opened one day in the week for lending to the subscribers, on their
promissory notes to pay double the value if not duly returned. The
institution soon manifested its utility, was imitated by other towns
and in other provinces. The libraries were augmented by donations;
reading became fashionable; and our people, having no public
amusements to divert their attention from study, became better
acquainted with books, and in a few years were observed by strangers
to be better instructed and more intelligent than people of the same
rank generally are in other countries.
When we were about to sign the above-mentioned articles, which were to
be binding on us, our heirs, etc., for fifty years, Mr. Brockden, the
scrivener, said to us: "You are young men, but it is scarcely probable
that any of you will live to see the expiration of the term fixed in
the instrument." A number of us, however, are yet living; but the
instrument was, after a few years, rendered null by a charter that
incorporated and gave perpetuity to the company.[109]
The objections and reluctances I met with in soliciting the
subscriptions made me soon feel the impropriety of presenting one's self
as the proposer of any useful project that might be supposed to raise
one's reputation in the smallest degree above that of one's neighbors,
when one has need of their assistance to accomplish that project. I
therefore put myself as much as I could out of sight, and stated it as a
scheme of a "number of friends," who had requested me to go about and
propose it to such as they thought lovers of reading. In this way my
affair went on more smoothly, and I ever after practiced it on such
occasions, and, from my frequent successes, can heartily recommend it.
The present little sacrifice of your vanity will afterward be amply
repaid. If it remains awhile uncertain to whom the merit belongs, some
one more vain than yourself will be encouraged to claim it, and then
even envy will be disposed to do you justice by plucking those assumed
feathers, and restoring them to their right owner.
This library afforded me the means of improvement by constant study,
for which I set apart an hour or two each day, and thus repaired in
some degree the loss of the learned education my father once intended
for me. Reading was the only amusement I allowed myself. I spent no
time in taverns, games, or frolics of any kind; and my industry in my
business continued as indefatigable as it was necessary. I was
indebted for my printing house; I had a young family coming on to be
educated, and I had to contend for business with two printers, who
were established in the place before me. My circumstances, however,
grew daily easier. My original habits of frugality continuing, and my
father having, among his instructions to me when a boy, frequently
repeated a proverb of Solomon, "Seest thou a man diligent in his
business? he shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean
men,"[110] I from thence considered industry as a means of obtaining
wealth and distinction, which encouraged me, though I did not think
that I should ever literally "stand before kings;" which, however, has
since happened, for I have stood before five, and even had the honor
of sitting down with one (the King of Denmark) to dinner.[n]
We have an English proverb that says, "He that would thrive must ask
his wife." It was lucky for me that I had one as much disposed to
industry and frugality as myself. She assisted me cheerfully in my
business, folding and stitching pamphlets, tending shop, purchasing
old linen rags for the paper makers, etc. We kept no idle servants,
our table was plain and simple, our furniture of the cheapest. For
instance, my breakfast was a long time bread and milk (no tea), and I
ate it out of a two-penny earthen porringer, with a pewter spoon. But
mark how luxury will enter families and make a progress in spite of
principle. Being called one morning to breakfast, I found it in a
china bowl with a spoon of silver! They had been bought for me without
my knowledge by my wife, and had cost her the enormous sum of
three-and-twenty shillings, for which she had no other excuse or
apology to make but that she thought her husband deserved a silver
spoon and china bowl as well as any of his neighbors. This was the
first appearance of plate and china in our house, which afterward, in
a course of years, as our wealth increased, augmented gradually to
several hundred pounds in value.
