The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (3 page)

There was another bookish lad in the town, John Collins by name,
with whom I was intimately acquainted. We sometimes disputed,
and very fond we were of argument, and very desirous of confuting
one another, which disputatious turn, by the way, is apt to become
a very bad habit, making people often extremely disagreeable in company
by the contradiction that is necessary to bring it into practice;
and thence, besides souring and spoiling the conversation,
is productive of disgusts and, perhaps enmities where you may have
occasion for friendship. I had caught it by reading my father's
books of dispute about religion. Persons of good sense, I have
since observed, seldom fall into it, except lawyers, university men,
and men of all sorts that have been bred at Edinborough.

A question was once, somehow or other, started between Collins
and me, of the propriety of educating the female sex in learning,
and their abilities for study. He was of opinion that it was improper,
and that they were naturally unequal to it. I took the contrary side,
perhaps a little for dispute's sake. He was naturally more eloquent,
had a ready plenty of words; and sometimes, as I thought, bore me
down more by his fluency than by the strength of his reasons.
As we parted without settling the point, and were not to see one
another again for some time, I sat down to put my arguments in writing,
which I copied fair and sent to him. He answered, and I replied.
Three or four letters of a side had passed, when my father happened
to find my papers and read them. Without entering into the discussion,
he took occasion to talk to me about the manner of my writing;
observed that, though I had the advantage of my antagonist in correct
spelling and pointing (which I ow'd to the printing-house), I fell
far short in elegance of expression, in method and in perspicuity,
of which he convinced me by several instances. I saw the justice
of his remark, and thence grew more attentive to the manner in writing,
and determined to endeavor at improvement.

About this time I met with an odd volume of the Spectator.
It was the third. I had never before seen any of them. I bought it,
read it over and over, and was much delighted with it. I thought
the writing excellent, and wished, if possible, to imitate it.
With this view I took some of the papers, and, making short hints
of the sentiment in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then,
without looking at the book, try'd to compleat the papers again,
by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, and as fully as it
had been expressed before, in any suitable words that should
come to hand. Then I compared my Spectator with the original,
discovered some of my faults, and corrected them. But I found I wanted
a stock of words, or a readiness in recollecting and using them,
which I thought I should have acquired before that time if I
had gone on making verses; since the continual occasion for words
of the same import, but of different length, to suit the measure,
or of different sound for the rhyme, would have laid me under a constant
necessity of searching for variety, and also have tended to fix
that variety in my mind, and make me master of it. Therefore I took
some of the tales and turned them into verse; and, after a time,
when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them back again.
I also sometimes jumbled my collections of hints into confusion,
and after some weeks endeavored to reduce them into the best order,
before I began to form the full sentences and compleat the paper.
This was to teach me method in the arrangement of thoughts.
By comparing my work afterwards with the original, I discovered
many faults and amended them; but I sometimes had the pleasure
of fancying that, in certain particulars of small import,
I had been lucky enough to improve the method or the language,
and this encouraged me to think I might possibly in time come to be
a tolerable English writer, of which I was extremely ambitious.
My time for these exercises and for reading was at night,
after work or before it began in the morning, or on Sundays,
when I contrived to be in the printing-house alone, evading as much
as I could the common attendance on public worship which my father
used to exact on me when I was under his care, and which indeed
I still thought a duty, though I could not, as it seemed to me,
afford time to practise it.

When about 16 years of age I happened to meet with a book,
written by one Tryon, recommending a vegetable diet. I determined
to go into it. My brother, being yet unmarried, did not keep house,
but boarded himself and his apprentices in another family. My refusing
to eat flesh occasioned an inconveniency, and I was frequently chid
for my singularity. I made myself acquainted with Tryon's manner
of preparing some of his dishes, such as boiling potatoes or rice,
making hasty pudding, and a few others, and then proposed to my brother,
that if he would give me, weekly, half the money he paid for my board,
I would board myself. He instantly agreed to it, and I presently
found that I could save half what he paid me. This was an additional
fund for buying books. But I had another advantage in it.
My brother and the rest going from the printing-house to their meals,
I remained there alone, and, despatching presently my light repast,
which often was no more than a bisket or a slice of bread, a handful
of raisins or a tart from the pastry-cook's, and a glass of water,
had the rest of the time till their return for study, in which I
made the greater progress, from that greater clearness of head
and quicker apprehension which usually attend temperance in eating
and drinking.

And now it was that, being on some occasion made asham'd of my
ignorance in figures, which I had twice failed in learning when
at school, I took Cocker's book of Arithmetick, and went through
the whole by myself with great ease. I also read Seller's and
Shermy's books of Navigation, and became acquainted with the little
geometry they contain; but never proceeded far in that science.
And I read about this time Locke On Human Understanding,
and the Art of Thinking, by Messrs. du Port Royal.

