Chapter 4

Josiah Franklin's caution was proverbial. He was never rash or thoughtless. He weighed all questions carefully. He was very conscientious, and would not assume an obligation that he could not see his way clear to meet. He used the same careful judgment and circumspection about the education of his son that he employed in all business matters. For this reason he was regarded as a man of sound judgment and practical wisdom, and his influence was strong and wide. When his son reached the height of his fame, he wrote as follows of his father:

"I suppose you may like to know what kind of a man my father was. He had an excellent constitution, was of a middle stature, well set, and very strong. He could draw prettily and was skilled a little in music. His voice was sonorous and agreeable, so that when he played on his violin, and sung withal, as he was accustomed to do after the business of the day was over, it was extremely agreeable to hear. He had some knowledge of mechanics, and on occasion was handy with other tradesmen's tools. But his great excellence was his sound understanding, and his solid judgment in prudential matters, both in private and public affairs. It is true he was never employed in the latter, the numerous family he had to educate, and the straitness of his circumstances, keeping him close to his trade; but I remember well his being frequently visited by leading men, who consulted him for his opinion in public affairs, and those of the church he belonged to; and who showed a great respect for his judgment and advice. He was also consulted much by private persons about their affairs, when any difficulty occurred, and frequently chosen an arbitrator between contending parties."

Of his mother he wrote, at the same time:

"My mother had likewise an excellent constitution; she suckled all her ten children. I never knew either my father or mother to have any sickness, but that of which they died--he at eighty-nine, and she at eighty-five years of age. They lie buried together at Boston, where I some years since placed a marble over their grave, with this inscription:

JOSIAH FRANKLIN AND ABIAH, HIS WIFE, LIE HERE INTERRED.

THEY LIVED LOVINGLY TOGETHER, IN WEDLOCK, FIFTY-FIVE YEARS, AND WITHOUT AN ESTATE, OR ANY GAINFUL EMPLOYMENT, BY CONSTANT LABOR AND HONEST INDUSTRY (WITH GOD'S BLESSING), MAINTAINED A LARGE FAMILY COMFORTABLY; AND BROUGHT UP THIRTEEN CHILDREN AND SEVEN GRANDCHILDREN REPUTABLY.

FROM THIS INSTANCE, READER, BE ENCOURAGED TO DILIGENCE IN THY CALLING, AND DISTRUST NOT PROVIDENCE. HE WAS A PIOUS AND PRUDENT MAN, SHE A DISCREET AND VIRTUOUS WOMAN. THEIR YOUNGEST SON, IN FILIAL REGARD TO THEIR MEMORY, PLACES THIS STONE.

J.F., BORN 1655, DIED 1744, AET. 89. A.F., BORN 1667, DIED 1752, AET. 85."

We may say here that the stone which Doctor Franklin erected, as above, became so dilapidated that in 1827, the citizens of Boston replaced it by a granite obelisk. The bodies repose in the old Granary cemetery, beside Park-street church.

* * * * *

It was arranged that Benjamin should begin his school-days, and enjoy the best literary advantages which the poverty of his father could provide. He acceded to the plan with hearty good-will, and commenced his studies with such zeal and enthusiasm as few scholars exhibit.

The school was taught by Mr. Nathaniel Williams, successor of the famous Boston teacher, Mr. Ezekiel Cheever, who was instructor thirty-five years, and who discontinued teaching, as Cotton Mather said, "only when mortality took him off." The homely old wooden school-house, one story and a half high, stood near by the spot on which the bronze statue of Franklin is now seen, and there was the "school-house green" where "Ben" and his companions played together. Probably it was the only free grammar school that Boston afforded at that time; for the town could not have numbered a population of over eight thousand.

From his first day's attendance at school Benjamin gave promise of high scholarship. He went to work with a will, improving every moment, surmounting every difficulty, and enjoying every opportunity with a keen relish. Mr. Williams was both gratified and surprised. That a lad so young should take hold of school lessons with so much intelligence and tact, and master them so easily, was a surprise to him, and he so expressed himself to Mr. Franklin.

"Your son is a remarkable scholar for one so young. I am more than gratified with his industry and progress. His love of knowledge is almost passionate."

"Yes, he was always so," responded Mr. Franklin. "He surprised us by reading well before we ever dreamed of such a thing. He taught himself, and a book has always been of more value to him than any thing else."

"You will give him an education, I suppose?" said Mr. Williams, inquiringly. "Such a boy ought to have the chance."

"My desire to do it is strong, much stronger than my ability to pay the bills. It is not certain that I shall be able to continue him long at school, though I shall do it if possible."

"Such love of knowledge as he possesses ought to be gratified," continued Mr. Williams. "He excels by far any scholar of his age in school. He will lead the whole school within a short time. His enthusiasm is really remarkable."

