Brave Men and Women | Page 3

his teens; under the condition of daily toil for his bread; he had
carried on, in spite of all obstacles, the process of self-education
through books and observation, and become in literature and science, as

well as in the practical affairs of every-day life, the best informed man
in America.
II. Apprenticed to a printer in his native Boston, at thirteen; a
journeyman in Philadelphia at seventeen; working at the case in
London at nineteen; back to the Quaker City, and set up for himself at
twenty-six; he had long since mastered all the details of a great
business, prepared to put his hand to any thing, from the trundling of
paper through the streets on a wheel-barrow to the writing of editorials
and pamphlets, and had earned for himself a position as the most
prosperous printer and publisher in the colonies.
III. Retired from active business at forty-six, considering that he had
already earned and saved enough to supply his reasonable wants for the
rest of his life; fired with ambition to do something for the
advancement of science; he had now for six years given himself to
philosophical investigation and experiment, among other things
demonstrated the identity of electricity as produced by artificial means
and atmospheric lightning, and made himself a name throughout the
civilized world.
IV. Besides, it must not be forgotten that he had all along been
foremost in many a work for the public good. The Franklin Library, of
Philadelphia, owes to him its origin. The University of Pennsylvania
grew out of an educational project in which he was a prime mover. And
his ideas as to the relative importance of ancient and modern classics
were more than a hundred years in advance of his times.
Such is a glimpse of Franklin at fifty-two, as preliminary to a single
episode which will occupy the rest of this chapter. But the episode
itself requires a special word.
V. For a quarter of a century Franklin had published an almanac under
the pseudonym of Richard Saunders, into the pages of which he
crowded year by year choice scraps of wit and wisdom, which made the
little hand-book a welcome visitor in almost every home of the New
World. Now in the midst of those philosophical studies which so much
delighted him, when about to cross the Atlantic as a commissioner to

the Home Government, he found time to gather up the maxims and
quaint sayings of twenty-five years and set them in a wonderful mosaic,
as the preface of Poor Richard's world-famous almanac--as unique a
piece of writing as any language affords. Here it is:
POOR RICHARD'S ADDRESS.
Courteous Reader: I have heard that nothing gives an author so great
pleasure as to find his works respectfully quoted by others. Judge, then,
how much I must have been gratified by an incident I am going to
relate to you. I stopped my horse lately where a great company of
people were collected at an auction of merchants' goods. The hour of
the sale not being come, they were conversing on the badness of the
times; and one of the company called to a plain, clean old man, with
white locks, "Pray, Father Abraham, what think you of the times? Will
not those heavy taxes quite ruin the country? How shall we ever be able
to pay them? What would you advise us to do?" Father Abraham stood
up and replied, "If you would have my advice, I will give it you in short;
'for a word to the wise is enough,' as Poor Richard says." They joined
in desiring him to speak his mind, and gathering around him, he
proceeded as follows:--
"Friends," says he, "the taxes are indeed very heavy; and if those laid
on by the government were the only ones we had to pay, we might
more easily discharge them; but we have many others, and much more
grievous to some of us. We are taxed twice as much by our idleness,
three times as much by our pride, and four times as much by our folly;
and from these taxes the commissioners can not ease or deliver us by
allowing an abatement. However, let us hearken to good advice, and
something may be done for us; 'God helps them that help themselves,'
as Poor Richard says.
"I. It would be thought a hard government that should tax its people
one-tenth of their time to be employed in its service, but idleness taxes
many of us much more: sloth, by bringing on disease, absolutely
shortens life. 'Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labor wears, while
the used key is always bright,' as Poor Richard says. 'But dost thou love
life, then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of,' as

Poor Richard