I had been religiously educated as a Presbyterian; and, though I early
absented myself from the public assemblies of the sect, Sunday being
my studying day, I never was without some religious principles. I
never doubted, for instance, the existence of the Deity; that he made
the world, and governed it by his providence; that the most acceptable
service of God was the doing good to man; that our souls are immortal;
and that all crime will be punished, and virtue rewarded, either here
or hereafter. These I esteemed the essentials of every religion; and
being to be found in all the religions we had in our country, I
respected them all, though with different degrees of respect as I
found them more or less mixed with other articles which, without any
tendency to inspire, promote, or confirm morality, served principally
to divide us, and make us unfriendly to one another. This respect to
all, with an opinion that the worst had some good effects, induced me
to avoid all discourse that might tend to lessen the good opinion
another might have of his own religion; and as our province increased
in people, and new places of worship were continually wanted, and
generally erected by voluntary contribution, my mite for such
purpose, whatever might be the sect, was never refused.
Though I seldom attended any public worship, I had still an opinion of
its propriety and of its utility when rightly conducted, and I
regularly paid my annual subscription for the support of the only
Presbyterian minister or meeting we had in Philadelphia. He used to
visit me sometimes as a friend, and admonish me to attend his
administrations, and I was now and then prevailed on to do so, once
for five Sundays successively. Had he been in my opinion a good
preacher, perhaps I might have continued, notwithstanding the occasion
I had for the Sunday's leisure in my course of study; but his
discourses were chiefly either polemic arguments or explications of
the peculiar doctrines of our sect, and were all to me very dry,
uninteresting, and unedifying, since not a single moral principle was
inculcated or enforced, their aim seeming to be rather to make us
Presbyterians than good citizens.
At length he took for his text that verse of the fourth chapter of
Philippians: "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true,
whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever
things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are
of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise,
think on these things;" and I imagined, in a sermon on such a text, we
could not miss of having some morality. But he confined himself to
five points only, as meant by the apostle: 1. Keeping holy the Sabbath
day. 2. Being diligent in reading the holy Scriptures. 3. Attending
duly the public worship. 4. Partaking of the sacrament. 5. Paying a
due respect to God's ministers. These might be all good things; but,
as they were not the kind of good things that I expected from that
text, I despaired of ever meeting with them from any other, was
disgusted, and attended his preaching no more. I had some years before
composed a little liturgy, or form of prayer, for my own private use
(in 1728), entitled "Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion." I
returned to the use of this, and went no more to the public
assemblies. My conduct might be blamable, but I leave it without
attempting further to excuse it, my present purpose being to relate
facts, and not to make apologies for them.
[Footnote 81: This method of expression was adopted on the reformation
of the calendar in England in 1752. It shows in this case that the
February was of the year 1726 according to the old style, and 1727
according to the new calendar. The year 1751 began on the 25th of
March, the former New-Year's Day, and ended, by act of Parliament, at
the 1st of January, 1752.]
[Footnote 82: Declared by word of mouth, not written.]
[Footnote 83: Those who were unable to pay for their passage by ship
from one country to another, sometimes sold their service for a term
of years to the captain who brought them over.]
[Footnote 84: Bound by articles of apprenticeship.]
[Footnote 85: The guinea contains twenty-one shillings, while the
pound has twenty.]
[Footnote 86: A crimp is one who brings recruits to the army or
sailors to ships by false inducements.]
[Footnote 87: Molds.]
[Footnote 88: Here used for salesman.]
[Footnote 89: Marks or registers by which a bill may be identified.]
[Footnote 90: See Note 3, p. 19.]
[Footnote 91: Belief in the existence of a personal God, but denying
revelation.]
[Footnote 92:
"Whatever is, is in its causes just,
Since all things are by fate. But purblind man
Sees but a part o' the chain, the nearest links;
His eyes not carrying to the equal beam
That poises all above."
DRYDEN, _[OE]dipus_, act iii. sc. I.
]
[Footnote 93: The word means an assembly of persons engaged for a
common purpose. It is from the Spanish _junta_ ("a council").]
[Footnote 94: An instrument used in navigation for measuring the
altitude of the sun.]
[Footnote 95: Putting the types no longer needed for printing into the
proper boxes.]
[Footnote 96: Set up for printing.]
[Footnote 97: Type in a jumbled mass.]
