Until twelve years of age Benjamin continued in his father's business, but as he manifested a great dislike for it, and his parents feared that he might one day run away to sea, they set about finding some trade which would be more congenial to his tastes. With this view his father took him to see various artificers at their work, that he might observe the tastes of the boy. This experience was very valuable to him, as it taught him to do many little jobs for himself when workmen could not readily be procured. During this time Benjamin spent most of his pocket-money in purchasing books, some of which he sold when he had read them, in order to buy others. He read through most of the books in his father's very limited library. These mainly consisted of works on theological controversy, which Franklin afterwards considered to have been not very profitable to him. "There was another bookish lad in the town, John Collins by name, with whom I was intimately acquainted. We sometimes disputed, and very fond we were of argument, and very desirous of confuting one another, which disputatious turn, by the way, is apt to become a very bad habit, making people often very disagreeable in company by the contradiction that is necessary to bring it into practice; and thence, besides souring and spoiling the conversation, is productive of disgusts and perhaps enmities when you may have occasion for friendship. I had caught it by reading my father's books of dispute about religion. Persons of good sense, I have since observed, seldom fall into it, except lawyers, university men, and men of all sorts that have been bred at Edinburgh." At length Franklin's fondness for books caused his father to decide to make him a printer. His brother James had already entered that business, and had set up in Boston with a new press and types which he had brought from England. He signed his indentures when only twelve years old, thereby apprenticing himself to his brother until he should attain the age of twenty-one. The acquaintance which he formed with booksellers through the printing business enabled him to borrow a better class of books than he had been accustomed to, and he frequently sat up the greater part of the night to read a book which he had to return in the morning.