CHAPTER III

Franklin, the Philanthropist and Citizen

It may be that, if Franklin had asked the angel, who made the room of Abou

Ben Adhem rich, and like a lily in bloom, whether his name was among the

names of those who loved the Lord, the angel might have replied: "Nay not

so"; but there can be no question that like Ben Adhem Franklin could with

good right have added,

"I pray thee then,

Write me as one that loves his fellow-men."

As we have said, the desire to promote the welfare of his fellow-creatures

was the real religion of his life--a zealous, constant religion which began

with his early manhood and ceased only with his end. This fact reveals

itself characteristically in a letter written by him to his wife just after

he had narrowly escaped shipwreck off Falmouth Harbor on his second voyage

to England. "Were I a Roman Catholic," he said, "perhaps I should on this

occasion vow to build a chapel to some saint; but as I am not, if I were to

vow at all, it should be to build a _light house_."

The weaker side of human character was, in all its aspects, manifest enough

to his humorous perceptions. In an amusing paragraph in the

_Autobiography_, he tells us how once in his youth he irresolutely adhered

to his vegetarian scruples, even when his nose was filled with the sweet

savor of frying fish, until he recollected that he had seen some smaller

fish removed from their stomachs. Then thought he, "If you eat one another,

I don't see why we mayn't eat you." "So convenient a thing," he adds, "it

is to be a _reasonable creature_, since it enables one to find or make a

reason for everything one has a mind to do." On another occasion, he was so

disgusted with the workings of human reason as to regret that we had not

been furnished with a sound, sensible instinct instead. At intervals, the

sly humor dies away into something like real, heartfelt censure of his

kind, especially when he reflects upon the baleful state of eclipse into

which human happiness passes when overcast by war. Among other reasons, he

hated war, because he deprecated everything that tended to check the

multiplication of the human species which he was almost ludicrously eager

to encourage. No writer, not even Malthus, who was very deeply indebted to

him, has ever had a keener insight into the philosophy of population, and

no man has ever been a more enthusiastic advocate of the social

arrangements which furnish the results for the application of this

philosophy. In one of her letters to him, we find his daughter, Sally,

saying: "As I know my dear Papa likes to hear of weddings, I will give him

a list of my acquaintance that has entered the matrimonial state since his

departure." And in one of his letters to his wife, when he was in England

on his first mission, he wrote: "The Accounts you give me of the Marriages

of our friends are very agreeable. I love to hear of everything that tends

to increase the Number of good People."[9] The one thing in French customs

that appears to have met with his disapproval was the inclination of French

mothers to escape the burdens of maternity. In a letter to George Whatley,

he ventured the conjecture that in the year 1785 only one out of every two

infants born in Paris was being nursed by its own mother.

Is it right [he asked] to encourage this monstrous

Deficiency of natural Affection? A Surgeon I met with

here excused the Women of Paris, by saying, seriously,

that they _could not_ give suck; "_Car," dit il, "Elles

n'ont point de tetons._" ("For," said he, "They have no

teats.") He assur'd me it was a Fact, and bade me look

at them, and observe how flat they were on the Breast;

"they have nothing more there," said he, "than I have

upon the Back of my hand." I have since thought that

there might be some Truth in his Observation, and that,

possibly, Nature, finding they made no use of Bubbies,

has left off giving them any. I wish Success to the new

Project of assisting the Poor to keep their Children at

home [Franklin adds later in this letter] because I

think there is no Nurse like a Mother (or not many),

and that, if Parents did not immediately send their

Infants out of their Sight, they would in a few days

begin to love them, and thence be spurr'd to greater

Industry for their Maintenance.

Among his most delightful observations are these on marriage in a letter to

John Sargent:

The Account you give me of your Family is pleasing,

except that your eldest Son continues so long

unmarried. I hope he does not intend to live and die in

Celibacy. The Wheel of Life, that has roll'd down to

him from Adam without Interruption, should not stop

with him. I would not have one dead unbearing Branch in

the Genealogical Tree of the Sargents. The married

State is, after all our Jokes, the happiest, being

conformable to our natures. Man & Woman have each of

them Qualities & Tempers, in which the other is

deficient, and which in Union contribute to the common

Felicity. Single and separate, they are not the

compleat human Being; they are like the odd Halves of

Scissors; they cannot answer the End of their

Formation.

Equally delightful are his observations upon the same subject in a letter

to John Alleyne after Alleyne's marriage:

Had you consulted me, as a Friend, on the Occasion,

Youth on both sides I should not have thought any

Objection. Indeed, from the matches that have fallen

under my Observation, I am rather inclin'd to think,

that early ones stand the best Chance for Happiness.

The Tempers and habits of young People are not yet

become so stiff and uncomplying, as when more advanced

in Life; they form more easily to each other, and hence

many Occasions of Disgust are removed. And if Youth has

less of that Prudence, that is necessary to conduct a

Family, yet the Parents and elder Friends of young

married Persons are generally at hand to afford their

Advice, which amply supplies that Defect; and, by early

Marriage, Youth is sooner form'd to regular and useful

Life; and possibly some of those Accidents, Habits or

Connections, that might have injured either the

Constitution, or the Reputation, or both, are thereby

happily prevented.

Particular Circumstances of particular Persons may

possibly sometimes make it prudent to delay entering

into that State; but in general, when Nature has

render'd our Bodies fit for it, the Presumption is in

Nature's Favour, that she has not judg'd amiss in

making us desire it. Late Marriages are often attended,

too, with this further Inconvenience, that there is not

the same Chance the parents shall live to see their

offspring educated. "_Late Children_," says the Spanish

Proverb, "_are early Orphans._" A melancholy Reflection

to those, whose Case it may be! With us in America,

Marriages are generally in the Morning of Life; our

Children are therefore educated and settled in the

World by Noon, and thus, our Business being done, we

have an Afternoon and Evening of chearful Leisure to

ourselves; such as your Friend at present enjoys. By

these early Marriages we are blest with more Children;

and from the Mode among us, founded in Nature, of every

Mother suckling and nursing her own Child, more of them

are raised. Thence the swift Progress of Population

among us, unparallel'd in Europe.

Then, after speaking of the fate of many in England who, having deferred

marriage too long, find at length that it is too late to think of it, and

so live all their lives in a situation that greatly lessens a man's value,

he comes back to what seems to have been a favorite course of illustration

of his in relation to marriage. "An odd Volume of a Set of Books you know

is not worth its proportion of the Set, and what think you of the

Usefulness of an odd Half of a Pair of Scissors? It can not well cut

anything. It may possibly serve to scrape a Trencher." With these views

about marriage, it is not surprising to find Franklin employing in a letter

to Joseph Priestley such language about war as this:

Men I find to be a Sort of Beings very badly

constructed, as they are generally more easily provok'd

than reconcil'd, more disposed to do Mischief to each

other than to make Reparation, much more easily

deceiv'd than undeceiv'd, and having more Pride and

even Pleasure in killing than in begetting one another;

for without a Blush they assemble in great armies at

Noon-Day to destroy, and when they have kill'd as many

as they can, they exaggerate the Number to augment the

fancied Glory; but they creep into Corners, or cover

themselves with the Darkness of night, when they mean

to beget, as being asham'd of a virtuous Action. A

virtuous Action it would be, and a vicious one the

killing of them, if the Species were really worth

producing or preserving; but of this I begin to doubt.

In the same letter, he suggests to the celebrated clergyman and philosopher

to whom he was writing that perhaps as the latter grew older he might look

upon the saving of souls as a hopeless project or an idle amusement, repent

of having murdered in mephitic air so many honest, harmless mice, and wish

that to prevent mischief he had used boys and girls instead of them.[10]

Nor are these by any means the only sentences in Franklin's writings in

which he expressed his disgust for the human passions which breed war. A

frequently repeated saying of his was that there hardly ever existed such a

thing as a bad peace or a good war. "All Wars," he declared to Mrs. Mary

Hewson, after the establishment of peace between Great Britain and her

revolted colonies, "are Follies, very expensive, and very mischievous ones.

When will Mankind be convinced of this, and agree to settle their

Differences by Arbitration? Were they to do it, even by the Cast of a Dye,

it would be better than by Fighting and destroying each other."

