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unto our Master. There was a famous Christian in the Primitive Times, who wrote a whole Book, in praise of his Master Hierotheus; Entituling it, wept T paxapis Iepobes Concerning the Blessed Hierotheus. And if I now say a few things, Concerning the Blessed CHEEVER, no man who thinks well of Gra titude, or likes well to see the Fifth Commandment observed, will censure it.

In the Imperial Law, we read, that Good Grammarians, having taught with diligence Twenty Years, were to have Special Honour conferr'd upon them. I Challenge for MY MASTER, more than a Treble portion of that Special Honour. But, Oh, Let it all pass thro' him, up to the Glorious LORD, who made him to be what he was!

His Eminent Abilities for the Work, which rendred him so long Useful in his Generation, were universally acknowledged. The next edition of, Tranquillus de Claris Grammaticis, may well enough bring him into the Catalogue, and acknowledge him a Master. He was not a Meer Grammarian; yet he was a Pure One. And let no Envy Misconstrue it, if I say, It was noted, that when Scholars came to be Admitted into the Colledge, they who came from the Cheeverian Education, were generally the most unexceptionable. What Exception shall be made, Let it fall upon him, that is now speaking of it.

He flourished so long in this Great Work, of bringing our Sons to be Men, that it gave him an opportunity to send forth many Bezaleels and Aholiabs for the Service of the Tabernacle; and Men fitted for all Good Employments. He that was my Master, Seven and Thirty Years ago, was a Master to many of my Betters, no less than Seventy Years ago; so long ago, that I must even mention my Fathers Tutor for one of them.

And as it is written for the Lasting Renown of the Corderius, whose Colloquies he taught us; That the Great CALVIN had been a Scholar to him; So this our AMERICAN Corderius had many Scholars that were a Crown unto him; yea, many that will be his Crown in the Presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his Coming; yea, many that were got into the Heavenly World before him. And the mention of the Heavenly World, leads me to that which I would principally take notice of. His PIETY, I say, His PIETY; and his care to infuse Documents of Piety into the Scholars of his Charge, that he might carry them with him to the Heavenly World. When Aristotle set up a Monument for his Master Plato, he inscribed upon it, this Testimony, HE WAS ONE WHOM ALL GOOD MEN OUGHT TO IMITATE, AS WELL AS TO CELEBRATE. MY MASTER went thro' his Hard Work with so much Delight in it, as a work for GOD and CHRIST, and His People: He so constantly Pray'd with us every Day, Catechis'd us every Week, and let fall such Holy Counsels upon us; He took so many Occasions, to make Speeches unto us, that should make us Afraid of Sin, and of incurring the fearful Judgments of God by Sin; That I do propose him for Imitation.

Verily, If all School-masters would Watch for Souls, and wisely spread the Nets of Salvation for the Souls of their Children, in the midst of all their Teaching; Or, if the wondrous Rules of Education, lately published and practised, in that Wonder of the World, the School of Glaucha near Hall in the Lower Saxony, were always attended: Who can tell, what Blessed Effects might be seen, in very many Children made wise unto Salvation? Albertus, who from his Great Learning had the Syrname of Magnus, desired of God some years before he died, That he might forget all his other Learning, and be wholly Swallow'd up in Religion. I would not propose unto you, My Masters, That you should Forget all other Learning. By all means furnish the Children with as much Learning as ever you can. But be not so Swallowed up with other Learning, as to Forget Religion, & the Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures. Look upon other things to be (as a Speech in Parliament once elegantly called them,) only the Et Cætera's, to Religion. Why should not a School-master be to his Children, A School-master to bring them unto Christ? This was the Study of our CHEEVER. The famous Dr. Reynolds, in a Funeral Sermon on an Excellent School-master, in the City of London, has a passage worthy to be written in Letters of Gold. Says he, 'If Grammar-Schools have Holy and 'Learned men set over them, not only the Brains, but the Souls of the Children might be there Enriched, and the Work of Learning and of Conversion too, be 'Betimes wrought in them!'

