I went to work when I was about ten years old!  My first job was with my father, making soap and candles.

What I really wanted to do was become a sailor, but my father did not like that idea.  

 When I was 12, I was apprenticed to my brother James to learn the printing trade.  I worked six days a week, with Sundays off.

A very smart little girl once asked me, "If you only went to school for two years, does that mean you never learned your multiplication tables?"

Strangely enough, I learned advanced math, foreign languages, and everything else I needed to know by reading and studying in my spare time without the benefit of school!

Here is an interesting excerpt from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin:

"From my infancy I was passionately fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was laid out in the purchasing of books.  I was very fond of voyages.  My first acquisition was Bunyan's works in separate little volumes.  I afterward sold them to enable me to buy R. Burton's Historical Collections."

I also said, "An acquaintance with the apprentices of book-sellers enabled me sometimes to borrow a small one, which I was careful to return soon and clean.  Often I sat up in my chamber the greatest part of the night, when the book was borrowed in the evening to be returned in the morning, lest it should be found missing."

To me reading and learning were truly magical. These were my favorite hobbies and the keys to my success.

You