e visit to the
United States, and I shall venture to assert that Benjamin Franklin's
Autobiography is a detestable book and a misleading book. I can recall
only two other volumes which I would more willingly revile. One is
_Samuel Budgett: The Successful Merchant_, and the other is _From Log
Cabin to White House_, being the history of President Garfield. Such
books may impose on boys, and it is conceivable that they do not harm
boys (Franklin, by the way, began his Autobiography in the form of a
letter to his son), but the grown man who can support them without
nausea ought to go and see a doctor, for there is something wrong with
him.

"I began now," blandly remarks Franklin, "to have some acquaintance
among the young people of the town that were lovers of reading, with
whom I spent my evenings very pleasantly; _and gained money by my
industry and frugality_." Or again: "It was about this time I
conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral
perfection.... I made a little book, in which I allotted a page for
each of the virtues. I ruled each page with red ink, so as to have
seven columns, one for each day of the week.... I crossed these
columns with thirteen red lines, marking the beginning of each line
with the first letter of one of the virtues; on which line, and in its
proper column, I might mark, by a little black spot, every fault I
found upon examination to have been committed respecting that virtue,
upon that day." Shade of Franklin, where'er thou art, this is really a
little bit stiff! A man may be excused even such infamies of
priggishness, but truly he ought not to go and write them down,
especially to his son. And why the detail about red ink? If Franklin's
son was not driven to evil courses by the perusal of that monstrous
Autobiography, he must have been a man almost as astounding as his
father. Now Franklin could only have written his "immortal classic"
from one of three motives: (1) Sheer conceit. He was a prig, but he
was not conceited. (2) A desire that others should profit by his
mistakes. He never made any mistakes. Now and again he emphasizes some
trifling error, but that is "only his fun." (3) A desire that others
should profit by the recital of his virtuous sagacity to reach a
similar success. The last was undoubtedly his principal motive. Honest
fellow, who happened to be a genius! But the point is that his success
was in no way the result of his virtuous sagacity. I would go furth