"I do not wish you to be a sailor," said his father. "I intend that you shall learn some useful trade on land; and I know that you will do best the kind of work that is most pleasant to you."
The next day he took the boy to walk with him among the workshops of Boston. They saw men busy at all kinds of work.
Benjamin was delighted. Long afterwards, when he had become a very great man, he said, "It has ever since been a pleasure to me to see good workmen handle their tools."
He gave up the thought of going to sea, and decided that he would learn any trade his father would choose for him.
Soon after this, Benjamin's brother James set up a printing press in Boston. He intended to print books and a newspaper.
"Benjamin loves books," said his father. "He shall learn to be a printer."
And so, when he was twelve years old, he was sent to his brother to learn the printer's trade. He was to have his board and clothing, but no wages.
Benjamin never attended school again, but he kept on studying. At that time there were no books written for children as there are nowadays. His father's books were not easy to understand. We should think them very dull.
But before he was twelve years old, Benjamin had carefully read the most of them. All the money that came into his hands he laid out in books.
Often he would borrow a book in the evening, and then sit up nearly all night reading it so as to return it early in the morning.