rious and niggardly spirit, by insisting so much as he did, in this and a number of other pieces, on the practice of industry, frugality, and economy. In the previous remarks alluded to, it was our object to vindicate his own personal habits and motives from the censure mentioned. The discourse before us presents the subject in another aspect, on which a few words will not, we trust, be deemed inappropriate.

The reason assigned by Franklin himself for the earnestness with which he inculcated the maxims of thrift, fully vindicates his motives from the censure in question; for he expressly declares that in so doing, it was his purpose to render virtue more safe by placing it as much as possible out of the power of temptation, and securing that degree of personal independence, and freedom of opinion and action, which are most favorable to the discharge of the various duties of life; while his conduct, from first to last, shows that his own character was wholly free from the taint of covetousness, or sordid parsimony.

It is very likely that the covetous and mean may have used his pithy sayings, not unfrequently, to cover a predetermination to keep their hands fast shut against all appeals of private benevolence, or an enlightened and just public spirit. But to use those maxims thus, is to abuse them; and it still remains true that industry and frugality are virtues; that the maxims which enforce them are wise and useful; and that the man who is able, by such teachings, to extend the practice of those virtues, is both a public and a private benefactor; for notwithstanding the occasional abuse of such precepts, it is constantly true that, for the great majority of our race, the only way to obtain an honest livelihood, or train their children to become useful and wholesome members of society, is the exercise of the virtues mentioned.

USE AND ABUSE OF MONEY.

219

Indeed, the far more common danger to which men are exposed, is on the side of indolence, prodigality, improvidence, and the neglect of systematic economy in all affairs, whether public or private; and these same vices withhold from the just calls of benevolence and worthy enterprise, far greater sums than all the hoardings of avarice and parsimony. The money continually lavished for the most frivolous purposes, or the most profligate and pernicious self-indulgence, take Christendom through, would feed and clothe, shelter, educate, and train to virtue, usefulness, and respectability, all the children of want, ignorance, vice, and infamy, on earth, and renovate the world.

CHAPTER XVIII.

NEWSPAPERS HE DEFENDS A CLERGYMAN -LANGUAGES NEW CLUBS-MADE CLERK OF

-FAMILY CONCERNS

THE ASSEMBLY-CITY AFFAIRS.

FRANKLIN availed himself of his newspaper, as he did of his almanac, to make it not merely a gazette of news and advertisements, but a vehicle of useful knowledge, and the means of promoting a relish for instructive reading and a just taste. With these views he inserted, from time to time, selections from the best writers in the language, and occasionally an essay of his own, which had been prepared for the Junto. Some of his early performances, which first came before the public in this way, have been justly deemed worthy of preservation in the collections of his writings. One of these pieces, published in 1730, aside from its literary merits, has a further interest as presenting another view of the action of his mind and of his way of thinking, at that period, on important points of morality; and as indicating also something of the influences at work in that club, which contributed so much to exercise and develop his faculties.

The piece referred to is a dialogue, in the Socratic manner, between two friends, "Concerning Virtue and Pleasure;" aiming "to show that a vicious man, whatever may be his abilities, can not be properly called a man of sense.' In this performance the author inculcates the wisdom and duty of that comprehensive tem

SOUND PRINCIPLES.

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perance, or self-control, which is not less indispensable to the lasting enjoyment of even those pleasures of which the senses are the medium, than it is to the discharge of duty, or to the attainment of any kind of real and permanent good. Among other things, he touches upon the grave question of the moral responsibility involved in the formation of opinions; maintaining the doctrine that a man is culpable for wrong opinions of the nature of human actions, so far as he neglects the means within his power to rectify them; and that wrong actions induced by such opinions are not excused by mere good intentions. He holds, also, that a man's truest good is to be found in well-doing, or in "doing all the good he can to others;" that "this is that constant and durable good which will afford contentment and satisfaction always alike;" and is the only species of pleasure that "grows by repetition," and "ends but with our being."

The moral principles which governed him in the conduct of his newspaper give honorable evidence of rectitude and firmness. He "carefully excluded all libelling and personal abuse;" and when the insertion of such articles was urged on the plea of "the liberty of the press," and that "a newspaper was like a stagecoach, in which any one who would pay, had a right to a place," he replied that "he would not take it upon him to spread detraction; and that, having contracted with his subscribers to furnish them with what might be either useful or entertaining, he could not fill their paper with private altercation, in which they had no concern, without doing them great injustice."

Such principles are worthy of all praise; and the observance of them, as Franklin urges from his own ample experience, will be found, in the main, as profitable as it is honest and just.

Franklin, it appears, established the first printing-office

in Charleston, South Carolina. On learning that such an establishment was desired there, he fitted out one of his journeymen with the necessary apparatus, in 1733, under a contract with him to sustain one third of the expenses and receive one third of the profits. The person thus sent is represented as an intelligent man, but neglectful of his accounts; and though he remitted money occasionally, yet never, while he lived, did he furnish a regular and full statement of the affairs of the partnership. Upon his death, however, his widow continued the business; and having been born and bred in Holland, where, as in other parts of Europe, females are taught book-keeping as a customary part of education, she lost no time in looking into the concerns of the printingoffice; and not only furnished as clear and exact an exhibit of the past transactions of the office as the books and papers left by her husband permitted, but she "continued to account, with the greatest regularity and exactness, every quarter afterward.”

This discreet and usefully-educated woman managed the business so well, as to derive from it the means of bringing up several children, in a very judicious and reputable manner; and at the close of the partnership term, was able to buy out her partner's interest, and place her eldest son at the head of the establishment.

This case is related by Franklin, as he remarks, for the purpose of commending the practice of making a knowledge of account-keeping, sufficient at least for the ordinary transactions of business, a part of the common education of both sexes alike; and as being likely to prove more useful to "our young women and their children, in case of widowhood, than either music or dancing, by preserving them from the imposition of crafty men, and enabling them to continue perhaps a profitable mercantile house, with established correspondents, till a son is grown