Wednesday, July 27, 2005
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
By Benjamin Franklin.
Introduction:
The fabulous versatility, the unfailing competence, the zeal for self improvement and for social improvement, the shrewdness and amiability, the happy fact to have been at use in any company, the cheerful acquiescence in mediocrity, the talent for compromise and the genius for opportunism, the deceptive simplicity, the slightly co-indulgence in politics, the commonsense practicality and the inexhaustible resourcefulness, the rationalism that was always willing to take account of human nature, the sharp satire and the deadpan humor, these are Franklin’s characteristics and they have been for two centuries, American characteristics. There are no pains without gain. The autobiography celebrates virtues honesty, sobriety, industry, moderation, frugality and points the moral that those who practice these virtues are bound to have success in life.
The ultimate goal in life is not a grand monument when eloquent the task but to live on in the heart of those still alive. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tides with single garment of destiny.” If someone did this to you would you think it was fair? Would you be comfortable if you were to appear on the front page of your home Sunday’s paper? Would you like your parents to see do this. Gandhi said, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” “Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul,” said Edward Abbey. As the years go by I find myself paying less and less attention to what people say or think or wish instead I notice what they do what I feel from them and what they are working to become. Aristotle said, “Time does not exist except for change.” The origin of the word change is the old English cambium which means to become. In my hands is a small leather pocket folio my grandfather Downing carried to medical school. In one of the pockets keep a note that says I am nothing but dust and ashes. In the other pocket keep a note that says, “For me the world was created.” Write a one-page message for the coffee table or kitchen counter. If you knew that you would then go home and place this note on the coffee table for future generations to read and you would never be seen again what would you write down? I have undertaken this exercise on a number of occasions through the years. I write something different each time. With pen in hand I am just doing something of my life’s meaning and message. When Abraham Lincoln was asked how long it took him to write the single page in the Gettysburg address he replies all my life.
Autobiography:
Imagining it may be equally agreeable to you to know the circumstances of my life, many of which you are yet unacquainted with, and expecting the enjoyment of a week's uninterrupted leisure in my present country retirement, I sit down to write them for you.
From a Child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in Books. My Father's little library consisted chiefly of books in polemic divinity, most of which I read, and have since often regretted that at a time when I had such a thirst for knowledge, more proper books had not fallen in my way, since it was now resolved I should not be a clergyman. Plutarch's Lives there was, in which I read abundantly, and I still think that time spent to great advantage, perhaps gave me a turn of thinking that had an influence on some of the principal future events in my life. 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 & clean. Often I sat up in my room reading the greatest part of the night, when the book was borrowed in the evening & to be returned early in the morning lest it should be missed or wanted. I fell far short in elegance of expression, in method and in perspicuity, of which he convinced me by several Instances.
Thus refreshed, I walked again up the street, which by this time had many clean-dressed people in it, who were all walking the same way. I joined them, and thereby was led into the great meeting house of the Quakers near the market. I sat down among them and after looking round awhile and hearing nothing said, being very drowsy through labor and want of rest the preceding night, I fell fast asleep, and continued so till the meeting broke up, when one was kind enough to rouse me. This was, therefore, the first house I was in, or slept in, in Philadelphia.
But Sir William, on reading his letter, said he was too prudent. There was great difference in persons; and discretion did not always accompany years, nor was youth always without it. He drank on however, and had 4 or 5 shillings to pay out of his wages every Saturday night for that muddling liquor an expense I was free from. And thus these poor devils keep themselves always under. We sailed from Gravesend on the 23d of July, 1726. For the incidents of the voyage, I refer you to my journal, where you will find them all minutely related. Perhaps the most important part of that journal is the plan to be found in it, which I formed at sea, for regulating my future conduct in life. It is the more remarkable, as being formed when I was so young, and yet being pretty faithfully adhered to quite through to old age, as I found them disputed in the different books I read, I began to doubt of revelation itself. Some books against Deism fell into my hands; they were said to be the substance of sermons preached at Boyle's lectures. It happened that they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a thorough deist. I grew convinced that truth, sincerity and integrity in dealings between man and man were of the utmost importance to the felicity of life; and I formed written resolutions, which still remain in my journal book, to practice them ever while I lived. Revelation had indeed no weight with me, as such; but I entertained an opinion that, though certain actions might not be bad because they were forbidden by it, or good because it commanded them, yet probably these actions might be forbidden because they were bad for us, or commanded because they were beneficial to us, in their own natures, all the circumstances of things considered.
