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Benjamin Franklin - His Life And Work

        When one takes a look at the world in which he currently
lives, he sees it as being normal since it is so slow in changing.  
When an historian looks at the present, he sees the effects of many
events and many wise people.   Benjamin Franklin is one of these
people.   His participation in so many different fields changed the
world immensely.   He was a noted politician as well as respected
scholar.   He was an important inventor and scientist.   Particularly
interesting is the impact on the scientific world.
        Benjamin Franklin was a modest man who had had many jobs in
his lifetime.   This may help explain his large array of inventions and
new methods of working various jobs.   He did everything from making
cabbage-growing more efficient to making political decisions to being
the first person to study and chart the Gulf Stream movement in the
Atlantic Ocean.
        Franklin was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 17,
1706.   He was the fifteenth child in a family of seventeen kids.   His
parents, Josiah and Abiah Franklin, were hard working devout
Puritan/Calvinist people.   Josiah Franklin made candles for a living.
Since the Franklins were so poor, little Benjamin couldn't afford to
go to school for longer than two years.   In those two years, however,
Franklin learned to read which opened the door to further education
for him.   Since he was only a fair writer and had very poor
mathematical skills, he worked to tutor himself at home.
        Benjamin Franklin was a determined young man.   As a boy, he
taught himself to be a very good writer.   He also learned basic
algebra and geometry, navigation, grammar, logic, and natural and
physical science.   He partially mastered French, German, Italian,
Spanish, and Latin.   He was soon to be named the best educated man in
the country.   When he was 12-years-old, he was apprentice to his
brother in printing.   Benjamin's brother founded the second newspaper
in...