I join with you most cordially [he wrote six months

later to Sir Joseph Banks] in rejoicing at the return

of Peace. I hope it will be lasting, and that Mankind

will at length, as they call themselves reasonable

Creatures, have Reason and Sense enough to settle their

Differences without cutting Throats; for, in my

opinion, _there never was a good War, or a bad Peace_.

What vast additions to the Conveniences and Comforts

of Living might Mankind have acquired, if the Money

spent in Wars had been employed in Works of public

utility! What an extension of Agriculture, even to the

Tops of our Mountains: what Rivers rendered navigable,

or joined by Canals: what Bridges, Aqueducts, new

Roads, and other public Works, Edifices, and

Improvements, rendering England a compleat Paradise,

might have been obtained by spending those Millions in

doing good, which in the last War have been spent in

doing Mischief; in bringing Misery into thousands of

Families, and destroying the Lives of so many thousands

of working people, who might have performed the useful

labor!

The same sentiments are repeated in a letter to David Hartley:

What would you think of a proposition, if I sh'd make

it, of a family compact between England, France and

America? America wd be as happy as the Sabine Girls, if

she cd be the means of uniting in perpetual peace her

father and her husband. What repeated follies are these

repeated wars! You do not want to conquer & govern one

another. Why then sh'd you continually be employed in

injuring & destroying one another? How many excellent

things might have been done to promote the internal

welfare of each country; What Bridges, roads, canals

and other usefull public works & institutions, tending

to the common felicity, might have been made and

established with the money and men foolishly spent

during the last seven centuries by our mad wars in

doing one another mischief! You are near neighbors, and

each have very respectable qualities. Learn to be quiet

and to respect each other's rights. You are all

Christians. One is _The Most Christian King_, and the

other _Defender of the Faith_. Manifest the propriety

of these titles by your future conduct. "By this," says

Christ, "shall all men know that ye are my Disciples,

if ye love one another." "Seek peace, and ensue it."

We make daily great Improvements in _Natural_, there is

one I wish to see in _Moral_ Philosophy [he wrote to

Richard Price] the Discovery of a Plan, that would

induce & oblige Nations to settle their Disputes

without first Cutting one another's Throats. When will

human Reason be sufficiently improv'd to see the

Advantage of this!

The aspiration is again voiced in a letter to Joseph Priestley:

The rapid Progress _true_ Science now makes, occasions

my regretting sometimes that I was born so soon. It is

impossible to imagine the Height to which may be

carried, in a thousand years, the Power of Man over

Matter. We may perhaps learn to deprive large Masses of

their Gravity, and give them absolute Levity, for the

sake of easy Transport. Agriculture may diminish its

Labour and double its Produce; all Diseases may by sure

means be prevented or cured, not excepting even that of

Old Age, and our Lives lengthened at pleasure even

beyond the antediluvian Standard. O that moral Science

were in as fair a way of Improvement, that Men would

cease to be Wolves to one another, and that human

Beings would at length learn what they now improperly

call Humanity!

Mixed with Franklin's other feelings about war, as we have seen, was a

profound sense of its pecuniary wastefulness. It was the greediest of all

rat-holes, an agency of impoverishment worse even than the four specified

in Poor Richard's couplet,

"Women and Wine, Game and Deceit,

Make the Wealth small and the Wants great."

When [he asked Benjamin Vaughan] will princes learn

arithmetic enough to calculate, if they want pieces of

one another's territory, how much cheaper it would be

to buy them, than to make war for them, even though

they were to give a hundred year's purchase? But, if

glory cannot be valued, and therefore the wars for it

cannot be subject to arithmetical calculation so as to

show their advantage or disadvantage, at least wars for

trade, which have gain for their object, may be proper

subjects for such computation; and a trading nation, as

well as a single trader, ought to calculate the

probabilities of profit and loss, before engaging in

any considerable adventure. This however nations

seldom do, and we have had frequent instances of their

spending more money in wars for acquiring or securing

branches of commerce, than a hundred years' profit or

the full enjoyment of them can compensate.

A celebrated philosophical writer, Franklin said in the _Propositions

Relative to Privateering_, which he communicated to Richard Oswald, had

remarked that, when he considered the destruction to human life, caused by

the slave trade, so intimately connected with the industry of the sugar

islands, he could scarce look on a morsel of sugar without conceiving it

spotted with human blood. If this writer, Franklin added, had considered

also the blood of one another which the white nations had shed in fighting

for these islands, "he would have imagined his sugar not as spotted only,

but as thoroughly dyed red." As for Franklin himself, he was satisfied that

the subjects of the Emperor of Germany and the Empress of Russia, who had

no sugar islands, consumed sugar cheaper at Vienna and Moscow, with all the

charge of transporting it after its arrival in Europe, than the citizens of

London or of Paris. "And I sincerely believe," he declared, "that if France

and England were to decide, by throwing dice, which should have the whole

of their sugar islands, the loser in the throw would be the gainer." The

future expense of defending the islands would be saved, the sugar would be

bought cheaper by all Europe, if the inhabitants of the islands might make

it without interruption, and, whoever imported it, the same revenue might

be raised by duties on it at the custom houses of the nation that consumed

it. "You know," Franklin observed in his famous letter to his daughter

Sally on the Order of the Cincinnati, "everything makes me recollect some

Story." As respects war, the inevitable story turned up in one of his

letters to Priestley:

In what Light [he said] we are viewed by superior

Beings, may be gathered from a Piece of late West India

News, which possibly has not yet reached you. A young

Angel of Distinction being sent down to this world on

some Business, for the first time, had an old

courier-spirit assigned him as a Guide. They arriv'd

over the Seas of Martinico, in the middle of the long

Day of obstinate Fight between the Fleets of Rodney and

De Grasse. When, thro' the Clouds of smoke, he saw the

Fire of the Guns, the Decks covered with mangled Limbs,

and Bodies dead or dying; the ships sinking, burning,

or blown into the Air; and the Quantity of Pain,

Misery, and Destruction, the Crews yet alive were thus

with so much Eagerness dealing round to one another; he

turn'd angrily to his Guide, and said: "You blundering

Blockhead, you are ignorant of your Business; you

undertook to conduct me to the Earth, and you have

brought me into Hell!" "No, sir," says the Guide, "I

have made no mistake; this is really the Earth, and

these are men. Devils never treat one another in this

cruel manner; they have more Sense, and more of what

Men (vainly) call _Humanity_."

But how little acrid misanthropy there was in this lurid story or in any of

the indignant utterances occasionally wrung from Franklin by the sanguinary

tendencies of the human race is clearly seen in this very letter; for,

after working up his story to its opprobrious climax, he falls back to the

genial level of his ordinary disposition:

But to be serious, my dear old Friend [he adds], I love

you as much as ever, and I love all the honest Souls

that meet at the London Coffee-House. I only wonder how

it happen'd that they and my other Friends in England

came to be such good Creatures in the midst of so

perverse a Generation. I long to see them and you once

more, and I labour for Peace with more Earnestness,

that I may again be happy in your sweet society.

The truth is that Franklin was no Timon of Athens, and no such thing as

lasting misanthropy could find lodgment in that earth-born and

earth-loving nature which fitted into the world as smoothly as its own

grass, its running water, or its fruitful plains. If for many generations

there has been any man, whose pronouncement, _Homo sum; humani nihil a me

alienum puto_, was capable of clothing that trite phrase with its original

freshness, this man was Franklin. The day, when the word went out in the

humble Milk Street dwelling of his father that another man child was born,

was a day that he never regretted; the long years of rational and useful

existence which followed he was willing, as has been told, to live all over

again, if he could only enjoy the author's privilege of correcting in the

second edition the _errata_ of the first; in his declining years he could

still find satisfaction in the fact that he was afflicted with only three

mortal diseases; and during his last twelve months, when he was confined

for the most part to his bed, and, in his paroxysms of pain, was obliged to

take large doses of laudanum to mitigate his tortures, his fortitude was

such as to elicit this striking tribute from his physician, Dr. John Jones:

In the intervals of pain, he not only amused himself

with reading and conversing cheerfully with his family,

and a few friends who visited him, but was often

employed in doing business of a public as well as

private nature, with various persons who waited on him

for that purpose; and, in every instance displayed, not

only that readiness and disposition of doing good,

which was the distinguishing characteristic of his

life, but the fullest and clearest possession of his

uncommon mental abilities; and not unfrequently

indulged himself in those _jeux d'esprit_ and

entertaining anecdotes, which were the delight of all

who heard him.

