File:Some successful Americans (1904) (14577040190).jpg

Identifier: somesuccessfulamwill (find matches)
Title: Some successful Americans
Year: 1904 (1900s)
Authors: Williams, Sherman
Subjects: Presidents Statesmen Inventors Philanthropists
Publisher: Boston, Ginn & Company
Contributing Library: Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection
Digitizing Sponsor: The Institute of Museum and Library Services through an Indiana State Library LSTA Grant

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he rigid beliefs of his father. The boys early life was a struggle with poverty, diffi-culties, and hardships. The house in which he was bornwas a two-story building of four rooms, — a kitchen, anattic, and two other rooms, each twenty feet square. Itis a little difficult to see how a family of the size ofFranklins could be made comfortable in such quarters,but it seems to have been a happy home. It is true thatBenjamin quarreled with his half-brother James, and theirrelations seem not to have been very cordial after that; butthe Franklins were noted for strong family affection. Benjamin had a good home, good instruction, and accessto good books. He was a precocious boy and inordinately ^73 174 SOME SUCCESSFUL AMERICANS fond of reading. When a man grown he said, ^I do notremember when I could not read, so it must have been veryearly. In his boyhood he read Bunyans ^ Pilgrims Prog-ress and Holy War, Defoes Essay on Projects, Bur-tons * Historical Collections, Plutarchs Lives, Mathers
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Birthplace of FranklinFrom Antique Views of Ye Towne of Boston Essay to do Good, and many other works. During hiswhole life Franklin was an omnivorous reader, notwith-standing that he advised people to ** read much, but nottoo many books. He was not a particularly promising young man, con-sidered from either a religious or a moral standpoint. He BENJAMIN FRANKLIN I 75 had no sympathy with the theological doctrines generallyheld in Boston in his time, and his conservative elders pre-dicted that little good would be said of him. When only seven years old Franklin was given his firstspending money and allowed to use it as he chose. Thefollowing is his account of the affair: When I was a child of seven years old, my friends, on a holiday,filled my pockets with coppers. I went directly to a shop where theysold toys for children, and being charmed with the sound of a whistle,that I met by the way in the hands of another boy, I voluntarily offeredand gave all my money for one. I then came ho

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