9781422277591

trade in London. James had just returned to Boston with his own press and was in the process of setting up a printing shop. This was the start of Benjamin’s real education, though his father and brother could hardly have known so at the time. The boy’s hours of work were long and the conditions laid down for his nine-year apprenticeship were, by modern standards, severe. Benjamin was delighted to be involved in writing and publishing, and the little spare time he had was spent in reading, learning languages and, later, in writing. In 1721 James founded a newspaper called the New-England Courant . It was a daring venture, for the articles attacked well-known political and religious figures in the Boston area. Benjamin was impressed by this style of comment and wrote his own articles for the Courant , even though this was forbidden by the terms of his apprenticeship. He used the pen name “Silence Dogood” so that nobody would guess his real identity, and slipped the articles under the shop door at night. Young Inventor Benjamin Franklin displayed his ingenuity even when he was a teenager. Like many children brought up near the sea, he was fond of boats and swimming. He wanted to find a way to swim more quickly, and so he made paddles, in the shape of an artist’s palette, and attached them to his hands and feet. These certainly worked, but they made him tired very quickly. Franklin was unsatisfied with the performance of the paddles fixed to his feet, and much later in his life concluded that much of the thrust (he probably used a sort of “frog kick,” as a modern breaststroke swimmer would) came from the insides of the feet and the ankles—which is why the foot paddles were less effective than he had hoped.

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