Originally published 1757. Republished with new preface and arrangement, 1900 by Caldwell. Just for fun, here's Mark Twain's satirical criticism of Franklin: [Benjamin Franklin]'s maxims were full of animosity toward boys [whose fathers had read Franklin’s pernicious autobiography]. Nowadays a boy cannot follow out a single natural instinct without tumbling over some of those everlasting aphorisms and hearing from Franklin, on the spot. If he buys two cents’ worth of peanuts, his father says, “Remember what Franklin has said, my son—‘A groat a day’s a penny a year,’” and the comfort is all gone out of those peanuts. If he wants to spin his top when he has done work, his father quotes, “Procrastination is the thief of time.” If he does a virtuous action, he never gets anything for it, because “Virtue is its own reward.” And that boy is hounded to death and robbed of his natural rest, because Franklin said once, in one of his inspired flights of malignity: Early to bed and early to rise Makes a man healthy and wealthy and wise. As if it were any object to a boy to be healthy and wealthy and wise on such terms.