[Footnote 98: "This paper was called The Universal Instructor in all
Arts and Sciences and Pennsylvania Gazette. Keimer printed his last
number--the thirty-ninth--on the twenty-fifth day of September,
1729."--BIGELOW.]
[Footnote 99: The governor brought instructions from the king that his
salary should be one thousand pounds. The legislature claimed the
liberty of fixing the sum themselves. Franklin ended his article with
this sentence: "Their happy mother country will perhaps observe with
pleasure that, though her gallant cocks and matchless dogs abate their
natural fire and intrepidity when transported to a foreign clime (as
this nation is), yet her sons in the remotest part of the earth, and
even to the third and fourth descent, still retain that ardent spirit
of liberty, and that undaunted courage, which has in every age so
gloriously distinguished Britons and Englishmen from the rest of
mankind."]
[Footnote 100: FRANKLIN'S NOTE.--I got his son once five hundred
pounds.]
[Footnote 101: This money had not the full value of the pound sterling.]
[Footnote 102: That is, the government of Delaware.]
[Footnote 103: In secret.]
[Footnote 104: Men on horseback who carried the mail.]
[Footnote 105: Miss Read's first marriage.]
[Footnote 106: Mrs. Franklin died Dec. 19, 1774. Franklin celebrated
his wife in a song, of which the following verses are a part:
"Of their Chloes and Phyllises poets may prate,
I sing my plain country Joan,
These twelve years my wife, still the joy of my life,
Blest day that I made her my own.
* * * * *
"Am I loaded with care, she takes off a large share,
That the burden ne'er makes me to reel;
Does good fortune arrive, the joy of my wife
Quite doubles the pleasure I feel.
* * * * *
"Some faults have we all, and so has my Joan,
But then they're exceedingly small;
And, now I'm grown used to them, so like my own,
I scarcely can see them at all.
"Were the finest young princess with millions in purse,
To be had in exchange for my Joan,
I could not get better wife, might get a worse,
So I'll stick to my dearest old Joan."
]
[Footnote 107: FRANKLIN'S MEMORANDUM.--Thus far was written with the
intention expressed in the beginning, and therefore contains several
little family anecdotes of no importance to others. What follows was
written many years after in compliance with the advice contained in
these letters (see p. 192), and accordingly intended for the public.
The affairs of the Revolution occasioned the interruption.]
[Footnote 108: See Note 1.]
[Footnote 109: The Philadelphia Library was incorporated in 1742. In
its building is a tablet which reads as follows:
Be it remembered,
in honor of the Philadelphia youth
(then chiefly artificers),
that in MDCCXXXI.
they cheerfully,
at the instance of Benjamin Franklin,
one of their number,
instituted the Philadelphia Library,
which, though small at first,
is become highly valuable and extensively useful,
and which the walls of this edifice
are now destined to contain and preserve;
the first stone of whose foundation
was here placed
the thirty-first day of August, 1789.
The inscription, save the mention of himself, was prepared by Franklin.]
[Footnote 110: See Prov. xxii. 29.]
§5. CONTINUED SELF-EDUCATION.
It was about this time I conceived the bold and arduous project of
arriving at moral perfection. I wished to live without committing any
fault at any time; I would conquer all that either natural
inclination, custom, or company might lead me into. As I knew, or
thought I knew, what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might
not always do the one and avoid the other. But I soon found I had
undertaken a task of more difficulty than I had imagined. While my
care was employed in guarding against one fault, I was often surprised
by another; habit took the advantage of inattention; inclination was
sometimes too strong for reason. I concluded at length that the mere
speculative conviction that it was our interest to be completely
virtuous was not sufficient to prevent our slipping; and that the
contrary habits must be broken, and good ones acquired and
established, before we can have any dependence on a steady, uniform
rectitude of conduct. For this purpose I therefore contrived the
following method.
