHIA.]

A good Quaker helped Franklin to get work at his trade as a printer. The young man soon proved himself a prize to his employer. He was strong, quick, frugal, of a studious mind, and, what was a rare virtue in those days, he never touched strong drink. Bright and sunny hours now came. He received good wages, saved his money, and made friends everywhere.

=255. Goes to London and works at his Trade.=--One of these friends was the governor of Pennsylvania. He advised Franklin to set up a printing office of his own. He urged him to go to London to buy a printing outfit, and promised him letters to people in England who, he said, would let him have all the money he needed. The young printer trusted too much to the pompous governor's promises and sailed for England, hoping to find the letters in the vessel's letter bag. But the governor had disappointed him; no such letters were ever written.

In due time Franklin found himself in the great city of London, where he did not know a single person. He at once showed what stuff he was made of. He quietly went to work at his trade and worked harder than ever. He kept up his studious habits, and spent all his spare time in reading good books.

=256. Returns to Philadelphia; successful as a Printer and Publisher.=--After a stay of a year and a half in London, Franklin returned to Philadelphia, and soon after set up in business for himself as a printer. After a time he started a newspaper. He worked early and late, attending to every detail himself. He was not ashamed to carry material for his paper through the streets on a wheelbarrow.

Once he invited a rival in his business home to dine. Pointing to a loaf of bread from which they had eaten, he said, "Unless you can live cheaper than I, you cannot starve me out."

When he was twenty-four the prosperous young printer married Deborah Read, the young woman who had laughed at him years before as he trudged through the streets with the rolls under his arms. Deborah proved herself a real helpmate, thrifty and industrious. Attached to the printing office was a little shop which the young wife tended.

"Our table was plain and simple," says Franklin in his autobiography, "our furniture of the cheapest. For instance, our breakfast was for a long time bread and milk (no tea), and I ate it out of a twopenny earthen porringer, with a pewter spoon." In after years the thrifty couple indulged in some splendor, for in 1765 Mrs. Franklin, in a letter to her husband, alludes proudly to a papered room, horsehair chairs, a sideboard, and three carpets.

=257. His Happy, Useful, and Prosperous Career in Philadelphia.=--For twenty years Franklin lived a prosperous life as an active business man of the good Quaker city. He had become noted for his integrity, sagacity, and prosperity. His newspaper became known for its sparkling and timely editorials. The most intelligent and influential men of the city met in his office to discuss the questions of the day.

The same year that Was.h.i.+ngton was born (1732) Franklin issued the first number of his _Poor Richard's Almanac_, which soon gained great fame for its wise and pithy sayings. The popularity which this little work maintained for twenty-five years was astonis.h.i.+ng. Its shrewd and quaint maxims soon became household words in almost every shop and home of the land.

Even with his increasing prosperity Franklin found time every day to devote many hours to his books. He became proficient in French, Spanish, Italian, and even Latin. He gave much time to music, and played with skill upon the harp, the guitar, and the violin.

This remarkable man now began to be at the head of many kinds of public and private enterprises, from treating with the Indians to plans for cleaning the streets. Honors, both public and private, were heaped upon him. He started a public library in Philadelphia, the first of its kind in America.

He invented the famous "Franklin fireplace," which proved very popular and is even in use to-day. The most trivial events would often suggest to him something that would secure beneficial results.

The story is told that Franklin saw one day in a ditch the fragments of a basket of yellow willow, in which some foreign goods had been brought into the country. One of the twigs had sprouted. He planted it; and it is said that it became the parent of all the yellow willows in our country.

=258. Franklin's Famous Kite Experiment.=--Franklin was a great student of the sciences, especially electricity. He wrote a pamphlet to prove that lightning and electricity are the same thing. The idea was sneered at, and people asked, "Of what use is it?" To which the genial philosopher replied, "What is the use of a child? It may become a man!" He hit on a plan to prove his theory.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FRANKLIN'S FAMOUS KITE EXPERIMENT.]

This was the famous kite experiment which he tried in 1752. He made a kite of silk, fastened a piece of wire to the stick, and went out with his son to fly it during a thunderstorm. At the lower end of the hempen string was fastened a key, and below that a cord of silk, which is a non-conductor. He held the silk cord in his hand, and when a low thunder cloud pa.s.sed, he saw that the fibres of the string rose, separated, and stood on end, exactly as the hair does on one's head when one is charged with electricity as he stands on an insulating stool.

When Franklin brought his knuckles near the key that he had tied to the string, sparks came from the metal, and he felt slight shocks.

This discovery made a great sensation in the scientific world. Franklin at once became famous, took high rank as a man of science, and was afterwards known as "Doctor Franklin." He now invented the lightning rod, which has been in use ever since all over the civilized world.

=259. Entrance into a Broader Public Life.=--From this time Franklin began to occupy more important positions in public life. In 1754 he was sent on a mission to Albany to enlist the chiefs of the powerful "Six Nations" to become allies of the English. On this journey he drew up a plan for the union of the colonies. It was almost like that by which they were afterwards bound together as a nation.

During the Braddock campaign Franklin in vain warned the haughty British general that "the Indians would surprise, on its flanks, the slender line, nearly four miles long, which the army must make," and would "cut it like a thread into several pieces." From his own purse Franklin advanced for this ill-starred expedition between six and seven thousand silver dollars.

The quarrels between the Pennsylvania a.s.sembly and the Proprietors in England became so bitter that Franklin was sent to England in 1757 as the sole commissioner to make an appeal to the English government. He was cordially received abroad and highly honored by the most eminent scientific men of the time. He returned home after an absence of nearly six years.

Franklin was now fifty-seven years old. He had an ample fortune, perfect health, and a superiority to most men in personal appearance and dignity. He hoped to withdraw from public life and give the rest of his days to the study of science.

=260. Franklin becomes a most Useful and Sagacious Helper to the Struggling Colonies.=--Great and momentous events, however, were at hand.

There was more important work for him to do. The struggling colonies, already taxed almost beyond endurance to carry on the war against the French and Indians, were allowed no representation nor voice in the matter of taxation. Franklin, with patriotic foresight and with keen force of logic, resisted the outrage. He declared it to be the "mother of mischief."

In 1764 Franklin was again sent by the a.s.sembly to England, to present to the British court the protest of the people against "taxation without representation."

[Ill.u.s.tration: FRANKLIN AT THE COURT OF FRANCE.]

From this time Franklin served the colonies in England as a most accomplished diplomatist, a vigorous writer, and a shrewd and sagacious agent. He failed to stop the pa.s.sage of the notorious Stamp Act, but he fought the measure so vigorously by his writings and discussions that he aroused bitter opposition to it among the industrial cla.s.ses, so that Parliament was compelled at last to repeal the obnoxious measure.

He was once brought before the House of Parliament and sharply questioned.

"Do you think," asked the prime minister, "the people of America would submit to pay the stamp duty if it was changed?"

"No, never," said Franklin; "the American people will never submit to it."

The colonists received with unbounded delight the tidings of Franklin's masterly diplomacy and the repeal of the Stamp Act. Bells were rung, bonfires blazed, and cannon were fired. "I never heard so much noise in my life," wrote Franklin's daughter Sallie to him; "the very children seem distracted."