To the very last his wholesome, sunny spirit was proof against every morbid

trial. Dr. Jones tells us further that, even during his closing days, when

the severity of his pain drew forth a groan of complaint, he would observe

that he was afraid that he did not bear his sufferings as he ought,

acknowledged his grateful sense of the many blessings he had received from

that Supreme Being who had raised him from small and low beginnings to such

high rank and consideration among men, and made no doubt but his present

afflictions were kindly intended to wean him from a world, in which he was

no longer fit to act the part assigned to him.

It is plain enough that in practice as well as in precept to Franklin life

was ever a welcome gift to be enjoyed so long as corporeal infirmities

permit it to be enjoyed, and to be surrendered, when the ends of its

institution can no longer be fulfilled, as naturally as we surrender

consciousness when we turn into our warmer beds and give ourselves over to

our shorter slumbers. The spirit in which he lived is reflected in the

concluding paragraph of his _Articles of Belief_ in which, with the

refrain, "Good God, I thank thee!" at the end of every paragraph except the

last, and, with the words, "My Good God, I thank thee!" at the end of the

last, he expresses his gratitude to this God for peace and liberty, for

food and raiment, for corn and wine and milk and every kind of healthful

nourishment, for the common benefits of air and light, for useful fire and

delicious water, for knowledge and literature and every useful art, for his

friends and _their_ prosperity, and for the fewness of his enemies, for all

the innumerable benefits conferred on him by the Deity, for life and reason

and the use of speech, for health and joy and every pleasant hour. Those

thanks for his friends and _their_ prosperity was Franklin indeed at his

best. On the other hand, the spirit in which he regarded and met the hour

of his dissolution is vividly reflected in the lines written by him in his

seventy-ninth year:

"If Life's compared to a Feast,

Near Four-score Years I've been a Guest;

I've been regaled with the best,

And feel quite satisfyd.

'Tis time that I retire to Rest;

Landlord, I thank ye!--Friends, Good Night."

These lines, unsteady upon their poetic feet as they are like all of

Franklin's lines, may perhaps be pronounced the best that he ever wrote,

but they are not so good as his celebrated epitaph written many years

before when the hour at the inn of existence was not so late:

"The Body

of

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

Printer,

(Like the cover of an old book,

Its contents torn out,

And stript of its lettering and gilding,)

Lies here, food for worms.

Yet the work itself shall not be lost,

For it will, as he believed, appear once more,

In a new

And more beautiful edition,

Corrected and amended

By

The Author."

So far as we can see, the only quarrel that Franklin had with existence was

that he was born too soon to witness many important human achievements,

which the future had in store. He was prepared to quit the world quietly

when he was duly summoned to do so. The artist who was to paint his

portrait for Yale College, he said a few days before his death to Ezra

Stiles, must not delay about it, as his subject might slip through his

fingers; but it was impossible for such an inquisitive man to repress the

wish that, after his decease, he might be permitted to revisit the globe

for the purpose of enjoying the inventions and improvements which had come

into existence during his absence: the locomotive, the steamship, the Morse

and Marconi telegraphs, the telephone, the autocar, the aeroplane, the

abolition of American slavery, Twentieth Century London, Paris and New

York.

I have been long impressed [he said in his eighty-third

year to the Rev. John Lathrop] with the same sentiments

you so well express, of the growing felicity of

mankind, from the improvements in philosophy, morals,

politics, and even the conveniences of common living,

by the invention and acquisition of new and useful

utensils and instruments, that I have sometimes almost

wished it had been my destiny to be born two or three

centuries hence. For invention and improvement are

prolific, and beget more of their kind. The present

progress is rapid. Many of great importance, now

unthought of, will before that period be produced; and

then I might not only enjoy their advantages, but have

my curiosity gratified in knowing what they are to be.

I see a little absurdity in what I have just written,

but it is to a friend, who will wink and let it pass,

while I mention one reason more for such a wish, which

is, that, if the art of physic shall be improved in

proportion with other arts, we may then be able to

avoid diseases, and live as long as the patriarchs in

Genesis; to which I suppose we should make little

objection.

Such complete adjustment to all the conditions of human existence, even the

harshest, as Franklin exhibited, would, under any circumstances, be an

admirable and inspiring thing; but it becomes still more so when we

recollect that he prized life mainly for the opportunity that it afforded

him to do good. To his own country he rendered services of priceless

importance, but it would be utterly misleading to think of him as anything

less--to use a much abused term of his time--than a Friend of Man.

"Il est ...

Surtout pour sa philanthropie,

L'honneur de l'Amerique, et de l'humanite."

That was what one of his French eulogists sang, and that is what his

contemporaries generally felt, about him, and said of him with a thousand

and one different variations. It was the general belief of his age that his

enlightened intelligence and breadth of charity placed him upon a plateau

from which his vision ranged over the wants, the struggles and the

aberrations of his fellow beings everywhere, altogether unrefracted by

self-interest or national prejudices. He might have scores to settle with

Princes, Ministers, Parliaments or Priests, but for the race he had nothing

but light and love and compassion. To the poor he was the strong, shrewd,

wise man who had broken through the hard incrustations of his own poverty,

and preached sound counsels of prudence and thrift as general in their

application as the existence of human indigence and folly. To the liberal

aspirations of his century, he represented, to use his own figure, the

light which all the window-shutters of despotism and priest-craft were

powerless to shut out longer. To men of all kinds his benevolent interest

in so many different forms in the welfare and progress of human society,

his efforts to assuage the ferocity of war, the very rod, with which he

disarmed the fury of the storm-cloud, seemed to mark him as a benignant

being, widely removed by his sagacity and goodness from the short-sighted

and selfish princes and statesmen of his day whose thoughts and aims

appeared to be wholly centred upon intrigue and blood.

It was in perfect sincerity that Edmund Burke appealed to Franklin not only

as a friend but as the "lover of his species" to assist him in protecting

the parole of General Burgoyne. How well he knew the man may be inferred

from his declaration, when it was suggested that selfish considerations of

personal safety had brought Franklin to France. "I never can believe," he

said, "that he is come thither as a fugitive from his cause in the hour of

its distress, or that he is going to conclude a long life, which has

brightened every hour it has continued, with so foul and dishonorable

flight."

If Franklin is not mistaken, his career as a lover of his species can be

traced back to a very early circumstance. In one of his letters, in his old

age, to Samuel Mather, the descendant of Increase and Cotton Mather, he

states that a mutilated copy of Cotton Mather's _Essays to do Good_, which

fell in his way when he was a boy, had influenced his conduct through life,

and that, if he had been a useful citizen, the public was indebted for the

fact to this book. "I have always set a greater value on the character of a

_doer of good_, than on any other kind of reputation," he remarks in the

letter. "The noblest question in the world," said Poor Richard, "is what

good may I do in it." But, no matter how or when the chance seed was sown,

it fell upon ground eager to receive it. It was an observation of Franklin

that the quantity of good that may be done by one man, if he will make a

business of doing good, is prodigious. The saying in its various forms

presupposed the sacrifice of all studies, amusements and avocations. No

such self-immolation, it is needless to affirm, marked his versatile and

happy career, yet rarely has any single person, whose attention has been

engaged by other urgent business besides that of mankind, ever furnished

such a pointed example of the truth of the observation.

The first project of a public nature organized by him was the Junto, a

project of which he received the hint from the Neighborhood Benefit

Societies, established by Cotton Mather, who, it would be an egregious

error to suppose, did nothing in his life but hound hapless wretches to

death for witchcraft. The Junto founded by Franklin, when he was a

journeyman printer, about twenty-one years of age, was primarily an

association for mutual improvement. It met every Friday evening, and its

rules, which were drafted by him, required every member in turn to produce

one or more queries on some point of morals, politics or natural

philosophy, to be discussed by its members, and once every three months to

produce and read an essay of his own writing on any subject he pleased.