I shall not presume to Dictate, upon this matter, or to Enquire, Why Castalio's Dialogues, be not Look'd upon as one of the best School Books, for the Latin

Tongue, in all the World? Or, Why for the Greek, there is no more Account made of Posselius? Or, indeed why (to express my self in the Terms of a Modern Writer,) 'there should not be North-west Passage found, for the Attaining of the Latin Tongue; that instead of a Journey, which may be dispatch'd in a few Days, they may not wander like the Children of Israel, Forty Years in 'the Wilderness. And why they should so much converse with the Poets, at 'that Age, when they read them, with so much Difficulty, and so little Relish.' But I will venture upon it, as neither a Tedious Parenthesis, nor a needless Digression, to single out only Two passages of many this way which in my small Reading I have met withal.

The first is this; I have seen this Experiment among others recorded of one that had a Number of Little Folks under his Charge.

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'Moreover, He made it his Custome, that in every Recitation, he would, from something or other occurring in it, make an occasion, to let fall some Sentence, which had a Tendency to promote the Fear of God in their Hearts; 'which thing fometimes did indeed put him to more than a little study; but the 'Good Effect sufficiently Recompenced it.'

Another is this. A late Writer ha's these words; 'Many Children are sooner taught what Jupiter, Mars, & such Pagan Gods were, then what, Father, Son, and Spirit is. Augustine of old complain'd of this; of Learning in the Schools, Joves Adulteries; and for giving an Account of such things, saith he, ob hoc bona spei puer appellabar. Luther also complained, That our Schools were more Pagan than Christian. I refer the unsatisfied Reader, to Pasors 'Preface to his Lexicon. I knew an aged and famous School-master; that after 'he had kept School about Fifty years, said, with a very sad countenance, That it was a great Trouble to him, that he had spent so much time in Reading Pagan 'Authors to his Scholars, and wish'd it were customary to read such a Book as Duports Verses upon Job, rather than Homer, and such Books. I pray God, 'put it in the Hearts of a Wise Parliament, to Purge our Schools; that instead of Learning vain Fictions, and Filthy Stories, they may be acquainted with the Word of God, and with Books containing Grave Sayings, and things that may 'make them truly Wise and Useful in the World.'

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Ye have heard, what MY MASTER was, In the School. Sir Walter Rawleign commends it as a piece of wisdom, to use great moderation when we are treating men with Commendation. I will not forget the Rule, in carrying on my Commendation of my Master. But I will say very much in a Little. Out of the School, he was One, Antiqua Fide, priscie moribus; A Christian of the Old Fashion: An OLD NEW-ENGLISH CHRISTIAN; And I may tell you, That was as Venerable a Sight, as the World, since the Days of Primitive Christianity, has ever look'd upon.

He was well Studied in the Body of Divinity; An Able Defender of the Faith and Order of the Gospel; Notably Conversant and Acquainted with the Scriptural Prophecies; And, by Consequence, A Sober Chiliast.

He Lived as a Master, the Term, which has been for above three thousand years, assign'd for the Life of a Man; he continued unto the Ninety Fourth year of his Age, an unusual Instance of Liveliness. His Intellectual Force, as little abated as his Natural. He Exemplified the Fulfilment of that word, As thy Days, so shall thy Strength be; in the Gloss which the Jerusalem Targum has put upon it; As thou wast in the Dayes of thy Youth, such thou shalt be in thy Old Age. The Reward of his Fruitfulness! For, Fructus Liberat Arborem! The product of Temperance; Rather than what my Lord Verulam assigns, as a Reason for Vivacious Scholars.

DEATH must now do its part. He Dy'd, Longing for Death. Our old SIMEON waited for it, that he might get nearer to the Consolation of Israel. He Dyed Leaning like Old Jacob, upon a Staff; the Sacrifice and the Right eousness of a Glorious CHRIST, he let us know, was the Golden Staff, which he Lean'd upon. He Dyed mourning for the Quick Apostasie, which he saw breaking in upon us; very easie about his own Eternal Happiness, but full of Distress for a poor People here under the Displeasure of Heaven, for Former Iniquities, he thought, as well as Later Ones. To say no more: He Dyed, A CANDIDATE FOR THE FIRST RESURRECTION. And Verily, our Land is Weakened, when those Fly away, at whose Flight me may cry out, My Father, My Father, the Chariots of New England, and the Horsemen thereof."

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.

EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL WORK

AUTOBIOGRAPHY.*

HAVING emerged from the poverty and obscurity in which I was born and bred, to a state of affluence and some degree of reputation in the world, and having gone so far through life with a considerable share of felicity, the conducting means I made use of, which with the blessing of God so well succeeded, my posterity may like to know, as they may find some of them suitable to their own situations, and therefore fit to be imitated.

That felicity, when I reflected on it, has induced me sometimes to say, that were it offered to my choice, I should have no objection to a repetition of the same life from its beginning, only asking the advantages authors have in a second edition to correct some faults of the first. So I might, besides correcting the faults, change some sinister accidents and events of it for others more favorable. But though this were denied, I should still accept the offer. Since such a repetition is not to be expected, the next thing most like living one's life over again seems to be a recollection of that life, and to make that recollection as durable as possible by putting it down in writing.

Josiah, my father, married young, and carried his wife with three children into New England, about 1682. The conventicles having been forbidden by law, and frequently disturbed, induced some considerable men of his acquaintance to remove to that country, and he was prevailed with to accompany them thither, where they expected to enjoy their mode of religion with freedom. By the same wife he had four children more born there, and by a second wife ten more, in all seventeen; of which I remember thirteen sitting at one time at his table, who all grew up to be men and women, and married; I was the youngest son, and the youngest child but two, and was born in Boston, New England, Jan. 6th, 1706 (o. s.) My mother, the second wife, was Abiah Folger, daughter of Peter Folger, one of the first settlers of New England, of whom honorable mention is made by Cotton Mather, in his church history of that

* Composed in 1771-abridged.

country, entitled Magnalia Christi Americana, as a godly, learned Englishman,' if I remember the words rightly. I have heard that he wrote sundry small occasional pieces, but only one of them was printed, which I saw now many years since. It was written in 1675, in the home-spun verse of that time and people, and addressed to those then concerned in the government there. It was in favor of liberty of conscience, and in behalf of the Baptists, Quakers, and other sectaries that had been under persecution, ascribing the Indian wars, and other distresses that had befallen the country, to that persecution, as so many judgments of God to punish so heinous an offense, and exhorting a repeal of those uncharitable laws. The whole appeared to me as written with a good deal of decent plainness and manly freedom.

My elder brothers were all put apprentices to different trades. 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 (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 afterward 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 soap-boiler; a business he was not bred to, but had assumed on his arrival in New England, and on finding his dying trade would not maintain his family, being in little request. Accordingly, I was employed in cutting wick for

the candles, filling the dipping mold and the molds for cast candles, attending the shop, going of errands, etc.

I disliked the trade, and had a strong inclination for the sea, but my father declared against it; however, living near the water, I was much in and about it, learnt early to swim well, and to manage boats; and when in a boat or canoe with other boys, I was commonly allowed to govern, especially in any case of difficulty; and upon other occasions I was generally a leader among the boys, and sometimes led them into scrapes, of which I will mention one instance, as it shows an early projecting public spirit, though not then justly conducted.

There was a salt-marsh that bounded part of the mill-pond, on the edge of which, at high water, we used to stand to fish for minnows. By much trampling, we had made it a mere quagmire. My proposal was to build a wharf there fit for us to stand upon, and I showed my comrades a large heap of stones, which were intended for a new house near the marsh, and which would very well suit our purpose. Accordingly, in the evening, when the workmen were gone, I assembled a number of my playfellows, and working with them diligently like so many einmets, sometimes two or three to a stone, we brought them all away and built our little wharf. The next morning the workmen were surprised at missing the stones, which were found in our wharf. movers; we were discovered and complained of; several of us were corrected by our fathers; and, though I pleaded the usefulness of the work, mine convinced me that nothing was useful which was not honest.

Inquiry was made after the re

I think you may like to know something of his person and character. He had an excellent constitution of body, was of middle stature, but well set, and very strong; he was ingenious, could draw prettily, was skilled a little in music, and had a clear pleasing voice, so that when he played psalm tunes on his violin and sung withal, as he sometimes did in an evening after the business of the day was over, it was extremely agreeable to hear. He had a mechanical genius too, and, on occasion, was very handy in the use of other tradesmen's tools; but his great excellence lay in a sound understanding and solid judgment in prudential matters, both in private and public affairs. In the latter, indeed, he was never employed, the numerous family he had to educate and the straightness of his circumstances keeping him close to his trade; but I remember well his being frequently visited by leading people, who consulted him

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