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"Ben Franklin"
Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography: Page 84
of 154
These things I mention as a caution to young printers, and that they may be
encouraged not to pollute their presses and disgrace their profession by such
infamous practices, but refuse steadily, as they may see by my example that such
a course of conduct will not, on the whole, be injurious to their interests.
In 1733 I sent one of my journeymen to Charleston, South Carolina, where a
printer was wanting. I furnish'd him with a press and letters, on an agreement
of partnership, by which I was to receive one-third of the profits of the
business, paying one-third of the expense. He was a man of learning, and honest
but ignorant in matters of account; and, tho' he sometimes made me remittances,
I could get no account from him, nor any satisfactory state of our partnership
while he lived. On his decease, the business was continued by his widow, who,
being born and bred in Holland, where, as I have been inform'd, the knowledge of
accounts makes a part of female education, she not only sent me as clear a state
as she could find of the transactions past, but continued to account with the
greatest regularity and exactness every quarter afterwards, and managed the
business with such success, that she not only brought up reputably a family of
children, but, at the expiration of the term, was able to purchase of me the
printing-house, and establish her son in it.
I mention this affair chiefly for the sake of recommending that branch of
education for our young females, as likely to be of more use to them and their
children, in case of widowhood, than either music or dancing, by preserving them
from losses by imposition of crafty men, and enabling them to continue, perhaps,
a profitable mercantile house, with establish'd correspondence, till a son is
grown up fit to undertake and go on with it, to the lasting advantage and
enriching of the family.
About the year 1734 there arrived among us from Ireland a young Presbyterian
preacher, named Hemphill, who delivered with a good voice, and apparently
extempore, most excellent discourses, which drew together considerable numbers
of different persuasion, who join'd in admiring them. Among the rest, I became
one of his constant hearers, his sermons pleasing me, as they had little of the
dogmatical kind, but inculcated strongly the practice of virtue, or what in the
religious stile are called good works. Those, however, of our congregation, who
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