ntained in a good piece of writing, and lay these notes
aside for several days; then, without looking at the book, he would
endeavor to express these thoughts in his own words as fully as they had
been expressed in the original paper. Lastly, he would compare his
product with the original, thus discovering his shortcomings and errors.
To improve his vocabulary he turned specimens of prose into verse, and
later, when he had forgotten the original, turned the verse back again
into prose. This exercise enlarged his vocabulary and his acquaintance
with synonyms and their different shades of meaning, and showed him how
he could twist phrases and sentences about. His times for such exercises
and for reading were at night after work, before work in the morning,
and on Sundays. This severe training he imposed on himself; and he was
well advanced in it before he was sixteen years of age. His memory and
his imagination must both have served him well; for he not only acquired
a style fit for narrative, exposition, or argument, but also learned to
use the fable, parable, paraphrase, proverb, and dialogue. The third
element in his education was writing for publication; he began very
early, while he was still a young boy, to put all he had learned to use
in writing for the press. When he was but nineteen years old he wrote
and published in London "A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity,
Pleasure and Pain." In after years he was not proud of this pamphlet;
but it was, nevertheless, a remarkable production for a youth of
nineteen. So soon as he was able to establish a newspaper in
Philadelphia he wrote for it with great spirit, and in a style at once
accurate, concise, and attractive, making immediate application of his
reading and of the conversation of intelligent acquaintances on both
sides of the ocean. His fourth principle of education was that it should
continue through life, and should make use of the social instincts. To
that end he thought that friends and acquaintances might fitly band
together in a systematic endeavor after mutual improvement. The Junto
was created as a school of philosophy, morality, and politics; and this
purpose it actually served for many years. Some of the questions read at
every meeting of the Junto, with a pause after each one, would be
curiously opportune in such a society at the present day. For example,
No. 5, "Have you lately heard how any present rich man, here or
elsewhere, got his estate?" And N