Under the regulations, the debates were to be conducted with a presiding

officer in the chair, and in the sincere spirit of inquiry after truth

without fondness for dispute or desire for victory. Dogmatism and direct

contradiction were made contraband, and prohibited under small pecuniary

penalties. With a few rough strokes Franklin etches to the life in the

_Autobiography_ all the first members of the association. We linger just

now only on his portrait of Thomas Godfrey, "a self-taught mathematician,

great in his way, and afterward inventor of what is now called Hadley's

Quadrant. But he knew little out of his way, and was not a pleasing

companion; as, like most great mathematicians I have met with, he expected

universal precision in everything said, or was forever denying or

distinguishing upon trifles, to the disturbance of all conversation. He

soon left us." All of the first members except Robert Grace, a young

gentleman of some fortune, derived their livelihood from the simple

pursuits of a small provincial town, but all in one way or another were

under the spell exerted by a love of reading, or something else outside of

the dull treadmill of daily necessity. From the number of journeymen

mechanics in it the Junto came to be known in Philadelphia as the Leathern

Apron Club. An applicant for initiation had to stand up and declare, with

one hand laid upon his breast, that he had "no particular disrespect" for

any member of the Junto; that he loved mankind in general, of whatsoever

profession or religion; that he thought no person ought to be harmed in his

body, name or goods for mere speculative opinion, or for his external way

of worship, that he loved the truth for the truth's sake, and would

endeavor impartially to find and receive it, and communicate it to others.

In all this the spirit of Franklin is manifest enough.

Quite as manifest, too, is the spirit of Franklin in the twenty-four

standing queries which were read at every weekly meeting with "a pause

between each while one might fill and drink a glass of wine," and which

propounded the following interrogatories:

Have you read over these queries this morning, in order

to consider what you might have to offer the Junto

touching any one of them viz:?

1. Have you met with anything in the author you last

read, remarkable, or suitable to be communicated to the

Junto, particularly in history, morality, poetry,

physic, travels, mechanic arts, or other parts of

knowledge?

2. What new story have you lately heard agreeable for

telling in conversation?

3. Hath any citizen in your knowledge failed in his

business lately, and what have you heard of the cause?

4. Have you lately heard of any citizen's thriving

well, and by what means?

5. Have you lately heard how any present rich man, here

or elsewhere, got his estate?

6. Do you know of a fellow-citizen, who has lately done

a worthy action, deserving praise and imitation; or who

has lately committed an error, proper for us to be

warned against and avoid?

7. What unhappy effects of intemperance have you lately

observed or heard; of imprudence, of passion, or of any

other vice or folly?

8. What happy effects of temperance, prudence, of

moderation, or of any other virtue?

9. Have you or any of your acquaintance been lately

sick or wounded? if so, what remedies were used, and

what were their effects?

10. Whom do you know that are shortly going voyages or

journeys, if one should have occasion to send by them?

11. Do you think of anything at present, in which the

Junto may be serviceable to _mankind_, to their

country, to their friends, or to themselves?

12. Hath any deserving stranger arrived in town since

last meeting, that you have heard of?; and what have

you heard or observed of his character or merits?; and

whether, think you, it lies in the power of the Junto

to oblige him, or encourage him as he deserves?

13. Do you know of any deserving young beginner lately

set up, whom it lies in the power of the Junto anyway

to encourage?

14. Have you lately observed any defect in the laws of

your _country_, of which it would be proper to move the

legislature for an amendment?; or do you know of any

beneficial law that is wanting?

15. Have you lately observed any encroachment on the

just liberties of the people?

16. Hath anybody attacked your reputation lately?; and

what can the Junto do towards securing it?

17. Is there any man whose friendship you want, and

which the Junto, or any of them, can procure for you?

18. Have you lately heard any member's character

attacked, and how have you defended it?

19. Hath any man injured you, from whom it is in the

power of the Junto to procure redress?

20. In what manner can the Junto or any of them, assist

you in any of your honorable designs?

21. Have you any weighty affair on hand in which you

think the advice of the Junto may be of service?

22. What benefits have you lately received from any man

not present?

23. Is there any difficulty in matters of opinion, of

justice, and injustice, which you would gladly have

discussed at this time?

24. Do you see anything amiss in the present customs or

proceedings of the Junto, which might be amended?

These queries render it obvious that the Junto in actual operation far

transcended the scope of a mere association for mutual improvement. Such a

strong desire was entertained by its members to bring their friends into it

that Franklin finally suggested that each member should organize a separate

club, secretly subordinate to the parent body, and in this way help to

extend the sphere of the Junto's usefulness; and this suggestion was

followed by the formation of five or six such clubs with such names as the

Vine, the Union and the Band, which, as time went on, became centres of

agitation for the promotion of public aims.

Cotton Mather would scarcely have regarded a club with such liberal

principles as the Junto as an improvement upon its prototype, the

Neighborhood Benefit Society. But, between the answers to the standing

queries of the Junto, its essays, its debates, the declamations, which were

also features of its exercises, the jolly songs sung at its annual meeting,

and its monthly meetings during mild weather "across the river for bodily

exercise," it must have been an agreeable and instructive club indeed. It

lasted nearly forty years, and "was," Franklin claims in the

_Autobiography_, "the best school of philosophy, morality and politics that

then existed in the province." A book, in which he entered memoranda of

various kinds in regard to it, shows that he followed its proceedings with

the keenest interest.

Is self interest the rudder that steers mankind?; can a

man arrive at perfection in this life?; does it not, in

a general way, require great study and intense

application for a poor man to become rich and powerful,

if he would do it without the forfeiture of his

honesty?; why does the flame of a candle tend upward in

a spire?; whence comes the dew that stands on the

outside of a tankard that has cold water in it in the

summer time?

--such are some of the questions, thoroughly racy of Franklin in his youth,

which are shown by this book to have been framed by him for the Junto.

After the association had been under way for a time, he suggested that all

the books, owned by its members, should be assembled at the room, in which

its meetings were held, for convenience of reference in discussion, and so

that each member might have the benefit of the volumes belonging to every

other member almost as fully as if they belonged to himself. The suggestion

was assented to, and one end of the room was filled with such books as the

members could spare; but the arrangement did not work well in practice and

was soon abandoned.

No sooner, however, did this idea die down than another shot up from its

stump. This was the subscription library, now the Philadelphia City

Library, founded by Franklin. In the _Autobiography_, he speaks of this

library as his first project of a public nature; but it seems to us, as we

have already said, that the distinction fairly belongs to the Junto. He

brought the project to the attention of the public through formal articles

of association, and, by earnest efforts in an unlettered community, which,

moreover, had little money to spare for any such enterprise, induced fifty

persons, mostly young tradesmen, to subscribe forty shillings each as a

contribution to a foundation fund for the first purchase of books, and ten

shillings more annually as a contribution for additional volumes. Later,

the association was incorporated. It was while soliciting subscriptions at

this time that Franklin was taught by the objections or reserve with which

his approaches were met the "impropriety of presenting one's self as the

proposer of any useful project, that might be suppos'd to raise one's

reputation in the smallest degree above that of one's neighbors, when one

has need of their assistance to accomplish that project." He, therefore,

kept out of sight as much as possible, and represented the scheme as that

of a number of friends who had requested him to submit it to such persons

as they thought lovers of reading. This kind of self effacement was

attended with such happy consequences that he never failed to adopt it

subsequently upon similar occasions. From his successful experience, he

says in the _Autobiography_, he could heartily recommend it. "The present

little sacrifice of your vanity," to use his own words, "will afterwards be

amply repaid. If it remains a while uncertain to whom the merit belongs,

some one more vain than yourself will be encouraged to claim it, and then

even envy will be disposed to do you justice by plucking those assumed

feathers, and restoring them to their right owner." Alexander Wedderburn's

famous philippic, of which we shall have something to say further on, did

not consist altogether of misapplied adjectives. Franklin _was_ at times

the "wily American," but usually for the purpose of improving the condition

of his fellow creatures in spite of themselves.