Within a few months, as the teacher predicts, Benjamin led the school. He was at the head of his class in every study except arithmetic. Nor did he remain at the head of his class long, for he was rapidly promoted to higher classes. He so far outstripped his companions that the teacher was obliged to advance him thus, that his mental progress might not be retarded. Of course, teachers and others were constantly forecasting his future and prophesying that he would fill a high position in manhood. It is generally the case that such early attention to studies, in connection with the advancement that follows, awakens high hopes of the young in the hearts of all observers. These things foreshadow the future character, so that people think they can tell what the man will be from what the boy is. So it was with Franklin, and so it was with Daniel Webster. Webster's mother inferred from his close attention to reading, and his remarkable progress in learning, that he would become a distinguished man, and so expressed herself to others. She lived to see him rise in his profession, until he became a member of Congress, though she died before he reached the zenith of his renown. The same was true of David Rittenhouse, the famous mathematician. When he was but eight years old, he constructed various articles, such as a miniature water-wheel, and at seventeen years of age he made a complete clock. His younger brother declared that he was accustomed to stop, when he was plowing in the field, and solve problems on the fence, and sometimes cover the plow handles with figures. The highest expectations of his friends were more than realized in his manhood. The peculiar genius which he exhibited in his boyhood gave him his world-wide fame at last.

Also George Stephenson, the great engineer, the son of a very poor man, who fired the engine at Wylam colliery, began his life-labor when a mere boy. Besides watching the cows, and barring the gates after the coal-wagons had passed, at four cents a day, he amused himself during his leisure moments, in making clay engines, in imitation of that which his father tended. Although he lived in circumstances so humble that ordinarily he would have been entirely unnoticed, his intense interest in, and taste for, mechanical work, attracted the attention of people and led them to predict his future success and fame.

In like manner, the first months of Benjamin Franklin's school days foreshadowed the remarkable career of his manhood. Relatives and friends believed that he would one day fill a high place in the land; and in that, their anticipations were fully realized.

V.

OUT OF SCHOOL.

Mr. Franklin's finances did not improve. It was clearer every day to him that he would not be able to keep Benjamin in school. Besides, in a few months, John, who had learned the tallow-chandler's business of his father, was going to be married, and establish himself in that trade in Providence. Some body must take his place. It was quite impossible for his father to prosecute his business alone.

"I see no other way," remarked Mr. Franklin to his wife; "I shall be obliged to take Benjamin out of school to help me. My expenses increase from month to month, and must continue to increase for some years, so far as I can see. They will increase heavily if I am obliged to hire a man in John's place."

"I am not surprised at all that you have come to that conclusion," replied Mrs. Franklin. "I expected it, as I have intimated to you. Parents must be better off than we are to be able to send a son to college."

"If they have as many children to support as we have, you might add. I could easily accomplish it with no larger family than most of my neighbors have. Yet I find no fault with the number. I accept all the Lord sends."

"I am sorry for Benjamin," continued Mrs. Franklin. "He will be dreadfully disappointed. I am afraid that he will think little of work because he thinks so much of his school. What a pity that boys who want an education, as he does, could not have it, and boys who do not want it should do the work."

"That is the way we should fix it, no doubt, if the ordering were left to us," said Mr. Franklin; "but I never did have my own way, and I never expect to have it, and it is fortunate, I suppose, that I never did have it. If I could have it now, I should send Benjamin to college."

"It has been my prayer that he might give his life and his services to the Church," added Mrs. Franklin; "but Providence appears to indicate now that he should make candles for a livelihood, and it is not in me to rebel against the ordering. If frustrated in this plan, I mean to believe that Providence has some thing better in store for him and us."

"I was never so reluctant to adopt a conclusion as I have been to take Benjamin out of school," continued Mr. Franklin. "Yet, there has been one thought that reconciled me in part to the necessity, and that is, that there is less encouragement to a young man in the Church now than formerly. It is more difficult to suit the people, and, consequently, there are more trials and hardships for ministers; and many of them appear to be peculiar."

"If ministers have a harder time than you do I pity them," rejoined Mrs. Franklin. "I suppose as that is concerned, we are all in the same boat. If we meet them with Christian fortitude, as we should, so much the better for us."

"True, very true, and my uppermost desire is to put Benjamin where duty points. But it is clear to me now that Providence has blocked his way to the ministry."

"You will not take him out of school until John leaves, will you?" inquired Mrs. Franklin.

"I shall have him leave the public school at the close of this term, and that will give him a full year's schooling. And then I shall put him into Mr. Brownwell's school for a while to improve him in penmanship and arithmetic. By that time I must have him in the factory."

Mr. Brownwell had a private school, in which he taught penmanship and arithmetic. It was quite a famous school, made so by his success as a teacher in these departments.