In the various enumerations of the moral virtues I had met with in my
reading, I found the catalogue more or less numerous, as different
writers included more or fewer ideas under the same name. Temperance,
for example, was by some confined to eating and drinking, while by
others it was extended to mean the moderating every other pleasure,
appetite, inclination, or passion, bodily or mental, even to our
avarice and ambition. I proposed to myself, for the sake of clearness,
to use rather more names, with fewer ideas annexed to each, than a few
names with more ideas; and I included under thirteen names of virtues
all that at that time occurred to me as necessary or desirable, and
annexed to each a short precept, which fully expressed the extent I
gave to its meaning.
These names of virtues, with their precepts, were:
1. TEMPERANCE.
Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
2. SILENCE.
Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling
conversation.
3. ORDER.
Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business
have its time.
4. RESOLUTION.
Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you
resolve.
5. FRUGALITY.
Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste
nothing.
6. INDUSTRY.
Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all
unnecessary actions.
7. SINCERITY.
Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly; and, if you speak,
speak accordingly.
8. JUSTICE.
Wrong none by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your
duty.
9. MODERATION.
Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they
deserve.
10. CLEANLINESS.
Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation.
11. TRANQUILLITY.
Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
12. CHASTITY.
13. HUMILITY.
Imitate Jesus and Socrates.
My intention being to acquire the habitude of all these virtues, I
judged it would be well not to distract my attention by attempting the
whole at once, but to fix it on one of them at a time; and, when I
should be master of that, then to proceed to another, and so on, till
I should have gone through the thirteen; and, as the previous
acquisition of some might facilitate the acquisition of certain
others, I arranged them with that view as they stand above. Temperance
first, as it tends to procure that coolness and clearness of head
which is so necessary where constant vigilance was to be kept up, and
guard maintained against the unremitting attraction of ancient habits
and the force of perpetual temptations. This being acquired and
established, Silence would be more easy; and my desire being to gain
knowledge at the same time that I improved in virtue, and considering
that in conversation it was obtained rather by the use of the ears
than of the tongue, and therefore wishing to break a habit I was
getting into of prattling, punning, and joking, which only made me
acceptable to trifling company, I gave Silence the second place. This
and the next, Order, I expected would allow me more time for attending
to my project and my studies. Resolution, once become habitual, would
keep me firm in my endeavors to obtain all the subsequent virtues;
Frugality and Industry, freeing me from my remaining debt, and
producing affluence and independence, would make more easy the
practice of Sincerity and Justice, etc. Conceiving then that,
agreeably to the advice of Pythagoras in his "Golden Verses,"[111]
daily examination would be necessary, I contrived the following method
for conducting that examination.
I made a little book,[112] in which I allotted a page for each of the
virtues. I ruled each page with red ink, so as to have seven columns,
one for each day of the week, marking each column with a letter for
the day. I crossed these columns with thirteen red lines, marking the
beginning of each line with the first letter of one of the virtues, on
which line, and in its proper column, I might mark, by a little black
spot, every fault I found upon examination to have been committed
respecting that virtue upon that day.
