which was imperative, and proved to be lasting.  His opportunities to get books were scanty; but he seized on all such opportunities, and fortunately he early came upon the “Pilgrim’s Progress,” the Spectator, Plutarch, Xenophon’s “Memorabilia,” and Locke “On the Human Understanding.”  Practice of English composition was the next agency in Franklin’s education; and his method—­quite of his own invention—­was certainly an admirable one.  He would make brief notes of the thoughts contained in a good piece of writing, and lay these notes aside for several days; then, without looking at the book, he would endeavor to express these thoughts in his own words as fully as they had been expressed in the original paper.  Lastly, he would compare his product with the original, thus discovering his shortcomings and errors.  To improve his vocabulary he turned specimens of prose into verse, and later, when he had forgotten the original, turned the verse back again into prose.  This exercise enlarged his vocabulary and his acquaintance with synonyms and their different shades of meaning, and showed him how he could twist phrases and sentences about.  His times for such exercises and for reading were at night after work, before work in the morning, and on Sundays.  This severe training he imposed on himself; and he was well advanced in it before he was sixteen years of age.  His memory and his imagination must both have served him well; for he not only acquired a style fit for narrative, exposition, or argument, but also learned to use the fable, parable, paraphrase, proverb, and dialogue.  The third element in his education was writing for publication; he began very early, while he was still a young boy, to put all he had learned to use in writing for the press.  When he was but nineteen years old he wrote and published in London “A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain.”  In after years he was not proud of this pamphlet; but it was, nevertheless, a remarkable production for a youth of nineteen.  So soon as he was able to establish a newspaper in Philadelphia he wrote for it with great spirit, and in a style at once accurate, concise, and attractive, making immediate application of his reading and of the conversation of intelligent acquaintances on both sides of the ocean.  His fourth principle of education was that it should continue through life, and should make use of the social instincts.  To that end he thought that friends and acquaintances might fitly band together in a systematic endeavor after mutual improvement.  The Junto was created as a school of philosophy, morality, and politics; and this purpose it actually served for many years.  Some of the questions read at every meeting of the Junto, with a pause after each one, would be curiously opportune in such a society at the present day.  For example, No. 5, “Have you lately heard how any present rich man, here or elsewhere, got his estate?” And No. 6, “Do you know of a fellow-citizen