Benjamin had received no intimation, at this time, that he would be taken out of school. His father shrunk from disclosing his final plan to him because he knew it would be so disappointing. But as the close of the school year drew near, he was obliged to open the subject to him. It was an unpleasant revelation to Benjamin, although it was not altogether unexpected. For, in the outset, his father had said that such might be the necessity.

"You are a poor penman and deficient in your knowledge of numbers," said his father; "and improvement in these branches will be of great service to you in my business. You will attend Mr. Brownwell's school for a while in order to perfect yourself in these studies."

"I shall like that," answered Benjamin; "but why can I not attend school until I am old enough to help you?"

"You are old enough to help me. There are many things you can do as well as a man."

"I should like to know what?" said Benjamin, rather surprised that he could be of any service in the candle business at nine years of age. "John had to learn the trade before he could help you much."

"You can cut the wicks, fill the moulds for cast-candles, keep the shop in order, run hither and thither with errands, and do other things that will save my time, and thus assist me just as much as a man could in doing the same things."

"I am sure that is inducement enough for any boy, but a lazy one, to work," remarked his mother, who had listened to the conversation. "Your father would have to pay high wages to a man to do what you can do as well, if I understand it."

"In doing errands you will aid as much, even perhaps more, than in doing any thing else," added Mr. Franklin. "I have a good deal of such running to do, and if you do it I can be employed in the more important part of my business, which no one else can attend to. Besides, your nimble feet can get over the ground much quicker than my older and clumsier ones, so that you can perform that part of the business better than I can myself."

This was a new view of the case to Benjamin, and he was more favorably impressed with candle-making by these remarks. He desired to be of good service to his father, and here was an opportunity--a consideration that partially reconciled him to the inevitable change.

At that time--about one hundred and seventy-five years ago--boys were put to hard work much earlier than they are now. They had very small opportunities for acquiring knowledge, and the boys who did not go to school after they were ten years old were more in number than those who did. Besides, the schools were very poor in comparison with those of our day. They offered very slim advantages to the young. It was not unusual, therefore, for lads as young as Benjamin to be made to work.

Benjamin was somewhat deficient in arithmetic, as his father said, and he had given little attention to penmanship. He did not take to the science of numbers as he did to other studies. He allowed his dislike to interpose and hinder his progress.

"I do not like arithmetic very well," he said to his father.

"Perhaps not; but boys must study some things they do not like," his father replied. "It is the only way of preparing them for usefulness. You will not accomplish much in any business without a good knowledge of arithmetic. It is of use almost everywhere."

"I know that," said Benjamin, "and I shall master it if I can, whether I like it or not. I am willing to do what you think is best."

"I hope you will always be as willing to yield to my judgment. It is a good sign for any boy to accept cheerfully the plans of his father, who has had more experience."

Benjamin was usually very prompt to obey his parents, even when he did not exactly see the necessity of their commands. He understood full well that obedience was a law of the household, which could not be violated with impunity; therefore, he wisely obeyed. His father was quite rigid in his requirements, a Puritan of the olden stamp, who ruled his own house. Among other things, he required his children to observe the Sabbath by abstaining from labor and amusements, reading the Scriptures, and attending public worship. A walk in the streets, a call upon a youthful friend, or the reading of books not strictly religious, on Sunday, were acts not tolerated in his family. A child might wish to stay away from the house of God on the Sabbath, but it was not permitted. "Going to meeting" was a rule in the family as irrevocable as the laws of the Medes and Persians.

It was fortunate for Benjamin that he belonged to such a family; for he possessed an imperious will, that needed to be brought into constant subjection. Though of a pleasant and happy disposition, the sequel will show that, but for his strict obedience, his great talents would have been lost to the world. Nor did he grow restless and impatient under these rigid parental rules, nor cherish less affection for his parents in consequence. He accepted them as a matter of course. We have no reason to believe that he sought to evade them; and there can be no doubt that the influence of such discipline was good in forming his character. He certainly honored his father and mother as long as he lived. In ripe manhood, when his parents were old and infirm, and he lived in Philadelphia, he was wont to perform frequent journeys from that city to Boston, to visit them. It was on one of these journeys that the following incident is related of him:

Landlords, and other people, were very inquisitive at that time. They often pressed their inquiries beyond the bounds of propriety. At a certain hotel the landlord had done this to Franklin, and he resolved, on his next visit, to administer a sharp rebuke to the innkeeper. So, on his next visit, Franklin requested the landlord to call the members of his family together, as he had something important to communicate. The landlord hastened to fulfill his request, and very soon the family were together in one room, when Franklin addressed them as follows:

"My name is Benjamin Franklin; I am a printer by trade; I live, when at home, in Philadelphia; in Boston I have a father, a good old man, who taught me, when I was a boy, to read my Bible and say my prayers; I have ever since thought it my duty to visit and pay my respects to such a father, and I am on that errand to Boston now. This is all I can recollect at present of myself that I think worth telling you. But if you can think of any thing else that you wish to know about me, I beg you to out with it at once, that I may answer, and so give you an opportunity to get me something to eat, for I long to be on my journey that I may return as soon as possible to my family and business, where I most of all delight to be."