I determined to give a week's strict attention to each of the virtues
successively. Thus, in the first week my great guard was to avoid
every (the least) offense against Temperance, leaving the other
virtues to their ordinary chance, only marking every evening the
faults of the day. Thus, if in the first week I could keep my first
line, marked T., clear of spots, I supposed the habit of that virtue
so much strengthened, and its opposite weakened, that I might venture
extending my attention to include the next, and for the following week
keep both lines clear of spots. Proceeding thus to the last, I could
go through a course complete in thirteen weeks, and four courses in a
year. And, like him who, having a garden to weed, does not attempt to
eradicate all the bad
_FORM OF THE PAGES._
-----------------------------------------------------
| TEMPERANCE. |
|---------------------------------------------------|
| EAT NOT TO DULLNESS; |
| DRINK NOT TO ELEVATION. |
|---------------------------------------------------|
| | S. | M. | T. | W. | T. | F. | S. |
|----------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----|
| T[emperance] | | | | | | | |
|----------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----|
| S[ilence] | * | * | | * | | * | |
|----------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----|
| O[rder] | ** | * | * | | * | * | * |
|----------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----|
| R[esolution] | | | * | | | * | |
|----------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----|
| F[rugality] | | * | | | * | | |
|----------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----|
| I[ndustry] | | | * | | | | |
|----------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----|
| S[incerity] | | | | | | | |
|----------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----|
| J[ustice] | | | | | | | |
|----------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----|
| M[oderation] | | | | | | | |
|----------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----|
| C[leanliness] | | | | | | | |
|----------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----|
| T[ranquillity] | | | | | | | |
|----------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----|
| C[hastity] | | | | | | | |
|----------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----|
| H[umility] | | | | | | | |
-----------------------------------------------------
herbs at once, which would exceed his reach and his strength, but
works on one of the beds at a time, and, having accomplished the
first, proceeds to a second, so I should have, I hoped, the
encouraging pleasure of seeing on my pages the progress I made in
virtue, by clearing successively my lines of their spots, till in the
end, by a number of courses, I should be happy in viewing a clean
book, after a thirteen-weeks' daily examination. My little book had
for its motto these lines from Addison's "Cato:"
"Here will I hold. If there's a power above us
(And that there is, all Nature cries aloud
Thro' all her works), He must delight in virtue;
And that which He delights in must be happy."
Another from Cicero:
"O vitæ Philosophia dux! O virtutum indagatrix expultrixque
vitiorum! Unus dies, bene et ex præceptis tuis actus, peccanti
immortalitati est anteponendus."[113]
Another from the Proverbs of Solomon, speaking of wisdom or virtue:
"Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand riches
and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths
are peace." (iii. 16, 17.)
And, conceiving God to be the fountain of wisdom, I thought it right
and necessary to solicit his assistance for obtaining it. To this end
I formed the following little prayer, which was prefixed to my tables
of examination, for daily use:
"O powerful Goodness! bountiful Father! merciful Guide! Increase
in me that wisdom which discovers my truest interest. Strengthen
my resolutions to perform what that wisdom dictates. Accept my
kind offices to thy other children as the only return in my power
for thy continual favors to me."
I used also sometimes a little prayer which I took from Thomson's Poems:
"Father of light and life, thou Good Supreme!
O teach me what is good; teach me Thyself!
Save me from folly, vanity, and vice,
From every low pursuit; and fill my soul
With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure;
Sacred, substantial, never-fading bliss!"
The precept of Order requiring that every part of my business should
have its allotted time, one page in my little book contained the
following scheme of employment for the twenty-four hours of a natural
day.
THE MORNING. { 5} Rise, wash, and address Powerful
_Question._ What good shall { 6} Goodness![n] Contrive day's
I do this day? { } business, and take the resolution
{ 7} of the day; prosecute the present
{ } study, and breakfast.
8}
9}
10} Work.
11}
NOON. {12} Read, or overlook my accounts,
{ 1} and dine.
2}
3} Work.
4}
5}
EVENING. { 6} Put things in their places.
_Question._ What good have { 7} Supper. Music or diversion, or
I done to-day? { 8} conversation. Examination of
{ 9} the day.
{10}
{11}
{12}
NIGHT. { 1} Sleep.
{ 2}
{ 3}
{ 4}
I entered upon the execution of this plan for self-examination, and
continued it, with occasional intermissions, for some time. I was
surprised to find myself so much fuller of faults than I had imagined;
but I had the satisfaction of seeing them diminish. To avoid the
trouble of renewing now and then my little book, which, by scraping
out the marks on the paper of old faults to make room for new ones in
a new course, became full of holes, I transferred my tables and
precepts to the ivory leaves of a memorandum book, on which the lines
were drawn with red ink, that made a durable stain, and on those lines
I marked my faults with a black lead pencil, which marks I could
easily wipe out with a wet sponge. After a while I went through one
course only in a year, and afterward only one in several years, till
at length I omitted them entirely, being employed in voyages and
business abroad, with a multiplicity of affairs that interfered; but I
always carried my little book with me.