The library, once established, grew apace. From time to time, huge folios

and quartos were added to it by purchase or donation, from which nobody

profited more than Franklin himself with his insatiable avidity for

knowledge. The first purchase of books for it was made by Peter Collinson

of London, who threw in with the purchase as presents from himself Newton's

_Principia_ and the _Gardener's Dictionary_, and continued for thirty years

to act as the purchasing agent of the institution, accompanying each

additional purchase with additional presents from himself. Evidence is not

wanting that the first arrival of books was awaited with eager expectancy.

Among Franklin's memoranda with regard to the Junto we find the following:

"When the books of the library come, every member shall undertake some

author, that he may not be without observations to communicate." When the

books finally came, they were placed in the assembly room of the Junto; a

librarian was selected, and the library was thrown open once a week for the

distribution of books. The second year Franklin himself acted as librarian,

and for printing a catalogue of the first books shortly after their

arrival, and for other printing services, he was exempted from the payment

of his annual ten shillings for two years.

Among the numerous donations of money, books and curiosities made to the

library, were gifts of books and electrical apparatus by Thomas Penn, and

the gift of an electrical tube, with directions for its use, by Peter

Collinson, which proved of incalculable value to science in the hands of

Franklin who promptly turned it to experimental purposes. When Peter Kalm,

the Swedish naturalist, was in Philadelphia in 1748, "many little

libraries," organized on the same plan as the original library, had sprung

from it. Non-subscribers were then allowed to take books out of it, subject

to pledges of indemnity sufficient to cover their value, and to the payment

for the use of a folio of eight pence a week, for the use of a quarto of

six pence, and for the use of any other book of four pence. Kalm, as a

distinguished stranger, was allowed the use of any book in the collection

free of charge. In 1764, the shares of the library company were worth

nearly twenty pounds, and its collections were then believed to have a

value of seventeen hundred pounds. In 1785, the number of volumes was 5487;

in 1807, 14,457; in 1861, 70,000; and in 1912, 237,677. After overflowing

more contracted quarters, the contents of the library have finally found a

home in a handsome building at the northwest corner of Locust and Juniper

Streets and in the Ridgway Branch Building at the corner of Broad and

Christian Streets. But, never, it is safe to say, will this library,

enlarged and efficiently administered as it is, perform such an invaluable

service as it did in its earlier years. "This," Franklin declares in the

_Autobiography_, "was the mother of all the North American subscription

libraries, now so numerous. It is become a great thing itself, and

continually increasing. These libraries have improved the general

conversation of the Americans, made the common tradesmen and farmers as

intelligent as most gentlemen from other countries, and perhaps have

contributed in some degree to the stand so generally made throughout the

colonies in defence of their privileges."

Franklin next turned his attention to the reform of the city watch. Under

the existing system, it was supervised by the different constables of the

different wards of Philadelphia in turn. The Dogberry in charge would warn

a number of householders to attend him for the night. Such householders as

desired to be wholly exempt from the service could secure exemption by

paying him six shillings a year, which was supposed to be expended by him

in hiring substitutes, but the fund accumulated in this way was much more

than was necessary for the purpose and rendered the constableship a

position of profit. Often the ragamuffins gathered up by a constable as his

aids were quite willing to act as such for no reward except a little drink.

The consequence was that his underlings were for the most part tippling

when they should have been moving around on their beats. Altogether, they

seem to have been men who would not have been slow to heed the older

Dogberry's advice to his watchmen that, if one of them bid a vagrom man

stand, and he did not stand, to take no note of him, but to let him go, and

presently call the rest of the watch together and thank God that he was rid

of a knave.

To this situation Franklin addressed himself by writing a paper for the

Junto, not only setting forth the abuses of the existing system but

insisting upon its injustice in imposing the same six shilling tax upon a

poor widow, whose whole property to be guarded by the watch did not perhaps

exceed the value of fifty pounds, as upon the wealthiest merchant who had

thousands of pounds' worth of goods in his stores. His proposal was the

creation of a permanent paid police to be maintained by an equal,

proportional property tax. The idea was duly approved by the Junto, and

communicated to its affiliated clubs, as if it had arisen in each of them,

and, though it was not immediately carried into execution, yet the popular

agitation, which ensued over it, paved the way for a law providing for it

which was enacted a few years afterwards, when the Junto and the other

clubs had acquired more popular influence.

About the same time, the same indefatigable propagandist wrote for the

Junto a paper, which was subsequently published, on the different accidents

and defaults by which houses were set on fire, with warnings against them,

and suggestions as to how they might be averted. There was much public talk

about it, and a company of thirty persons was soon formed, under the name

of the Union Fire Company, for the purpose of more effectively

extinguishing fires, and removing and protecting goods endangered by them.

Under its articles of agreement, every member was obliged to keep always in

good order, and fit for use, a certain number of leather buckets, with

strong bags and baskets for transporting goods, which were to be brought to

every fire; and it was further agreed that the members of the company were

to meet once a month and spend a social evening together in the discussion

and interchange of such useful ideas as occurred to them upon the subject

of fires. The formation of this company led to the formation of one company

after another until the associations became so numerous as to include most

of the inhabitants of Philadelphia who were men of property. It was still

flourishing more than fifty years after its establishment, when its history

was narrated in the _Autobiography_, and Franklin and one other person, a

year older than himself, were the only survivors of its original members.

The small fines, paid by its members as penalties for absence from its

monthly meetings, had been used to such advantage in the purchase of

fire-engines, ladders, fire-hooks and other useful implements for the

different companies that Franklin then questioned whether there was a city

in the world better provided than Philadelphia with the means for

repressing incipient conflagrations. Indeed, he said, since the

establishment of these companies, the city had never lost by fire more than

one or two houses at a time; and often flames were extinguished before the

house they threatened had been half consumed.

"Ideas will string themselves like Ropes of Onions," Franklin once

declared. This was certainly true of the plans which his public spirit

devised for the improvement of Philadelphia. The next thing to which his

hand was turned was the creation of an academy. In 1743, he drew up a

proposal for one, but, being disappointed in his efforts to persuade the

Reverend Mr. Peters to act as its head, he let the project lie dormant for

a time. While it remained so, remembering Poor Richard's maxim that leisure

is time for doing something useful, he passed to the organization of a

system of military defenses for the Province and the founding of a

Philosophical Society. Of the former task we shall speak hereafter. The

latter was initiated by a circular letter from him to his various learned

friends in the Northern Colonies, proposing the formation of a society for

the purpose of promoting a commerce of speculation, discovery and

experimentation between its members with regard to scientific interests of

every sort. A correspondence with the Royal Society of London and the

Dublin Society and "all philosophical experiments that let light into the

nature of things, tend to increase the power of man over matter, and

multiply the conveniences or pleasures of life" were among the things held

out in the proposal. Colonial America was far more favorable to practical

activity than to philosophical investigation, but the society,

nevertheless, performed an office of no little usefulness. When Franklin

built a new wing to his residence in Philadelphia, after his return from

Paris, he provided a large apartment on the first floor of this addition

for the accommodation of the American Philosophical Society into which this

Society had been merged. When he made his will, he was the President of the

new society, and he bequeathed to it his _History of the Academy of

Sciences_, in sixty or seventy volumes quarto; and, when he died, one of

its members, Dr. William Smith, pronounced an eulogy upon his character and

services. The wing of his house, in which space was set apart for the

society, was itself, in its precautions against fire, one worthy of a

vigilant and enlightened philosopher. None of the woodwork of one room, for

instance, communicated with the woodwork of any other. Franklin thought,

however, that the staircases should have been of stone, and the floors

tiled as in Paris; and that the roof should have been either tiled or

slated.[11]

When the Philosophical Society of his early life had been founded, and the

restoration of peace between Great Britain and her enemies had diverted his

mind from his plans for the military protection of Philadelphia, he turned

again to the slumbering Academy. His first step was to secure the

assistance of a considerable number of active friends, of whom the Junto

furnished a good part, and his next to write and publish a pamphlet

entitled _Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania_. In

this pamphlet he was careful, as usual, to bring his aim forward rather as

that of a group of public-spirited gentlemen than of himself. It was

distributed gratuitously among the most prominent citizens of Philadelphia,

and, as soon as he thought that their minds had been reduced to a receptive

condition by its appeal, he solicited subscriptions for the establishment

and maintenance of the Academy, payable in five annual instalments. Four

thousand pounds were subscribed, and Franklin and Tench Francis, the

attorney-general of the province, and the uncle of Sir Philip Francis, of

Junius fame, were appointed by the subscribers to draw up a constitution

for the government of the foundation. This was drafted and signed; a house

was hired, masters were engaged, and the institution was promptly opened.

