“Poor Richard” was a real creation. The character made Franklin known in England and France before he lived in those countries. “It was quite common a hundred years ago,” writes a biographer, “to charge Franklin with being a plagiarist. It is true that the sayings of ‘Poor Richard,’ and a great deal that went to make up the almanac, were taken from Rabelais, Bacon, Rochefoucault, Roy Palmer, and others. But ‘Poor Richard’ changed and re-wrote them to suit his purpose, and gave most of them a far wider circulation than they had before.” “There is no little enemy”; “Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half-shut afterwards”; “Lend money to an enemy, and thou’lt gain him; to a friend and thou’lt lose him”; “Necessity never made a good bargain”; “A word to the wise is enough”; “God helps those that help themselves”; “The sleeping fox catches no poultry”; “Drive thy business, let that not drive thee”; “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise”; “Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other”--are some of Poor Richard’s proverbs that have passed into our everyday speech. PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR. VOL. 6. No. 7. SERIAL No. 155 COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC. [Illustration: ENGRAVED BY WILLIAM O. GELLER, OF LONDON. FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY BARON JOLLY, OF BRUXELLES FRANKLIN AT THE COURT OF FRANCE, 1778--SEATED FIGURES ARE LOUIS XVI AND MARIE ANTOINETTE] _BENJAMIN FRANKLIN_ _As Printer_ SIX “Benjamin Franklin, printer,” was Franklin’s favorite way of describing himself. He was, indeed, a printer all his life. When only twelve, he became apprentice to his half-brother, James, but quarreled with him and ran away, finally reaching Philadelphia. Here he obtained employment and the patronage of Sir William Keith, Governor of Pennsylvania and Delaware, who gave him the public printing to do. Persuaded to try his fortune in London with Keith’s patronage, Franklin set sail with high hopes; but, on arriving, he found that Keith had played him false, and that no letter of credit, as promised, awaited him. After a year and a half of struggle and adventure, he was back in Philadelphia working at his trade. Franklin was now twenty-one. In a short time he started in business with a partner, and the firm of Franklin & Meredith limped along slowly but surely until Franklin became possessed of the leading newspaper in Philadelphia, to which he gave a new title, the _Pennsylvania Gazette_.