there were no luxuries. Benjamin's period of formal schooling was
less than two years, though he could never remember the time when
he could not read, and at the age of ten he was put to work in
his father's shop.

Benjamin was restless and unhappy in the shop. He appeared to
have no aptitude at all for the business of soap making. His
parents debated whether they might not educate him for the
ministry, and his father took him into various shops in Boston,
where he might see artisans at work, in the hope that he would be
attracted to some trade. But Benjamin saw nothing there that he
wished to engage in. He was inclined to follow the sea, as one of
his older brothers had done.

His fondness for books finally determined his career. His older
brother James was a printer, and in those days a printer was a
literary man as well as a mechanic. The editor of a newspaper was
always a printer and often composed his articles as he set them
in type; so "composing" came to mean typesetting, and one who
sets type is a compositor. Now James needed an apprentice. It
happened then that young Benjamin, at the age of thirteen, was
bound over by law to serve his brother.

James Franklin printed the "New England Courant", the fourth
newspaper to be established in the colonies. Benjamin soon began
to write articles for this newspaper. Then when his brother was
put in jail, because he had printed matter considered libelous,
and forbidden to continue as the publisher, the newspaper
appeared in Benjamin's name.