So fast did the scholars increase that need was soon felt for a larger

school-edifice. This was happily found in the great building which had

sprung up at the sound of Whitefield's voice as if at the sound of

Amphion's lyre. By an arrangement between the Trustees for the building, of

whom Franklin was one, and the Trustees for the Academy, of whom Franklin

was also one, the building was deeded to the latter Trustees, upon the

condition that they would discharge the indebtedness with which it was

burdened, keep forever open in it a large hall for occasional preachers,

according to the original intent of its builders, and maintain a free

school for the instruction of poor children. With some internal changes,

and the purchase of an addition to its site, the edifice was soon, under

the superintendence of Franklin, made ready for the use of the Academy.

Afterwards, the Trustees for the Academy were incorporated, and the

institution received various donations from British friends, the

Proprietaries and the Provincial Assembly, and, finally, grew into the

University of Pennsylvania. Franklin was one of its Trustees for more than

forty years, and had, he says in the _Autobiography_, the very great

pleasure of seeing a number of the youth, who had received their education

in it, distinguished by their improved abilities, serviceable in public

stations and ornaments to their country.

In none of his creations did Franklin display a keener interest than in the

Academy. From its inception until he embarked upon his second voyage to

England, his correspondence contains frequent references to it. One of his

most earnest desires was to secure the celebrated Episcopal clergyman, Dr.

Samuel Johnson, of Connecticut, afterwards the president of King's College,

New York, as its Rector. A salary of one hundred pounds sterling per annum,

the opportunity to deliver a lecture now and then in the large hall, set

apart for what might in our day be called "tramp" preachers, until he could

collect a congregation strong enough to build him a church, the usual

marriage and christening fees, paid by persons of the best social standing,

the occasional presents bestowed by wealthy individuals upon a minister of

their liking, and the opening that, as time went on, the change of

residence might afford to his son, who in the beginning might be employed

as a tutor at a salary of sixty or seventy pounds per annum, were the

allurements with which the reverend doctor was approached by Franklin. To

the doctor's objection that another Episcopal church in Philadelphia might

sap the strength of the existing one, the resourceful tempter replied with

the illustration, which has been so much admired:

I had for several years nailed against the wall of my

house a pigeon-box, that would hold six pair; and,

though they bred as fast as my neighbours' pigeons, I

never had more than six pair, the old and strong

driving out the young and weak, and obliging them to

seek new habitations. At length I put up an additional

box with apartments for entertaining twelve pair more;

and it was soon filled with inhabitants, by the

overflowing of my first box, and of others in the

neighbourhood. This I take to be a parallel case with

the building a new church here.

In spite of everything, however, Doctor Johnson proved obdurate to

Franklin's coaxing pen.

The Academy was opened in 1749. In a letter to Jared Eliot in 1751,

Franklin informs us that the annual salaries paid by it were as follows:

The Rector, who taught Latin and Greek, two hundred pounds, the English

Master, one hundred and fifty pounds, the Mathematical Professor, one

hundred and twenty-five pounds, and three assistant tutors each, sixty

pounds. The annual fee paid by each pupil was four pounds. With one of the

persons who did act as Rector, Franklin seems to have been on intimate

terms. This was David Martin, who, after a brief incumbency, died suddenly

of a quinsy, and was buried in much state. In a letter to William Strahan,

Franklin speaks of him as "Honest David Martin,... my principal Antagonist

at Chess." Vice-Provost at one time was Francis Alison, whom Franklin in a

letter to Jared Eliot in 1755 introduced as his "particular friend," and

twenty or more folio pages, large paper, well filled on the subjects of

Agriculture, Philosophy, Eliot's own Catholic Divinity and various other

points of learning equally useful and engaging. With still another Rector,

Dr. William Smith, Franklin's relations were at first very friendly, but

afterwards, when Smith espoused the cause of the Proprietary Party and

began to abuse Franklin unstintedly, became so constrained that the two

ceased to be on speaking terms. In an early letter to Smith, before Smith

became Rector, Franklin said that he should be extremely glad to see and

converse with him in Philadelphia, and to correspond with him after he

settled in England; "for," he observed, "an acquaintance and communication

with men of learning, virtue, and public spirit, is one of my greatest

enjoyments." In the same letter, Franklin stated that the mathematical

school was pretty well furnished with instruments, and that the English

library was a good one, and included a middling apparatus for experimental

philosophy, which they purposed to complete speedily. The library left by

James Logan, the accomplished Quaker, to the public, "one of the best

collections in America," in the opinion of Franklin, was also shortly to be

opened. Indeed, Franklin was in hopes, he further declared, that in a few

years they would see a perfect institution. In another letter to Smith,

written a few days later, he said in reference to a paper on _The Ideal

College of Mirania_ written by Smith, "For my part, I know not when I have

read a piece that has more affected me; so noble and just are the

sentiments, so warm and animated the language." He was too frank a man,

however, not to express the wish that the author had omitted from this

performance certain reflections upon the discipline and government of

Oxford and Cambridge Universities and certain outbreaks of resentment

against the author's adversaries. "In such cases," he remarked, "the

noblest victory is obtained by neglect, and by shining on." He little knew

how soon he would be called upon to reck his own rede. A few years later,

Franklin thanks Whitefield for a generous benefaction to the German school.

"They go on pretty well," he writes, "and will do better," he adds dryly,

in terms which make it apparent enough that the honeymoon of early

prepossession was over, "when Mr. Smith, who has at present the principal

Care of them, shall learn to mind Party-writing and Party Politicks less,

and his proper Business more; which I hope time will bring about." In the

succeeding November he was not even on speaking terms with Smith. This fact

was communicated by him to Peter Collinson in a letter with this statement

about Smith: "He has scribbled himself into universal Dislike here; the

Proprietary Faction alone countenances him a little; but the Academy

dwindles, and will come to nothing if he is continued." A few weeks later

in another letter to Collinson the case against Smith is stated more

specifically: "Smith continues still in the Academy; but I imagine will not

much longer, unless he mends his Manners greatly, for the Schools decline

on his Account. The Number of Scholars, at present, that pay, not exceeding

118, tho' they formerly were 200." From a letter to David Hall, written by

Franklin during his second sojourn in England, it would appear that Smith

was quicker to pay off debts of resentment than any other kind. In this

letter the writer tells Hall that Osborne, the London bookseller, had asked

him whether he would be safe in selling to Smith "a large Cargo of Books,"

and that he had told Osborne that he believed that his "Townsmen who were

Smith's Creditors would be glad to see him come back with a Cargo of any

kind, as they might have some Chance of being paid out of it." Smith on his

part did not fail to do all in his power to keep Franklin from shining on.

In a letter to Caleb Whitefoord shortly after his second return from

England in 1762, Franklin borrowed a phrase from a line in _The New

Foundling Hospital for Wit_. "The Piece from your own Pencil," he said, "is

acknowledg'd to bear a strong and striking Likeness, but it is otherwise

such a picture of your Friend, as Dr. Smith would have drawn, _black, and

all black_." But when it comes to what Franklin in the _Autobiography_

calls "negrofying," he, though he had very little inclination for that kind

of competition, was no mean artist himself, if it was an antagonist like

Smith upon whose face the pigment was to be laid.

I do not wonder at the behaviour you mention of Dr.

Smith towards me [he wrote to Polly Stevenson], for I

have long since known him thoroughly. I made that Man

my Enemy by doing him too much Kindness. 'Tis the

honestest Way of acquiring an Enemy. And, since 'tis

convenient to have at least one Enemy, who by his

Readiness to revile one on all Occasions, may make one

careful of one's Conduct, I shall keep him an Enemy for

that purpose; and shall observe your good Mother's

Advice, never again to receive him as a Friend. She

once admir'd the benevolent Spirit breath'd in his

Sermons. She will now see the Justness of the Lines

your Laureate Whitehead addresses to his Poets, and

which I now address to her:

"Full many a peevish, envious, slanderous Elf

Is, in his Works, Benevolence itself.

