Benjamin Franklin

The master of the paper, the editorial declared, would be the Roman god Janus, who could look two ways at once.41

“Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”

Ever since, as a young boy, he had invented some paddles and flippers to propel himself across Boston harbor, Franklin had been fascinated by swimming.

“I took care not only to be in reality industrious and frugal,” he later wrote, “but to avoid all appearances of the contrary” (his emphasis).

“The present little sacrifice of your vanity will afterwards be amply repaid.”

“Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead.”

It told of Abraham giving food and shelter to a 198-year-old man, then throwing him out when he said he did not believe in Abraham’s God. The parable concluded: And at midnight God called upon Abraham, saying, Abraham where is the stranger? And Abraham answered and said, Lord, he would not worship thee; neither would he call upon thy name. Therefor

There was no tuition at the Latin School, and as the top of his class he would easily have won a scholarship to Harvard. Of the forty-three students who entered the college when Franklin would have, only seven were from wealthy families; ten were sons of tradesmen, and four were orphans. The university at that time spent approximately 11 percent of

“in which I made the greater progress from that greater clearness of head and quicker apprehension which usually attend temperance in eating and drinking.”