throve together, and have ever mutually
endeavoured to make each other happy.

I now set on foot my first project of a public nature, that for a
subscription library. By the help of our club, the Junto, I procured
fifty subscribers of forty shillings each to begin with, and ten
shillings a year for fifty years. We afterwards obtained a charter, and
this was the mother of all the North American subscription libraries now
so numerous, which have made the common tradesmen and farmers as
intelligent as most gentlemen from other countries.

_III.--The Scheme of Virtues_

It was about 1733 that I conceived the bold and arduous project of
arriving at moral perfection. I wished to live without committing any
fault at any time; I would conquer all that natural inclination, custom,
or company might lead me into. As I knew, or thought I knew, what was
right and wrong, I did not see why I might not always do the one and
avoid the other. But I soon found that I had undertaken a task of great
difficulty, and I therefore contrived the following method. I included
under thirteen names of virtues all that at that time occurred to me as
necessary or desirable, and annexed to each a short precept, which
expressed the extent which I gave to its meaning.

The names of virtues were: Temperance, silence, order, resolution,
frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness,
tranquillity, chastity, and humility. My list contained at first only
twelve virtues, but a friend having informed me that I was generally
thought proud, I determined endeavouring to cure myself of this vice or
folly among the rest; and, though I cannot boast of much success in
acquiring the reality of this virtue, I had a good deal of success with
regard to the appearance of it. My intention being to acquire the
habitude of all these virtues, I determined to give a week's strict
attention to each of them successively, thus going through a complete
course in thirteen weeks, and four courses in a year. I had a little
book, in which I allotted a page for each of the virtues; the page was
ruled into days of the week, and I marked in it, by a little black spot,
every fault I found by examination to have been committed respecting
that virtue upon that day.

I was surprised to find myself much fuller of faults than I had
imagined, but I had the satisfaction of seeing them diminish. After a
while I went through one course only in a year, and afterwards only