英文人物传记：a brief bibliography of Benjamin Franklin
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BENJAMIN FRANKLIN: Live Wire, written by
Janet & Geoff Benge. Benjamin Franklin
was a printer, writer, inventor and
scientist who made great contribution to the study
of
electric. He was also one of the
most important politicians who laid the foundation
of
America.
Benjamin
Franklin was born in 1706 in Boston. His family
made a living by making soap
and
candles. When Ben was little his father decided
that Ben should become a clergyman. He
was sent to Boston Grammar School to
learn Latin as the first part of his clergyman
training
when he was eight. Ben proved
to be a good student with a quick mind. At that
time he found
a great love of reading.
Later Ben
‟
s father and uncle
found that Ben did not like praying so
much, so they changed the idea of
training him to be a clergyman. Ben was then
enrolled in
George
Brownwell
‟
School to learn
Writing and Arithmetic. Only one year later, Ben
was
withdrew out of school again. By
then he had spent only two years in school. His
parents
thought it was time for him to
start working in the family soap-and candle-making
business.
Ben hated making soap and
candles, because he couldn
‟
t
get rid of the smell on his skin.
Finally, after considering many other
occupations, Ben became an apprentice in his
brother
James
‟
print shop. He learned the business quickly and
proved to be a good printer. He still
carried a great love of books and he
used to save his money for meals to buy books. One
custom of the print shop Matthew Adams,
who owned the biggest private library in Boston,
offered Ben a chance to borrow books to
read. That was a great pleasure to Ben, and he
often
read the book at night and sent
it back in the morning. In 1721 James started
publishing his
own newspaper, the New
England Courant. There were always scathing
articles about the
colonial government
published and James got himself thrown into jail
sometimes. Ben
‟
s
relationship with James
didn
‟
t go on smoothly, they
had a massive problem on who should
own
the newspaper which finally lead Ben to think
about working in another place. So he left
without saying in September 1723.
His trip leaving for another place
wasn
‟
t safe and sound, he
headed for New York, but after
finding
no jobs in New York, he was recommended to
Philadelphia. In the end he settled to
work with a print shop belonged to
Samuel Keimer. He boarded in Mr. and Mrs.
Read
‟
s
house,
where he fell in love with their daughter, Debby
Read. One day governor Keith, who
was
an acquaintance to Ben
‟
s
brother-in-law Captain Robert Homes, came to see
Ben,
suggested that Ben should start
his own print shop and guaranteed him all the
government
printing jobs for
Pennsylvania and Delaware. Ben
can
‟
t help being excited
about the idea. In
1724, Ben boarded a
ship to England where he was supposed to get all
the equipment he
needed with
Keith
‟
s letter of credit and
introduction, he was filled with hope when the
ship
arrived but he found that Keith
had failed to give him all the letters he needed.
He had no
choice but to live on his own
in London. By the time he saved enough money for a
trip back,
it was two years later. He
learned a lot about life during this accidental
trip. When he was
finally back in
Philadelphia, many things had changed. Debby, to
whom he was engaged, had
married a man
with a bad reputation. Ben started his own print
shop with the help of Hugh
Meredith in
1728. He did all the lowly jobs himself due to a
tight circulation of money. He
began
publishing his own newspaper
Pennsylvania Gazette
to
rival the
American Mercury
.
Debby
‟
s husband
left her perhaps for another wife, and in 1730,
Debby and Ben started a
family. With
his print shop prospecting, there seemed to be a
bright future ahead of him.
Pennsylvania Gazette became a very
popular newspaper and Ben started selling almanac
Poor Richard
’
s
Almanack
written by himself. Slowly his
family started to get rich. The next
thing he thought about was to find a
way to improve Philadelphia. He had already
established
a circulating library which
lent books to the general public, and it had been
a benefit to the
society, and then he
was thinking about paving the streets of
Philadelphia. He wrote about the
suggestions on his newspaper and paved
one street as an example. Soon people found the
advantages of paved streets and a bill
was drafted to have the streets in the entire city
paved,
as well as lightened. After
losing his second son Francis, he fell in great
sorrow, and he threw
himself into
making Philadelphia better. He made a plan with
the Philadelphia assembly to
establish
fire companies and police force. It turned out
that his idea worked well. He kept on
being useful. He invented a new stove
that used less wood than before and it was more