In writing English prose, Franklin was fortunate in receiving instruction
from Bunyan and Addison. The pleasure of reading Franklin's _Autobiography_
is increased by his simple, easy, natural way of relating events.
Simplicity, practicality, suggestiveness, common sense, were his leading
attributes. His sense of humor kept him from being tiresome and made him
realize that the half may be greater than the whole. The two people most
useful to the age in which they lived were George Washington and Benjamin
Franklin.


JOHN WOOLMAN, 1720-1772

A GREAT ALTRUIST.--This Quaker supplements Franklin in teaching that the
great aim in life should be to grow more capable of seeing those spiritual
realities which were before invisible. Life's most beautiful realities can
never be seen with the physical eye. The _Journal_ of John Woolman will
help one to increase his range of vision for what is best worth seeing. It
will broaden the reader's sympathies and develop a keener sense of
responsibility for lessening the misery of the world and for protecting
even the sparrow from falling. It will cultivate precisely that side of
human nature which stands most in need of development. To emphasize these
points, Charles Lamb said, "Get the writings of John Woolman by heart," and
Whittier wrote of Woolman's _Journal_, which he edited and made easily
accessible, "I have been awed and solemnized by the presence of a serene
and beautiful spirit redeemed of the Lord from all selfishness, and I have
been made thankful for the ability to recognize and the disposition to love
him."

John Woolman was born of Quaker parentage in Northampton, New Jersey. He