I should have mentioned before that in the autumn of the preceding year, I had formed most of my ingenious acquaintance into a club of mutual improvement, which we called the Junto; we met on Friday evenings. The rules that I drew up required that every member, in his turn, should produce one or more queries on any point of Morals, Politics, or Natural Philosophy, to be discussed by the company; and once in three months produce and read an essay of his own writing, on any subject he pleased. Our debates were to be under the direction of a president, and to be conducted in the sincere spirit of inquiry after truth, without fondness for dispute or desire of victory; and to prevent warmth, all expressions of positiveness in opinions, or direct contradiction, were after some time made contraband, and prohibited under small pecuniary penalties. Our friendship continued without interruption to his death, upwards of forty years; and the club continued almost as long, and was the best school of philosophy, morality, and politics that then existed in the province; for our queries, which were read the week preceding their discussion, put us upon reading with attention on the several subjects, that we might speak more to the purpose; and here, too, we acquired better habits of conversation, everything being studied in our rules which might prevent our disgusting each other. Hence the long continuance of the club, which I shall have frequent occasion to speak further of hereafter.
And now I set on foot my first project of a public nature, that for a subscription library. I drew up the proposals, got them put into form by our great scrivener, Brockden, and, by the help of my friends in the Junto, procured fifty subscribers of forty shillings each to begin with, and ten shillings a year for fifty years, the term our company was to continue. We afterwards obtained a charter, the company being increased to one hundred. This was the mother of all the North American subscription libraries, now so numerous. It is become a great thing itself, and continually increasing.
Your discovery that the thing is in many a man's private power will be invaluable. Influence upon the private character late in life is not only an influence late in life, but a weak influence. It is in youth that we plant our chief habits and prejudices; it is in youth that we take our party as to profession, pursuits, and matrimony. The objections and reluctances I met with in soliciting the subscriptions made me soon feel the impropriety of presenting one's self as the proposer of any useful project that might be supposed to raise one's reputation in the smallest degree above that of one's neighbors, when one has need of their assistance to accomplish that project. I therefore put myself as much as I could out of sight, and stated it as a scheme of a number of friends, who had requested me to go about and propose it to such as they thought lovers of reading. In this way my affair went on more smoothly. The present little sacrifice of your vanity will afterwards be amply repaid.
Reading was the only amusement I allowed myself. I spent no time in taverns, games, or frolics of any kind; and my industry in my business continued as indefatigable as it was necessary. It was about this time I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection; as I knew what thought I knew what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might not always do the one and avoid the other. But I soon found I had undertaken a task of more difficulty than I had imagined. While my care was employed in guarding against one fault, I was often surprised by another; habit took the advantage of inattention; inclination was sometimes too strong for reason. I concluded, at length, that the mere speculative conviction that it was our interest to be completely virtuous, was not sufficient to prevent our slipping; and that the contrary habits must be broken, and good ones acquired and established, before we can have any dependence on a steady, uniform rectitude of conduct.
For this purpose I therefore contrived the following method. In the various enumerations of the moral virtues I had met with in my reading, I found the catalogue more or less numerous, as different writers included more or fewer ideas under the same name. Temperance, for example, was by some confined to eating and drinking, while by others it was extended to mean the moderating every other pleasure, appetite, inclination, or passion, bodily or mental, even to our avarice and ambition. I proposed to myself, for the sake of clearness, to use rather more names, with fewer ideas than a few names with more ideas and I included under thirteen names of virtues all that at that time occurred to me as necessary or desirable, and annexed to each a short precept, which fully expressed the extent I gave to its meaning.
