PREFACE.

While thinking last summer how I might usefully employ some leisure hours, it occurred to me to prepare the following compilation for the benefit of the young people of Buffalo, having in view especially those who have lately graduated, or who are about to graduate from our public and other schools. It may also be interesting and not unprofitable reading to older persons who are not familiar with the details of Benjamin Franklin's business career.

It is for the most part an abridgment, consisting of those portions of Franklin's autobiography which may be useful for instruction and example in the conduct of business and life, and excluding many genealogical and other details and various episodes which are comparatively uninteresting, are not within the purpose of the volume, and would enhance its cost. These considerations afford, I think, a sufficient answer to the objections usually and sometimes properly made to abridgments.

It is a mistake to suppose that there was anything sordid in the character or philosophy of Franklin. It is true that he taught that "honesty is the best policy." So the Sermon on the Mount declares that the righteous shall have their reward. But he was one of the most benevolent and publicspirited of men. He believed in pecuniary independence as a vitally important means of happiness and usefulness, and as a shield against temptation. Leaving school at ten years of age, starting in life substantially pennyless, dependent upon his own exertions, passing his youth in a country which was in a state of extreme poverty, he felt and taught that economy was a pressing duty. When a boy he left his boarding house and lived on less than fifty cents a week so that he might have more money to buy books; but he never saved a cent for the sake of the cent; and from his early youth he loved knowledge, self-improvement, his country and his kind more than money. At forty-two, having acquired a modest competence, he retired from active business, and devoted forty-two years more to these other ojects.

In boyhood he prepared for his own use certain rules of cunduct to which he adhered during his youth and early manhood, and by which he was largely guided all his life. By practicing these methods, largely aided, of course, by circumstances,

he probably enjoyed and accomplished as much as any man of his generation.

The number of elements which went to the making of the life and character of Franklin, and which are illustrated in the following pages, is remarkable. Enterprise and prudence, energy and moderation, the achievement of pecuniary independence without avarice, economy coupled with benevolence and public spirit, the best methods of industry, temperance, the use of time, manners, the value of friends and how to select and retain them, the arts of conversation, discussion and debate, the management and use of clubs and other associations, the most successful methods of acquiring and exerting influence and of accomplishing results, how to select and read books, how to write, how to acquire languages and other knowledge, how to mingle wit and wisdom, sobriety and humor, how wisely to conduct one's self socially, politically, morally and religiously; in fact all the characteristics and methods by which Franklin rose from poverty ignorance and obscurity to wealth, learning and fame are in this little book described and illustrated by a man not surpassed by any historical character in common sense; and all are portrayed in a style so delightful that there is not a dull page in it. It also constitutes an

interesting picture of the manners and customs of our country during the first half of the last century.

It is not expected that the example of Franklin can or should be followed in its details, at the present day; but the instructions and life of this great American should be recalled to the memory of every succeeding generation. Next to his native strength and breadth of mind, his boyish passion for the best books doubtless did more than any other cause to make him what he was. Among them was Plutarch's Lives, a thorough acquaintance with which is of itself a kind of liberal education. An interest in these lives and a love of books ought never to go out of fashion. Our young Benjamin was very poor when, an utter stranger and with about a dollar in his pocket, he became a resident of Philadelphia; but there are many boys and girls in Buffalo much poorer than he was, because he was a skilful printer, and every young man or woman who has acquired a trade and is skilful in it has already laid the foundation of an almost sure success, if the lessons of Franklin's life in Philadelphia are duly studied and heeded. As to the boys and girls who are depressed by poverty and have no trade, I am sure that if they will read this volume it will encourage them to get one as soon as possible, and also to see, that while they cannot all be Franklins', they