INTRODUCTORY NOTE
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN was born in Milk Street, Boston, on
January 6, 1706. His father, Josiah Franklin, was a tallow chandler who
married twice, and of his seventeen children Benjamin was the youngest
son. His schooling ended at ten, and at twelve he was bound apprentice to
his brother James, a printer, who published the "New England Courant."
To this journal he became a contributor, and later was for a time its
nominal editor. But the brothers quarreled, and Benjamin ran away, going
first to New York, and thence to Philadelphia, where he arrived in October,
1723. He soon obtained work as a printer, but after a few months he was
induced by Governor Keith to go to London, where, finding Keith\'s
promises empty, he again worked as a compositor till he was brought back
to Philadelphia by a merchant named Denman, who gave him a position in
his business. On Denman\'s death he returned to his former trade, and
shortly set up a printing house of his own from which he published "The
Pennsylvania Gazette," to which he contributed many essays, and which
he made a medium for agitating a variety of local reforms. In 1732 he
began to issue his famous "Poor Richard\'s Almanac" for the enrichment of
which he borrowed or composed those pithy utterances of worldly wisdom
which are the basis of a large part of his popular reputation. In 1758, the
year in which he ceases writing for the Almanac, he printed in it "Father
Abraham\'s Sermon," now regarded as the most famous piece of literature
produced in Colonial America