These names of virtues, with their precepts, were:
1. TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
2. SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
3. ORDER. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
4. RESOLUTION. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
5. FRUGALITY. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.
6. INDUSTRY. Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
7. SINCERITY. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
8. JUSTICE. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
9. MODERATION. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
10. CLEANLINESS. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation.
11. TRANQUILLITY. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
12. CHASTITY. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation.
13. HUMILITY. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.
My intention being to acquire the habitude of all these virtues, I judged it would be well not to distract my attention by attempting the whole at once, but to fix it on one of them at a time, and, when I should be master of that, then to proceed to another, and so on, till I should have gone through the thirteen; and, as the previous acquisition of some might facilitate the acquisition of certain others, I arranged them with that view, as they stand above. Conceiving, then, that, agreeably to the advice of Pythagoras in his Garden Verses, daily examination would be necessary, I contrived the following method for conducting that examination, one of the pages.
I made a little book, in which I allotted a page for each of the virtues. I ruled each page with red ink, so as to have seven columns, one for each day of the week, marking each column with a letter for the day, from Sunday through Saturday. I crossed these columns with thirteen red lines, marking the beginning of each line with the first letter of one of the virtues, on which line, and in its proper column, I might mark, by a little black spot, every fault I found upon examination to have been committed respecting that virtue upon that day. I determined to give a week's strict attention to each of the virtues successively. I determined to give a week's strict attention to each of the virtues successively. Thus in the first week my great guard was to avoid every the least offense against temperance, leaving the other virtues to their ordinary chance, only marking every evening the faults of the day. Proceeding thus to the last, I could go through a course complete in thirteen weeks, and four courses in a year. And like him who having a garden to weed, does not attempt to eradicate all the bad herbs at once, which would exceed his reach and his strength, but works on one of the beds at a time, & having accomplished the first proceeds to a second; so I should have, I hoped the encouraging pleasure of seeing on my pages the progress I made in virtue, by clearing successively my lines of their spots, till in the end by a number of courses, I should be happy in viewing a clean book after a thirteen weeks, daily examination. I formed the following little prayer, which was prefixed to my tables of examination, for daily use:”O powerful Goodness! Bountiful Father! Merciful Guide! Increase in me that wisdom which discovers my truest interest. Strengthen my resolutions to perform what that wisdom dictates. Accept my kind offices to thy other children as the only return in my power for thy continual favors to me.”
The precept of order requiring that every part of my business should have its allotted time, one page in my little book contained the following scheme of employment for the 24 hours of a natural day:
The morning question, what good shall I do this day?
5:00 - Rise, wash, and address Powerful Goodness; contrive day's business, and take the resolution of the day; prosecute the present study: and breakfast.
8:00 to 12:00 – Work.
12:00 to 2:00 - Read or overlook my accounts, and dine.
2:00 to 6:00 – Work.
Evening question, what good have I done today?
6:00 to 10:00 – Put things in their places, supper, music, or diversion, or conversation, examination of the day.
10:00 to 5:00 – Sleep.
My scheme of order gave me the most trouble; and I found that, though it might be practical where a man's business was such as to leave him order, too, with regard to places for things, papers, etc., I found extremely difficult to acquire. I had not been early accustomed to it, and, having an exceeding good memory, I was not so sensible of the inconvenience attending want of method. In truth, I myself incorrigible with respect to Order; and now I am grown old, and my memory bad, I feel very sensibly the want of it. But, on the whole, though I never arrived at the perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far short of it, yet I was, by the endeavor, a better and a happier man than I otherwise should have been if I had not attempted it; as those who aim at perfect writing by imitating the engraved copies, though they never reach the wished-for excellence of those copies, their hand is mended by the endeavor, and tolerable, while it continues fair and legible.
My list of virtues contained at first but twelve. But a Quaker friend having kindly informed me that I was generally thought proud, that my pride showed itself frequently in conversation, that I was not content with being in the right when discussing any point, but was overbearing and rather insolent of which he convinced me by mentioning several instances, I determined endeavoring to cure myself, if I could, of this vice of falling among the rest, and I added humility to my list, giving an extensive meaning to the word. I cannot boast of much success in acquiring the reality of this virtue, but I had a good deal with regard to the appearance of it. In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself; you will see it, perhaps, often in this history; for, even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility. Our club, the Junto, was, so useful, and afforded such satisfaction to the members, that several were desirous of introducing their friends, which could not well be done without exceeded what we had settled as a convenient number, viz., twelve. We had from the beginning made it a rule to keep our institution a secret, which was pretty well observed.
