hat the new printing office would
succeed, "for the industry of that Franklin," he said, "is superior to
anything I ever saw of the kind; I see him still at work when I go home
from the club, and he is at work again before the neighbors are out of
bed." No trade rules or customs limited or levied toll on his
productiveness. He speedily became by far the most successful printer
in all the colonies, and in twenty years was able to retire from active
business with a competency.

One would, however, get a wrong impression of Franklin's career as a
printer, if he failed to observe that from his boyhood Franklin
constantly used his connection with a printing office to facilitate his
remarkable work as an author, editor, and publisher. Even while he was
an apprentice to his brother James he succeeded in getting issued from
his brother's press ballads and newspaper articles of which he was the
anonymous author. When he had a press of his own he used it for
publishing a newspaper, an almanac, and numerous essays composed or
compiled by himself. His genius as a writer supported his skill and
industry as a printer.

The second part of the double subject assigned to me is Franklin as
philosopher. The philosophy he taught and illustrated related to four
perennial subjects of human interest--education, natural science,
politics, and morals. I propose to deal in that order with these four
topics.

Franklin's philosophy of education was elaborated as he grew up, and was
applied to himself throughout his life. In the first place, he had no
regular education of the usual sort. He studied and read with an
extraordinary diligence from his earliest years; but he studied only the
subjects which attracted him, or which he himself believed would be good
for him, and throughout life he pursued only those inquiries for
pursuing which he found within himself an adequate motive. The most
important element in his training was reading, for which he had a
precocious desire which was imperative, and proved to be lasting. His
opportunities to get books were scanty; but he seized on all such
opportunities, and fortunately he early came upon the "Pilgrim's
Progress," the Spectator, Plutarch, Xenophon's "Memorabilia," and Locke
"On the Human Understanding." Practice of English composition was the
next agency in Franklin's education; and his method--quite of his own
invention--was certainly an admirable one. He would make brief notes of
the thoughts co