For all Mankind, unknown, his Bosom heaves;

He only injures those, with whom he lives,

Read then the Man;--does _Truth_ his Actions guide,

Exempt from _Petulance_, exempt from _Pride_?

To social Duties does his Heart attend,

As Son, as Father, Husband, Brother, _Friend_?

_Do those, who know him, love him?_ If they do,

You've _my_ Permission: you may love him too."

Several months later some observations upon the character of Doctor Smith,

equally emphatic, found their way into a letter from Franklin to William

Strahan. "Dr. Kelly in his Letter," he said in regard to a letter to

Strahan in which Dr. Kelly, a fellow of the Royal Society, had indicated

very plainly what he thought of Dr. Smith, "appears the same sensible,

worthy, friendly Man I ever found him; and Smith, as usual, just his

Reverse.--I have done with him: For I believe nobody here (Philadelphia)

will prevail with me to give him another Meeting." In his preface to the

speech of Joseph Galloway, Franklin even refers to Smith as "the Poisoner

of other Characters." In one of his letters William Franklin referred to

him as "that Miscreant Parson Smith." An obscure, or comparatively obscure,

person, who is so unfortunate as to have a feud with a great man, is

likely to experience some difficulty in obtaining justice at the hands of

Posterity which is always ready to retain any number of clever brushes to

whitewash the latter and to smear a black coat over the former. But it must

be admitted that anyone who quarrelled with such a social, genial,

well-balanced being as Franklin cannot hope to escape a very strong

presumption that the fault was his own. There is evidence, at any rate,

that, on one occasion, when Smith was in England, and had written a letter

to Dr. Fry, the President of St. John's College, Oxford, in which Franklin

was aspersed, the latter was induced to meet him at Strahan's house, and

succeeded in drawing from him, after the letter to Dr. Fry had been read

over, paragraph by paragraph, an acknowledgment that it contained many

particulars in which the writer had been misled by wrong information, and

that the whole was written with too much rancor and asperity. Indeed, Smith

even promised that he would write to Dr. Fry admitting the respects in

which his statements were false; but, when pressed by Strahan to write this

letter on the spot, he declined to do so, though stating that he would call

upon Strahan in a day or so and show it to him before it was sent; which he

never did. On the contrary, when subsequently questioned at Oxford

concerning his promise to write such a letter, he "denied the whole, & even

treated the question as a Calumny." So wrote Dr. Kelly to Strahan in the

letter already mentioned by us. "I make no other comment on this

behaviour," said Dr. Kelly further, "than in considering him (Smith)

extremely unworthy of the Honour, he has received, from our University."

The fact that, despite all this, at Franklin's death, Dr. Smith, at the

request of the American Philosophical Society, made Franklin's character

and career the subject of an eulogistic address is certainly calculated to

induce us all to unite in the prayer of Franklin in his _Articles of

Belief_ to be delivered from "Anger (that momentary Madness)."

Dr. Smith proved to be one fly in the Academy gallipot. The other was the

extent to which the Latin School was pampered at the expense of the English

School which was very close to the heart of Franklin. Its insidious

encroachments steadily went on until finally the English School scarcely

had a foothold in the institution at all. The result was that in 1769 it

had been reduced from its first flourishing condition, when, if Franklin

may be believed, the Academy was attended by some little boys under seven,

who could deliver an oration with more propriety than most preachers, to a

state of bare sufferance. The exercises in English reading and speaking,

once the delight of the Trustees and of the parents and other relations of

the boys, when these boys were trained by Mr. Dove, the English Master,

with all the different modulations of voice required by sense and subject,

languished after his resignation on account of his meagre salary, and at

length, under the blighting neglect of the Trustees, were wholly

discontinued. The English school, to use Franklin's forcible expression,

was simply starved.

All this was set forth in a long, dignified and able remonstrance which he

wrote in nearly his best manner some ten months before his death when his

body was racked at times by excruciating pains. In this paper, he narrated

with uncommon clearness and skill the gradual succession of influences and

events by which the English School had been reduced to a condition of

atrophy, and contended that the intentions of the founders of the Academy

had been ruthlessly and unconscionably abused. When we recall the circular

letter in which he proposed the establishment of the Academy and the fact

that it is by no means lacking in deference to the dead languages, which

still held the human mind in bondage so firmly, we cannot but feel that the

founders of the Academy were not quite so alive to the supreme importance

of the English School as Franklin would make out. The truth was that a long

time was yet to elapse before the minds of educated men could become

emancipated enough to see that a living language, which they are using

every day, is quite as worthy of consideration, to say the least, as one

which fulfills its highest function in perfecting that use with its own

rare discipline, strength and beauty. Franklin saw this before most men of

his time, first, because his own lack of academic training saved him from

many of the narrowing effects of tradition and routine, and, secondly,

because it was idle to expect any but a severely practical view of the

relative importance of the dead languages and English from a man who did

not shrink from even testing the readiness of the public mind to give its

assent to radical alterations in the Lord's Prayer and the Episcopal Prayer

Book. Be this as it may, Franklin did not hesitate in this paper to express

in the strongest terms his sense of the inutility of Latin and Greek as

parts of the course of instruction at the Academy, and, of course, a

picturesque illustration of his proposition was duly forthcoming.

At what Time [he said], Hats were first introduced we

know not, but in the last Century they were universally

worn thro'-out Europe. Gradually, however, as the

Wearing of Wigs, and Hair nicely dress'd prevailed, the

putting on of Hats was disused by genteel People, lest

the curious Arrangements of the Curls and Powdering

should be disordered; and Umbrellas began to supply

their Place; yet still our Considering the Hat as a

part of Dress continues so far to prevail, that a Man

of fashion is not thought dress'd without having one,

or something like one, about him, which he carries

under his Arm. So that there are a multitude of the

politer people in all the courts and capital cities of

Europe, who have never, nor their fathers before them,

worn a hat otherwise than as a _chapeau_ bras, though

the utility of such a mode of wearing it is by no means

apparent, and it is attended not only with some

expense, but with a degree of constant trouble.

The still prevailing custom of having schools for

teaching generally our children in these days, the

Latin and Greek languages, I consider therefore, in no

other light than as the _Chapeau bras_ of modern

Literature.

Poor Richard had his word to say about the man who "was so learned, that he

could name a horse in nine languages: so ignorant that he bought a cow to

ride on."

This, however, was not the spirit in which Franklin sought to recruit the

deficiencies of his own education--an effort which proved so

extraordinarily successful that we are inclined to think that in the

pedagogic insight as well as extensive knowledge, disclosed in the circular

letter proposing the establishment of the Academy, the "Idea of the English

School Sketch'd Out For The Consideration Of The Trustees Of The

Philadelphia Academy," and "The Observations Relative To The Intentions Of

The Original Founders Of The Academy In Philadelphia" we have the most

striking proofs after all of the natural power and assimilative capacity of

a mind which, be it recollected, never had any teacher but itself after its

possessor became ten years of age.

In the _Autobiography_ we are told by Franklin that he was unable to

remember when he could not read, that he was sent to the grammar school in

Boston when he was eight years of age, that, after he had been at this

school for not quite one year, though in that time he had become the head

of his class, and had even been advanced to the next class above it,[12] he

was shifted by his father to a school for writing and arithmetic in Boston,

kept by a then famous man, Mr. George Brownell; that under Brownell he

acquired fair writing pretty soon, but made no progress in arithmetic, and

that, at ten years of age, he was taken home to assist his father in his

business as a tallow chandler and soap boiler. Such was all the education

except what was self-imparted that the founder of the University of

Pennsylvania had to draw upon when he outlined the future courses of

instruction of the Academy.

