My brothers were all put apprentice to different trades. With reſpect to myſelf, I was ſent, at the age of eight years, to a grammar ſchool. My father deſtined me for the church, and already regarded me as the chaplain of the family. The promptitude with which from my infancy I had learned to read, for I do not remember to have been ever without this acquirement, and the encouragement of his friends, who aſſured him that I ſhould one day certainly become a man of letters, confirmed him in this deſign. My uncle Benjamin approved alſo of the ſcheme, and promiſed to give me all his volumes of ſermons, written, as I have ſaid, in the ſhort-hand of his invention, if I would take the pains to learn it.
I remained however ſcarcely a year at the grammar ſchool, although, in this ſhort interval, I had riſen from the middle to the head of my claſs, from thence to the claſs immediately above, and was to paſs, at the end of the year, to the one next in order. But my father, burthened with a numerous family, found that he was incapable, without ſubjecting himſelf to difficulties, of providing for the expence of a collegiate education; and conſidering beſides, as I heard him ſay to his friends, that perſons ſo educated were often poorly provided for, he renounced his firſt intentions, took me from the grammar ſchool, and ſent me to a ſchool for writing and arithmetic, kept by a Mr. George Brownwel, who was a ſkilful matter, and ſucceeded very well in his proſeſſion by employing gentle means only, and ſuch as were calculated to encourage his ſcholars. Under him I ſoon acquired an excellent hand; but I failed in arithmetic, and made therein no ſort of progreſs.
