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 afterwards 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 sope-boiler.
This is the brief but expressive story of Franklin's own education, and how Harvard came to lose another matriculant and an alumnus whose name would have adorned its long roll. However, in 1753, it conferred on him the honor of Magister Artium, as had Yale in the same year,[1] and William and Mary in 1756. To these degrees higher collegiate honors were bestowed on the man who though not a collegian was the creator of a university, as St. Andrews in 1759 made him Juris Utriusque Doctor, and Oxford in 1762 enrolled him as Juris Civilis Doctor.[2] And yet the child of his own creation never enrolled his name as the possessor of one of its Degrees.
For two years he continued thus employed in his father's
- ↑ "The College of Cambridge of their own motion, presented me with the degree of Master of Arts. Yale College in Connecticut, had before made me a similar compliment. Thus without studying in any college, I came to partake of their honours. They were conferred in consideration of my improvements and discoveries in the electric branch of natural philosophy."—Bigelow, i, 242.
"Whereas Benjamin Franklin Esquire, by his ingenious Experiments and Theory of Electrical Fire has greatly merited of the Learned World: it is therefore considered that the said Benjamin Franklin shall receive the Honour of a Degree of Master of Arts," at Yale College Commencement, 12 September 1753. v. Dexter's Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College with Annals of the College History, p. 304.
- ↑ "Oxford at the same time conferred M. A. on his son William.—Sparks, i, 250, 267. In the same month that his St. Andrews degree was conferred, the City of Edinburgh presented him with the freedom of the city in the following record: "Benjamin Franklin of Philadelphia is hereby admitted a burgess and guild-brother of this city, as a mark of the affectionate respect which the Magistrates and Council have for a gentleman, whose amiable character, greatly distinguished for usefulness to the society which he belongs to, and love to all mankind, had long ago reached them across the Atlantic Ocean." i, 251.
