A History of the University of Pennsylvania from Its Foundation to A. D. 1770/Chapter 2

by Thomas Harrison Montgomery

II.

These proposals were the consummation of many years' reflection over the wants of the Province, which he had made his home, in the matter of better and larger educational facilities, for the growing generations. The early settlers of Pennsylvania had brought with them the culture of their home training, but as Franklin expresses it, the demands of the urgent present forbade them laying preparations for a like training to their children. His own native city had as its immediate neighbor the town of Cambridge, where Harvard College had already existed for one hundred and twelve years. In its training and its influence he had no share; "his father, burdened with a numerous family, was unable without inconvenience to support the expense of a college education," he records in his autobiography.^[1]

I was put to the grammar school at eight years of age; my father intending to devote me, as the tithe of his sons, to the service of the church. My early readiness in learning to read [he continues], (which must have been very early, as I do not remember when I could not read,) and the opinion of all his friends, that I should certainly make a good scholar, encouraged him in this purpose of his. My uncle Benjamin, too, approved of it, and proposed to give me all his short-hand volumes of sermons, I suppose as a stock to set up with, if I would learn his character. I continued, however, at the grammar school not quite one year, though in that time I had risen gradually from the middle of the class of that year to be the head of it, and farther was removed into the next class above it in order to go with that into the third at the end of the year. But my father, in the meantime, from a view of the expense of a college education, which having so large a family he could not well afford, and the mean living many so educated were afterwards able to obtain reasons that he gave to his friends in my hearing altered his first intention, took me from the grammar-school, and sent me to a school for writing and arithmetic, kept by a then famous man, Mr. George Brownell, very successful in his profession, generally, and that by mild, encouraging methods. Under him I acquired fair writing pretty soon; but I failed in the arithmetic, and made no progress in it. At ten years old I was taken home to assist my father in his business, which was that of a tallow chandler and sope-boiler.

This is the brief but expressive story of Franklin's own education, and how Harvard came to lose another matriculant and an alumnus whose name would have adorned its long roll. However, in 1753, it conferred on him the honor of Magister Artium, as had Yale in the same year,^[2] and William and Mary in 1756. To these degrees higher collegiate honors were bestowed on the man who though not a collegian was the creator of a university, as St. Andrews in 1759 made him Juris Utriusque Doctor, and Oxford in 1762 enrolled him as Juris Civilis Doctor.^[3] And yet the child of his own creation never enrolled his name as the possessor of one of its Degrees.

For two years he continued thus employed in his father's business; but his "bookish inclination at length determined his father to make him a printer" though he had already one son (James) of that profession.

I liked it much better than that of my father, but still had a hankering for the sea. To prevent the apprehended effect of such an inclination, my father was impatient to have me bound to my brother. I stood out some time, but at last was persuaded, and signed the indenture, when I was but twelve years old. His father's little library consisted chiefly of books in polemic divinity, most of which I read. * * * Plutarch' s Lives there was, in which I read abundantly, and I still think that time spent to great advantage. I now had access to better books. An acquaintance with the apprentices of booksellers enabled me sometimes to borrow a small one, which I was careful to return soon, and clean. Often I sat up in my room reading the greatest part of the night, when the book was borrowed in the evening and to be returned early in the morning, lest it should be missed or wanting. [He became intimately acquainted with] another bookish lad in the town, John Collins by name, with whom I was intimately acquainted. * * * About this time I met with an odd volume of the Spectator. It was the third. I had never before seen any of them. I bought it, read it over and over, and was much delighted with it. I thought the writing^[4] excellent, and wished if possible to imitate it.

But his apprenticeship to his brother, notwithstanding all these waysides of literary pleasure and self education was made irksome to him; either his brother's tyranny or jealousy, perhaps both, oppressed his ingenious energy, and he sought means to leave him and he says:

I was sensible that if I attempted to go openly, means would be used to prevent me. My friend Collins therefore undertook to manage a little for me. He agreed with the Captain of a New York sloop for my passage * * * So I sold some of my books to raise a little money, was taken on board privately, and as we had a fair wind, in three days I found myself in New York, near 300 miles from home, a boy of but 17, without the least recommendation to or knowledge of, any person in^[5] the place, and with very little money in my pocket. Here, [he says,] I offered my service to the printer in that place old Mr. William Bradford, who had been the first printer in Pennsylvania, removed from thence upon the quarrel of George Keith. He could give me no employment, having little to do, and help enough already, but says he: My son at Philadelphia has lately lost his principal hand, Aquila Rose, by death; if you go thither I believe he may employ you.^[6]

And the young Bostonian at once set out on his way to the city where he made his home the remainder of his long and eventful life, and which in its oldest institutions, whether of philanthropy, of benevolence, of education, of science, or of business, testifies to his genius of organization and his fertility of resources.

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1. Complete Works of Benjamin Franklin. John Bigelow, 1887. i 38.
2. "The College of Cambridge of their own motion, presented me with the degree of Master of Arts. Yale College in Connecticut, had before made me a similar compliment. Thus without studying in any college, I came to partake of their honours. They were conferred in consideration of my improvements and discoveries in the electric branch of natural philosophy."—Bigelow, i, 242.

   "Whereas Benjamin Franklin Esquire, by his ingenious Experiments and Theory of Electrical Fire has greatly merited of the Learned World: it is therefore considered that the said Benjamin Franklin shall receive the Honour of a Degree of Master of Arts," at Yale College Commencement, 12 September 1753. v. Dexter's Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College with Annals of the College History, p. 304.

3. "Oxford at the same time conferred M. A. on his son William.—Sparks, i, 250, 267. In the same month that his St. Andrews degree was conferred, the City of Edinburgh presented him with the freedom of the city in the following record: "Benjamin Franklin of Philadelphia is hereby admitted a burgess and guild-brother of this city, as a mark of the affectionate respect which the Magistrates and Council have for a gentleman, whose amiable character, greatly distinguished for usefulness to the society which he belongs to, and love to all mankind, had long ago reached them across the Atlantic Ocean." i, 251.
4. Bigelow, i. 45, 47.
5. Ibid, i. 57.
6. Ibid, i. 58.