I can remember being told sometime shortly after my receipt of my diploma for the grade of Juris Doctor (Doctor of Laws), that doctors were originally mostly lawyers! Well, we’re not to be confused with doctors of medicine. But the original doctor degrees were first issued to lawyers, doctors, and, of all things, religious leaders.

Nevertheless, Benjamin Franklin was often referred to as Doctor Franklin. I didn’t wonder about that too much until I started studying Dr. Franklin’s life. I learned that Benjamin Franklin received an honorary master’s degree from the College of William and Mary in 1756. He also received honorary DOCTOR degrees from across the Atlantic, the University of St. Andrews in 1759, the University of Oxford in 1762. And he also received doctorates from America’s oldest universities, Yale and Harvard. And then again from the College of William and Mary.

He began referring to himself as Doctor Franklin, and others did as well. Even though the doctor had only two years of formal schooling, he really made something of himself. He left school at the early age of nine to at first work for his father in a candle making shop. Then he moved on as an indentured apprentice to his brother James, a printer. He made himself invaluable, but left under not so good situations with his brother, and moved at a very young age to Philadelphia, where he made his home.

So the uneducated youngster, became, by his own efforts, well educated, and was named a doctor.