A more cutting rebuke was never administered. The landlord took in the full significance of the act, and learned a good lesson therefrom. It is doubtful if his inquisitiveness ever ran away with him again. But the narrative is given here to show that the strict rules of his father's house did not diminish filial affection, but rather solidified and perpetuated it.

It is good for boys, who are likely to want their own way, to be brought under exact rules. Franklin would have gone to ruin if he had had his way. The evil tendencies of boyhood need constant restraint. Obedience at home leads to obedience in the school and State.

Sir Robert Peel ascribed his success in life to such a home; and he related the following interesting incident to illustrate the sort of obedience that was required and practised in it: A neighbor's son called one day to solicit his company and that of his brothers upon an excursion. He was a young man of fine address, intelligent, smart, and promising, though fond of fun and frolic. He was a fashionable young man, too; we should call him a _dude_ now. He wore "dark brown hair, tied behind with blue ribbon; had clear, mirthful eyes; wore boots that reached above his knees, and a broad-skirted scarlet coat, with gold lace on the cuffs, the collar, and the skirts; with a long waistcoat of blue silk. His breeches were buckskin; his hat was three-cornered, set jauntily higher on the right than on the left side." His name was Harry Garland. To his request that William, Henry, and Robert might go with him, their father replied:

"No, they can not go out. I have work for them to do, and they must never let pleasure usurp the place of labor."

The boys wanted to go badly, but there was no use in teasing for the privilege; it would only make a bad matter worse. "Our father's yea was yea, and his nay, nay; and that was the end of it."

The three brothers of the Peel family became renowned in their country's brilliant progress. But Harry Garland, the idle, foppish youth, who had his own way, and lived for pleasure, became a ruined spendthrift. The fact verifies the divine promise, "Honor thy father and mother (which is the first commandment with promise), that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth." True filial love appears to conciliate the whole world by its consistent and beautiful expression. Such an act as that of the great engineer, George Stephenson, who took the first one hundred and sixty dollars he earned, saved from a year's wages, and paid his blind old father's debts, and then removed both father and mother to a comfortable tenement at Killingworth, where he supported them by the labor of his hands, awakens our admiration, and leads us to expect that the author will achieve success.

When the statue of Franklin was unveiled in Boston, in 1856, a barouche appeared in the procession which carried eight brothers, all of whom received Franklin medals at the Mayhew school in their boyhood, sons of Mr. John Hall. All of them were known to fame by their worth of character and wide influence. As the barouche in which they rode came into State street, from Merchants' row, these brothers rose up in the carriage, and stood with uncovered heads while passing a window at which their aged and revered mother was sitting--an act of filial regard so impressive and beautiful as to fill the hearts of all beholders with profound respect for the obedient and loving sons. They never performed a more noble deed, in the public estimation, than this one of reverence for a worthy parent.

We have made this digression to show that Franklin's home, with its rigid discipline, was the representative home of his country, in which the great and good of every generation laid the foundation of their useful careers.

* * * * *

Benjamin was taken out of school, as his father decided, and was put under Mr. Brownwell's tuition in arithmetic and penmanship. As he had endeared himself to Mr. Williams, teacher of the public school, so he endeared himself to Mr. Brownwell by his obedience, studious habits, and rapid progress. He did not become an expert in arithmetic, though, by dint of persistent effort, he made creditable progress in the study. In penmanship he excelled, and acquired an easy, attractive style that was of great service to him through life.

VI.

FROM SCHOOL TO CANDLE-SHOP.

While Benjamin was attending Mr. Brownwell's school, his "Uncle Benjamin," for whom he was named, came over from England. His wife and children were dead, except his son Samuel, who had immigrated to this country. He had been unfortunate in business also, and lost what little property he possessed. With all the rest, the infirmities of age were creeping over him, so that nearly all the ties that bound him to his native land were sundered; and so he decided to spend the remnant of his days in Boston, where Samuel lived.

Samuel Franklin was an unmarried young man, intelligent and enterprising, willing and anxious to support his father in this country. But having no family and home to which to introduce his aged parent, "Uncle Benjamin" became a member of his brother Josiah's family, and continued a member of it about four years, or until Samuel was married, when he went to live with him.

"Uncle Benjamin" was very much pained to find that his namesake had relinquished the purpose of becoming a minister. His heart was set on his giving his life-service to the Church.

"Any body can make candles," he said, "but talents are required for the ministry, and, from all I learn, Benjamin has the talents."