After Ben had worked at home for two long years, his father said to him,
“My son, you have been so faithful that I cannot bear to let you dip candles all your life. You are fit for something better. What trade would you like to learn?”
Ben was delighted. He was so fond of books that he felt sure he would like to learn how to make them. He answered his father’s question by saying, “I would like to be a printer.”
When a boy went to learn a trade in those days, he had to serve as an apprentice. That is, he was bound out by law to work for a master until he was twenty-one. At first he received nothing for his work but his board and clothes, and when he was nineteen or twenty he was given very small wages. At that time James Franklin, Ben’s older brother, had a printing office in Boston. It was soon arranged that Ben should be his brother James’s apprentice, and work for nine years to learn the printing business.
Ben was clever and willing. The work of a printing office boy was very hard. More than this, James Franklin was a hard master. He sometimes boxed Ben’s ears and treated him very unkindly. The more the young brother tried to please, the crosser James seemed to be.
Ben bore this abuse for five years. He soon learned to set type well, and to run the “hand”—or foot—press, which was hard even for a man to do. James was so mean to him at home that the boy asked for just half the money it cost his brother to feed him, so that he might board himself. Of course, James was pleased with such a bargain.
The boy was so eager to learn that he saved half of that small sum to buy books. He ate no meat—only bread and a few plain vegetables. Instead of going out, as the men and the other apprentices did, to get a good dinner, he stayed in the shop at noon to eat his dry bread and read. Benjamin Franklin liked books, which other boys thought too dry, even better than good things to eat.
Besides being studious, Ben was ingenious. He had the knack of finding out what was wrong with things and making them right. When the printing press would not work, he fixed it and set it going again. He soon wrote pieces for his brother’s newspaper. He was so bright, willing, and useful that every one praised him—except his brother, who, instead of being proud of Ben, was jealous, and treated him worse than ever.
So Ben had to run away—not to sea, but to Philadelphia, where he could get printing work to do. He quickly found a place there and worked with a royal will. If ever a young man was “diligent in his business,” it was Benjamin Franklin. When he was about twenty-one, he became the owner of the largest printing business in America. He was soon editing and publishing the best newspaper in the country. Before long he also started “Poor Richard’s Almanac,” a sort of yearly magazine containing Franklin’s maxims, or short, wise sayings. These have been translated into many languages and are quoted all over the world.
Franklin founded the first library in Philadelphia, and started the University of Pennsylvania. He kept on improving and inventing useful things. He made printers’ type and presses better than they were before. One night his whale-oil lamp smoked. He went to work to fix it. To do this he had to find out what made it smoke like that. Before he finished he had invented the best lamp in the world. With his new knowledge of the action of drafts, he went on and invented a stove, to take the place of the fireplace, which before this time was generally used for heating and cooking.