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0486290735
By Benjamin Franklin.
Introduction:
The fabulous versatility, the unfailing competence, the zeal for self improvement and for social improvement, the shrewdness and amiability, the happy fact to have been at use in any company, the cheerful acquiescence in mediocrity, the talent for compromise and the genius for opportunism, the deceptive simplicity, the slightly co-indulgence in politics, the commonsense practicality and the inexhaustible resourcefulness, the rationalism that was always willing to take account of human nature, the sharp satire and the deadpan humor, these are Franklin’s characteristics and they have been for two centuries, American characteristics. There are no pains without gain. The autobiography celebrates virtues honesty, sobriety, industry, moderation, frugality and points the moral that those who practice these virtues are bound to have success in life.
The ultimate goal in life is not a grand monument when eloquent the task but to live on in the heart of those still alive. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tides with single garment of destiny.” If someone did this to you would you think it was fair? Would you be comfortable if you were to appear on the front page of your home Sunday’s paper? Would you like your parents to see do this. Gandhi said, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” “Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul,” said Edward Abbey. As the years go by I find myself paying less and less attention to what people say or think or wish instead I notice what they do what I feel from them and what they are working to become. Aristotle said, “Time does not exist except for change.” The origin of the word change is the old English cambium which means to become. In my hands is a small leather pocket folio my grandfather Downing carried to medical school. In one of the pockets keep a note that says I am nothing but dust and ashes. In the other pocket keep a note that says, “For me the world was created.” Write a one-page message for the coffee table or kitchen counter. If you knew that you would then go home and place this note on the coffee table for future generations to read and you would never be seen again what would you write down? I have undertaken this exercise on a number of occasions through the years. I write something different each time. With pen in hand I am just doing something of my life’s meaning and message. When Abraham Lincoln was asked how long it took him to write the single page in the Gettysburg address he replies all my life.
Autobiography:
Imagining it may be equally agreeable to you to know the circumstances of my life, many of which you are yet unacquainted with, and expecting the enjoyment of a week's uninterrupted leisure in my present country retirement, I sit down to write them for you.
From a Child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in Books. My Father's little library consisted chiefly of books in polemic divinity, most of which I read, and have since often regretted that at a time when I had such a thirst for knowledge, more proper books had not fallen in my way, since it was now resolved I should not be a clergyman. Plutarch's Lives there was, in which I read abundantly, and I still think that time spent to great advantage, perhaps gave me a turn of thinking that had an influence on some of the principal future events in my life. 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 & clean. Often I sat up in my room reading the greatest part of the night, when the book was borrowed in the evening & to be returned early in the morning lest it should be missed or wanted. I fell far short in elegance of expression, in method and in perspicuity, of which he convinced me by several Instances.
Thus refreshed, I walked again up the street, which by this time had many clean-dressed people in it, who were all walking the same way. I joined them, and thereby was led into the great meeting house of the Quakers near the market. I sat down among them and after looking round awhile and hearing nothing said, being very drowsy through labor and want of rest the preceding night, I fell fast asleep, and continued so till the meeting broke up, when one was kind enough to rouse me. This was, therefore, the first house I was in, or slept in, in Philadelphia.
But Sir William, on reading his letter, said he was too prudent. There was great difference in persons; and discretion did not always accompany years, nor was youth always without it. He drank on however, and had 4 or 5 shillings to pay out of his wages every Saturday night for that muddling liquor an expense I was free from. And thus these poor devils keep themselves always under. We sailed from Gravesend on the 23d of July, 1726. For the incidents of the voyage, I refer you to my journal, where you will find them all minutely related. Perhaps the most important part of that journal is the plan to be found in it, which I formed at sea, for regulating my future conduct in life. It is the more remarkable, as being formed when I was so young, and yet being pretty faithfully adhered to quite through to old age, as I found them disputed in the different books I read, I began to doubt of revelation itself. Some books against Deism fell into my hands; they were said to be the substance of sermons preached at Boyle's lectures. It happened that they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a thorough deist. I grew convinced that truth, sincerity and integrity in dealings between man and man were of the utmost importance to the felicity of life; and I formed written resolutions, which still remain in my journal book, to practice them ever while I lived. Revelation had indeed no weight with me, as such; but I entertained an opinion that, though certain actions might not be bad because they were forbidden by it, or good because it commanded them, yet probably these actions might be forbidden because they were bad for us, or commanded because they were beneficial to us, in their own natures, all the circumstances of things considered.
