. He
there gives a very different account of himself, and I would ask any one
who entertains the idea to which I am alluding, at what period of
Franklin's career he supposes this taste for books began to be
manifested by him; how soon he ceased to be a self-formed man? Perhaps
after he had struggled through the years of his youthful poverty,
escaped to Philadelphia, set up in business as a printer, and begun to
have a little money in his pocket. I need not tell you, sir, that it was
earlier than that. Was it, then, while he was the clever apprentice to
his brother, the editor of a journal, and wrote articles for its columns
in a disguised hand, and tucked them under the office door, enjoying the
exquisite delight of being ordered to set up his own anonymous articles;
was it then, at the age of fifteen or sixteen, that this fondness for
reading, under the stimulus of boyish authorship, disclosed itself?
Earlier than that. Well, then, at the grammar-school and Master
Brownwell's writing-school, which he attended from eight to ten (for
there are boys who show a fondness for reading, even at that tender
age); was little Benjamin's taste for books developed while yet at
school? Earlier than that. Hear his own words, which you will permit me
to read from that exquisite piece of autobiography to which I have
already alluded: "From my INFANCY I was _passionately_ fond of reading,
and all the money that came into my hands was laid out in purchasing
books. I was very fond of voyages. My first acquisition was Bunyan's
works, in separate little volumes. I afterwards sold them to enable me
to buy R. Burton's _Historical Collections_. They were small chapman's
books and cheap, forty volumes in all. My father's little library
consisted chiefly of books in polemic divinity, most of which I read. I
have often regretted [and this is a sentence that might be inscribed on
the lofty cornice of this noble hall] that at a time when I had such a
thirst for knowledge, more proper books had not fallen in my way....
There was among them Plutarch's Lives, which I read abundantly, and I
still think that time spent to great advantage. There was also a book of
Defoe's, called an _Essay on Projects_, and another of Dr. Mather's,
called an _Essay to do Good_, which"--did what, sir? For I am now going
to give you, in Franklin's own words (they carry with them the
justification of every dollar expended in raising these walls), the
original secret of his i