BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.

Benjamin Franklin was born on Sunday morn ing, January 17, 1706, in

a little wooden house opposite the Old South Church on Milk street, Boston. On that Sunday afternoon the baby was taken to church to be baptized, and in the records of the Old South Church one may read this entry, "Benjamin, son of Josiah Franklin and Abiah his wife."

On the site of the

house there stands to-day a high, iron office-building. On the front of the building is a bust of the great American, underneath which are the words, "Birthplace of Franklin."

His father was a soap and candle maker, who found it difficult to earn enough to support his family of sixteen children, of whom Benjamin was the youngest son.

So Benjamin had to leave school when he was ten years old and go to work in his father's soapfactory. Benjamin did not like this, for he was very fond of the sea and wanted to be a sailor.

Who would have thought that this boy, taken

from school when

only ten years of age

and put to work,

as we know about him now.

much against his wish, in a soap and candle factory, would grow up to be one of the greatest and most useful of Americans? Anyone would have thought so, who knew as much about the boy

We know that he had a strong and healthy body; he could swim like a duck, and row a boat as well as a man; he could do a great deal of hard work, more than most boys of his age. He was industrious, he liked to work; and, even when he had to do work that he did not really enjoy, he always did it just as well as he could. In his father's soap-factory, he worked so hard and took so much pains with his work, that one would have thought he really liked it.

He wanted to learn, and to know things. He studied whenever he got a chance; and sometimes he stayed awake nearly all night to read a book

which he had borrowed and had to return the next day. He saved his spending money and bought books with it. While working in his brother's printing-office after leaving the soapfactory, he agreed to eat only half as much during the week, if he could have the money thus saved to buy books. He learned much from books, but he tried to learn also in other ways, from people, and from everything about him.

Önce, after he grew to be a man, he asked the lightning a question, which no one else had ever asked, and learned something which no one else knew, and which made him famous. People were talking about electricity and studying it, but as yet they knew little about it.

Benjamin Franklin thought that lightning and electricity were the same. So he went out in a thunder shower to fly a kite; at the end of the kitestring, he fastened a key; to the key, he tied a piece of silk cord, which he held in his hand. If the lightning came down the kite-string to the key, it could go no further; for electricity will not pass along silk cord. After his kite had risen, he placed his hand near the key; and, when sparks shot out from it, he knew that lightning and electricity were the same.

He was brave and manly, not proud, and never wished to seem to be something that he was not. His father had bound him as an apprentice to his brother. Until he was twenty-one years old, Benjamin was to work in his brother's printing-office, and was to be paid only for the last year. But his brother treated him so badly, that he ran away to Philadelphia, when he was about seventeen years of age.

When he reached Philadelphia, he had but little money and was very hungry. He stopped at the first baker's shop and bought three large loaves of bread. He put one under each arm and went up the street eating the other. On his way, he passed a young lady standing in the door of her father's house.

She thought he looked very funny and she could not help laughing at him. Little did she think that not many years after, she should become the wife of this poorly-dressed hungry, young man at whom she was laughing.

A boy who is strong and healthy; who is not afraid of work; who tries to do everything well; who is willing to give up pleasures that he may study and know about things; who is brave and manly; who is not proud; who never wishes to seem to be something that he is not--such a boy must grow to be a great and useful man.

All boys may not have the chance to do as much for their country as Benjamin Franklin did, but all may grow up to be as great and as good.