I should have mentioned before that in the autumn of the preceding year, I had formed most of my ingenious acquaintance into a club of mutual improvement, which we called the Junto; we met on Friday evenings. The rules that I drew up required that every member, in his turn, should produce one or more queries on any point of Morals, Politics, or Natural Philosophy, to be discussed by the company; and once in three months produce and read an essay of his own writing, on any subject he pleased. Our debates were to be under the direction of a president, and to be conducted in the sincere spirit of inquiry after truth, without fondness for dispute or desire of victory; and to prevent warmth, all expressions of positiveness in opinions, or direct contradiction, were after some time made contraband, and prohibited under small pecuniary penalties. Our friendship continued without interruption to his death, upwards of forty years; and the club continued almost as long, and was the best school of philosophy, morality, and politics that then existed in the province; for our queries, which were read the week preceding their discussion, put us upon reading with attention on the several subjects, that we might speak more to the purpose; and here, too, we acquired better habits of conversation, everything being studied in our rules which might prevent our disgusting each other. Hence the long continuance of the club, which I shall have frequent occasion to speak further of hereafter.
And now I set on foot my first project of a public nature, that for a subscription library. I drew up the proposals, got them put into form by our great scrivener, Brockden, and, by the help of my friends in the Junto, procured fifty subscribers of forty shillings each to begin with, and ten shillings a year for fifty years, the term our company was to continue. We afterwards obtained a charter, the company being increased to one hundred. This was the mother of all the North American subscription libraries, now so numerous. It is become a great thing itself, and continually increasing.
Your discovery that the thing is in many a man's private power will be invaluable. Influence upon the private character late in life is not only an influence late in life, but a weak influence. It is in youth that we plant our chief habits and prejudices; it is in youth that we take our party as to profession, pursuits, and matrimony. The objections and reluctances I met with in soliciting the subscriptions made me soon feel the impropriety of presenting one's self as the proposer of any useful project that might be supposed to raise one's reputation in the smallest degree above that of one's neighbors, when one has need of their assistance to accomplish that project. I therefore put myself as much as I could out of sight, and stated it as a scheme of a number of friends, who had requested me to go about and propose it to such as they thought lovers of reading. In this way my affair went on more smoothly. The present little sacrifice of your vanity will afterwards be amply repaid.
Reading was the only amusement I allowed myself. I spent no time in taverns, games, or frolics of any kind; and my industry in my business continued as indefatigable as it was necessary. It was about this time I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection; as I knew what thought I knew what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might not always do the one and avoid the other. But I soon found I had undertaken a task of more difficulty than I had imagined. While my care was employed in guarding against one fault, I was often surprised by another; habit took the advantage of inattention; inclination was sometimes too strong for reason. I concluded, at length, that the mere speculative conviction that it was our interest to be completely virtuous, was not sufficient to prevent our slipping; and that the contrary habits must be broken, and good ones acquired and established, before we can have any dependence on a steady, uniform rectitude of conduct.
For this purpose I therefore contrived the following method. In the various enumerations of the moral virtues I had met with in my reading, I found the catalogue more or less numerous, as different writers included more or fewer ideas under the same name. Temperance, for example, was by some confined to eating and drinking, while by others it was extended to mean the moderating every other pleasure, appetite, inclination, or passion, bodily or mental, even to our avarice and ambition. I proposed to myself, for the sake of clearness, to use rather more names, with fewer ideas than a few names with more ideas and I included under thirteen names of virtues all that at that time occurred to me as necessary or desirable, and annexed to each a short precept, which fully expressed the extent I gave to its meaning.