While I was intent on improving my language, I met with an English
grammar (I think it was Greenwood's), at the end of which there were
two little sketches of the arts of rhetoric and logic, the latter
finishing with a specimen of a dispute in the Socratic method;
and soon after I procur'd Xenophon's Memorable Things of Socrates,
wherein there are many instances of the same method. I was
charm'd with it, adopted it, dropt my abrupt contradiction and
positive argumentation, and put on the humble inquirer and doubter.
And being then, from reading Shaftesbury and Collins, become a real
doubter in many points of our religious doctrine, I found this method
safest for myself and very embarrassing to those against whom I used it;
therefore I took a delight in it, practis'd it continually, and grew
very artful and expert in drawing people, even of superior knowledge,
into concessions, the consequences of which they did not foresee,
entangling them in difficulties out of which they could not
extricate themselves, and so obtaining victories that neither myself
nor my cause always deserved. I continu'd this method some few years,
but gradually left it, retaining only the habit of expressing myself
in terms of modest diffidence; never using, when I advanced any thing
that may possibly be disputed, the words certainly, undoubtedly, or any
others that give the air of positiveness to an opinion; but rather say,
I conceive or apprehend a thing to be so and so; it appears to me,
or I should think it so or so, for such and such reasons;
or I imagine it to be so; or it is so, if I am not mistaken.
This habit, I believe, has been of great advantage to me when I
have had occasion to inculcate my opinions, and persuade men into
measures that I have been from time to time engag'd in promoting;
and, as the chief ends of conversation are to inform or to be informed,
to please or to persuade, I wish well-meaning, sensible men would
not lessen their power of doing good by a positive, assuming manner,
that seldom fails to disgust, tends to create opposition, and to
defeat every one of those purposes for which speech was given to us,
to wit, giving or receiving information or pleasure. For, if you
would inform, a positive and dogmatical manner in advancing your
sentiments may provoke contradiction and prevent a candid attention.
If you wish information and improvement from the knowledge of others,
and yet at the same time express yourself as firmly fix'd in your
present opinions, modest, sensible men, who do not love disputation,
will probably leave you undisturbed in the possession of your error.
And by such a manner, you can seldom hope to recommend yourself
in pleasing your hearers, or to persuade those whose concurrence
you desire. Pope says, judiciously:

"Men should be taught as if you taught them not,
And things unknown propos'd as things forgot;"

farther recommending to us

"To speak, tho' sure, with seeming diffidence."

And he might have coupled with this line that which he has coupled
with another, I think, less properly,

"For want of modesty is want of sense."

If you ask, Why less properly? I must repeat the lines,

"Immodest words admit of no defense,
For want of modesty is want of sense."

Now, is not want of sense (where a man is so unfortunate as to want it)
some apology for his want of modesty? and would not the lines stand
more justly thus?

"Immodest words admit but this defense,
That want of modesty is want of sense."

This, however, I should submit to better judgments.

My brother had, in 1720 or 1721, begun to print a newspaper.
It was the second that appeared in America, and was called the New
England Courant. The only one before it was the Boston News-Letter. I
remember his being dissuaded by some of his friends from the undertaking,
as not likely to succeed, one newspaper being, in their judgment,
enough for America. At this time (1771) there are not less
than five-and-twenty. He went on, however, with the undertaking,
and after having worked in composing the types and printing off
the sheets, I was employed to carry the papers thro' the streets
to the customers.

He had some ingenious men among his friends, who amus'd themselves
by writing little pieces for this paper, which gain'd it credit
and made it more in demand, and these gentlemen often visited us.
Hearing their conversations, and their accounts of the approbation their
papers were received with, I was excited to try my hand among them;
but, being still a boy, and suspecting that my brother would object
to printing anything of mine in his paper if he knew it to be mine,
I contrived to disguise my hand, and, writing an anonymous paper,
I put it in at night under the door of the printing-house. It was found
in the morning, and communicated to his writing friends when they
call'd in as usual. They read it, commented on it in my hearing, and I
had the exquisite pleasure of finding it met with their approbation,
and that, in their different guesses at the author, none were named
but men of some character among us for learning and ingenuity.
I suppose now that I was rather lucky in my judges, and that perhaps
they were not really so very good ones as I then esteem'd them.

Encourag'd, however, by this, I wrote and convey'd in the same way
to the press several more papers which were equally approv'd; and I
kept my secret till my small fund of sense for such performances was
pretty well exhausted and then I discovered it, when I began to be
considered a little more by my brother's acquaintance, and in a manner
that did not quite please him, as he thought, probably with reason,
that it tended to make me too vain. And, perhaps, this might be one
occasion of the differences that we began to have about this time.
Though a brother, he considered himself as my master, and me
as his apprentice, and accordingly, expected the same services
from me as he would from another, while I thought he demean'd me
too much in some he requir'd of me, who from a brother expected
more indulgence. Our disputes were often brought before our father,
and I fancy I was either generally in the right, or else a
better pleader, because the judgment was generally in my favor.
But my brother was passionate, and had often beaten me, which I
took extreamly amiss; and, thinking my apprenticeship very tedious,
I was continually wishing for some opportunity of shortening it,
which at length offered in a manner unexpected.
[4]

One of the pieces in our newspaper on some political point, which I
have now forgotten, gave offense to the Assembly. He was taken up,
censur'd, and imprison'd for a month, by the speaker's warrant,
I suppose, because he would not discover his author. I too was taken
up and examin'd before the council; but, tho' I did not give them
any satisfaction, they content'd themselves with admonishing me,
and dismissed me, considering me, perhaps, as an apprentice, who was
bound to keep his master's secrets.

During my brother's confinement, which I resented a good deal,
notwithstanding our private differences, I had the management
of the paper; and I made bold to give our rulers some rubs in it,
which my brother took very kindly, while others began to consider
me in an unfavorable light, as a young genius that had a turn
for libelling and satyr. My brother's discharge was accompany'd
with an order of the House (a very odd one), that "James Franklin
should no longer print the paper called the New England Courant."

There was a consultation held in our printing-house among
his friends, what he should do in this case. Some proposed to
evade the order by changing the name of the paper; but my brother,
seeing inconveniences in that, it was finally concluded on as a
better way, to let it be printed for the future under the name
of BENJAMIN FRANKLIN; and to avoid the censure of the Assembly,
that might fall on him as still printing it by his apprentice,
the contrivance was that my old indenture should be return'd to me,
with a full discharge on the back of it, to be shown on occasion,
but to secure to him the benefit of my service, I was to sign new
indentures for the remainder of the term, which were to be kept private.
A very flimsy scheme it was; however, it was immediately executed,
and the paper went on accordingly, under my name for several months.