Benjamin Franklin’s life is too well-known to need summarizing here. The
story of his life should be on the reading list of every American, and
the best account of it is the one he wrote himself. Unfortunately, he
never finished his autobiography, so we do not have in his own words the
story of his diplomatic mission to France during the Revolution, or his
activities in America at the time of the Declaration of Independence and
later during the Constitutional Convention. His early career, however,
is well described. The following selection from the Autobiography tells
of Franklin’s arrival in Philadelphia at the age of 17 after running
away from home in Boston.