These names of virtues, with their precepts, were:
1. TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
2. SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
3. ORDER. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
4. RESOLUTION. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
5. FRUGALITY. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.
6. INDUSTRY. Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
7. SINCERITY. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
8. JUSTICE. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
9. MODERATION. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
10. CLEANLINESS. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation.
11. TRANQUILLITY. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
12. CHASTITY. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation.
13. HUMILITY. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.
My intention being to acquire the habitude of all these virtues, I judged it would be well not to distract my attention by attempting the whole at once, but to fix it on one of them at a time, and, when I should be master of that, then to proceed to another, and so on, till I should have gone through the thirteen; and, as the previous acquisition of some might facilitate the acquisition of certain others, I arranged them with that view, as they stand above. Conceiving, then, that, agreeably to the advice of Pythagoras in his Garden Verses, daily examination would be necessary, I contrived the following method for conducting that examination, one of the pages.
I made a little book, in which I allotted a page for each of the virtues. I ruled each page with red ink, so as to have seven columns, one for each day of the week, marking each column with a letter for the day, from Sunday through Saturday. I crossed these columns with thirteen red lines, marking the beginning of each line with the first letter of one of the virtues, on which line, and in its proper column, I might mark, by a little black spot, every fault I found upon examination to have been committed respecting that virtue upon that day. I determined to give a week's strict attention to each of the virtues successively. I determined to give a week's strict attention to each of the virtues successively. Thus in the first week my great guard was to avoid every the least offense against temperance, leaving the other virtues to their ordinary chance, only marking every evening the faults of the day. Proceeding thus to the last, I could go through a course complete in thirteen weeks, and four courses in a year. And like him who having a garden to weed, does not attempt to eradicate all the bad herbs at once, which would exceed his reach and his strength, but works on one of the beds at a time, & having accomplished the first proceeds to a second; so I should have, I hoped the encouraging pleasure of seeing on my pages the progress I made in virtue, by clearing successively my lines of their spots, till in the end by a number of courses, I should be happy in viewing a clean book after a thirteen weeks, daily examination. I formed the following little prayer, which was prefixed to my tables of examination, for daily use:”O powerful Goodness! Bountiful Father! Merciful Guide! Increase in me that wisdom which discovers my truest interest. Strengthen my resolutions to perform what that wisdom dictates. Accept my kind offices to thy other children as the only return in my power for thy continual favors to me.”
The precept of order requiring that every part of my business should have its allotted time, one page in my little book contained the following scheme of employment for the 24 hours of a natural day:
The morning question, what good shall I do this day?
5:00 - Rise, wash, and address Powerful Goodness; contrive day's business, and take the resolution of the day; prosecute the present study: and breakfast.
8:00 to 12:00 – Work.
12:00 to 2:00 - Read or overlook my accounts, and dine.
2:00 to 6:00 – Work.
Evening question, what good have I done today?
6:00 to 10:00 – Put things in their places, supper, music, or diversion, or conversation, examination of the day.
10:00 to 5:00 – Sleep.
My scheme of order gave me the most trouble; and I found that, though it might be practical where a man's business was such as to leave him order, too, with regard to places for things, papers, etc., I found extremely difficult to acquire. I had not been early accustomed to it, and, having an exceeding good memory, I was not so sensible of the inconvenience attending want of method. In truth, I myself incorrigible with respect to Order; and now I am grown old, and my memory bad, I feel very sensibly the want of it. But, on the whole, though I never arrived at the perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far short of it, yet I was, by the endeavor, a better and a happier man than I otherwise should have been if I had not attempted it; as those who aim at perfect writing by imitating the engraved copies, though they never reach the wished-for excellence of those copies, their hand is mended by the endeavor, and tolerable, while it continues fair and legible.
My list of virtues contained at first but twelve. But a Quaker friend having kindly informed me that I was generally thought proud, that my pride showed itself frequently in conversation, that I was not content with being in the right when discussing any point, but was overbearing and rather insolent of which he convinced me by mentioning several instances, I determined endeavoring to cure myself, if I could, of this vice of falling among the rest, and I added humility to my list, giving an extensive meaning to the word. I cannot boast of much success in acquiring the reality of this virtue, but I had a good deal with regard to the appearance of it. In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself; you will see it, perhaps, often in this history; for, even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility. Our club, the Junto, was, so useful, and afforded such satisfaction to the members, that several were desirous of introducing their friends, which could not well be done without exceeded what we had settled as a convenient number, viz., twelve. We had from the beginning made it a rule to keep our institution a secret, which was pretty well observed.
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