Mather's, called 'Essays to do Good,' which perhaps gave me a turn of
thinking that had an influence on some of the principal future events
of my life."

It is not surprising to find that the most versatile of versatile
Americans read De Foe's "Essay on Projects," which contains practical
suggestions on a score of subjects, from banking and insurance to
national academics. In Cotton Mather's "Essays to do Good" is the germ
perhaps of the sensible morality of Franklin's "Poor Richard." The
story of how Franklin pave his nights to the study of Addison and by
imitating the Spectator papers taught himself to write, is the
best of lessons in self-cultivation in English. The "Autobiography" is
proof of how well he learned, not Addison's style, which was suited to
Joseph Addison and not to Benjamin Franklin, but a clear, firm manner
of writing. In Franklin's case we can see not only what he owed to
books, but how one side of his fine, responsive mind was starved
because, as he put it, more proper books did not fall in his way. The
blind side of Franklin's great intellect was his lack of religious
imagination. This defect may be accounted for by the forbidding nature
of the religious books in his father's library. Repelled by the dull
discourses, the young man missed the religious exaltation and poetic
mysticism which the New England divines concealed in their polemic
argument. Franklin's liking for Bunyan and his confession that his
father's discouragement kept him from being a poet--"most probably," he
says, "a very bad one"--show that he would have responded to the right
kind of religious literature, and not have remained all his life such a
complacent rationalist.

If it is clear that the purpose of reading is to put ourselves in
communication with the best minds of our race, we need go no farther