But this self-imparted education was no mean one. Putting altogether out of

sight the general reading to which during a large part of his youth

Franklin devoted every moment left him by his duties, when he was about

sixteen years of age, having been made ashamed on some occasion of his

ignorance of figures, he went through the whole of Cocker's _Arithmetic_ by

himself with the greatest ease, and followed the feat up by acquainting

himself with such little geometry as was contained in Seller's and Shermy's

books on Navigation. Some ten or eleven years later, he renewed the study

of languages; for, short as was his connection with the Boston grammar

school, he had obtained from it some knowledge of Latin. He quickly

mastered French, so far as to be able to read French books with facility.

Italian he learned by refusing to play chess with a friend who was also

learning it, except upon the condition that the victor in every game was to

have the right to impose upon his defeated adversary tasks in Italian which

the latter was to be bound in point of honor to perform before the next

bout. "As we play'd pretty equally," says Franklin, "we thus beat one

another into that language." With a little painstaking, he afterwards

acquired enough Spanish to read Spanish books too. Then it was that, after

acquiring this knowledge of French, Italian and Spanish, he was surprised

to find on looking over a Latin testament that he had so much more

familiarity with Latin than he imagined. This encouraged him to apply

himself to that language again, which he did with the more success, now

that the three modern languages had smoothed his way.

From these circumstances [he observes in the

_Autobiography_], I have thought that there is some

inconsistency in our common mode of teaching languages.

We are told that it is proper to begin first with the

Latin, and, having acquir'd that, it will be more easy

to attain those modern languages which are deriv'd from

it; and yet we do not begin with the Greek, in order

more easily to acquire the Latin. It is true that, if

you can clamber and get to the top of a staircase

without using the steps, you will more easily gain them

in descending; but certainly, if you begin with the

lowest you will with more ease ascend to the top; and I

would, therefore offer it to the consideration of those

who superintend the education of our youth, whether

since many of those who begin with the Latin quit the

same after spending some years without having made any

great proficiency, and what they have learnt becomes

almost useless, so that their time has been lost, it

would not have been better to have begun with the

French, proceeding to the Italian, etc.; for, tho',

after spending the same time, they should quit the

study of languages and never arrive at the Latin, they

would, however, have acquired another tongue or two,

that, being in modern use, might be serviceable to them

in common life.

Even if some design for the benefit of the public did not originate with

Franklin, it was likely to fall back ultimately upon him for success. When

Dr. Thomas Bond undertook to establish a hospital in Philadelphia, he was

compelled by the chariness with which his requests for subscriptions were

received, before it was known how Franklin felt about the project, to come

to Franklin with the admission that he had found that to put any such

public project through in Philadelphia it was necessary to enlist his

support. The response was not only a subscription by Franklin but also the

inevitable appeal from his hand, pointing out the need for the hospital.

After a stroke from that wand, the rock began to yield water more

abundantly, but not so copiously that Franklin did not see that legislative

aid was necessary as well as private liberality. The country voters, as is

usual still in such cases in America, were inclined to think that the

townsfolk were enjoying more than their just share of the blessings of

civil society. They alleged that the hospital would be of exclusive benefit

to the city, and even doubted whether the movement met with the general

approval of the townsfolk themselves. Franklin's claim that two thousand

pounds would be raised by voluntary subscriptions they regarded as highly

extravagant. This was cue enough for his quick wit. A bill was introduced

by him into the General Assembly providing that, when the private

contributors had organized under the charter granted by it, and had raised

two thousand pounds by voluntary subscription, for the free maintenance of

the sick poor in the hospital, then the Speaker, upon that fact being

certified to his satisfaction, should draw his warrant on the Treasurer of

the Province for the payment of two thousand pounds, in two yearly

payments, to the treasurer of the hospital, to be applied to its

establishment. With the lubricant supplied by this timely condition, the

bill slid smoothly down all the legislative grooves. Even the sincerest

support of a good legislative measure is not more ardent to all appearances

than the specious support sometimes given to such a measure by a member of

the Legislature who is opposed to it but sees, or thinks he sees, that it

will never become a law, even though he should vote for it. The opponents

of Franklin's bill, conceiving that they had a chance to acquire the credit

of generosity without paying the pecuniary penalty, agreed to its

enactment, and, on the other hand, the condition, by affording to private

subscribers the prospect of having their contributions practically doubled

from the public purse, furnished them with an additional motive to give.

The private contributions even exceeded the sum fixed by the condition, and

the credit with which the legislative adversaries of the bill had to

content themselves was not that of deceitful but of real bounty. "I do not

remember any of my political manoeuvres," Franklin complacently declares

in the _Autobiography_, "the success of which gave me at the time more

pleasure, or wherein, after thinking of it, I more easily excus'd myself

for having made some use of cunning." We experience no difficulty in

condoning this cunning when we realize that its fruit was the Pennsylvania

Hospital, which, after many years of rare usefulness, is still one of the

chief institutions of Philadelphia. It is gratifying to feel that its

history has not been unworthy of the admirable inscription which Franklin

wrote for its corner-stone:

In the year of Christ MDCCLV, George the Second happily

reigning (for he sought the happiness of his people),

Philadelphia flourishing (for its inhabitants were

public spirited), this building, by the bounty of the

government, and of many private persons, was piously

founded for the relief of the sick and miserable. May

the God of Mercies bless the undertaking.

The Reverend Gilbert Tennent, one of whose sermons caused Whitefield to

say, "Never before heard I such a searching sermon; he is a son of thunder,

and does not regard the face of man," was not so fortunate as Dr. Bond when

he asked Franklin to assist him in obtaining subscriptions for the erection

of a new meeting-house in Philadelphia, for the use of a congregation drawn

from among the Presbyterians, who were originally disciples of Whitefield.

Franklin says that he absolutely refused to do so because he was unwilling

to make himself disagreeable to his fellow-citizens by soliciting

contributions from them too frequently. The truth in part, we suspect, was

that his zealous interest was not easily excited in any meeting-house where

even a missionary sent by the Mufti of Constantinople to preach

Mohammedanism to the people of Philadelphia would not find a pulpit at his

service. But, if this incident has any general significance, it may be

accepted as evidence that, though Franklin might contribute nothing else

upon such an occasion, he was prepared to contribute a good joke. When

Tennent found that he could get no other kind of assistance from him, he

asked him to give him at least his advice. What followed would suffer in

telling if not told as the _Autobiography_ tells it:

That I will readily do [said Franklin], and, in the

first place, I advise you to apply to all those whom

you know will give something; next, to those whom you

are uncertain whether they will give anything or not,

and show them the list of those who have given; and,

lastly, do not neglect those who you are sure will give

nothing, for in some of them you may be mistaken. He

laugh'd and thank'd me, and said he would take my

advice. He did so, for he ask'd of _everybody_, and he

obtain'd a much larger sum than he expected, with which

he erected the capacious and very elegant meeting-house

that stands in Arch Street.

Other services rendered by Franklin to Philadelphia related to the better

paving and lighting of its streets. These streets were laid out with great

regularity, but, being wholly unpaved, were mere quagmires in winter and

stifling stretches of dust in summer. So bad was their condition as a rule

that Philadelphia came to be known among the country people around it as

"Filthy-dirty." Franklin, when he lived near the Jersey Market, witnessed

with concern the miserable plight of its patrons as they waded about on

either side of it in mire deep enough to have prompted the observation of

Napoleon, based upon his campaigns in Poland, that mud should be accounted

a fifth element. A step was taken when a stretch of ground down the middle

of the market was paved with brick. This offered a firm footing, when once

attained, but, before a pedestrian could attain it, he might be overshoes

in wet clay. By tongue and pen, Franklin at length succeeded in having the

spaces between the market and the foot pavements of the streets flanking it

laid with stone. The result was that for a season a market woman could

reach the market dry-shod, but, in the course of time, the pavements became

loaded with mud shaken off the wheels of passing vehicles, and this mud,

after being thus deposited, was allowed, for lack of street cleaners, to

remain where it fell. Here was an inviting situation, indeed, for such a

municipal housewife as Franklin. Having hunted up a poor, industrious man,

who was willing to contract for the sum of sixpence per month, per house,

to sweep up and carry away the dirt in front of the houses abutting on

these pavements, he wrote and published a paper setting forth the marked

advantages to the neighborhood that would result from such a small

expenditure--the reduced amount of mud that people would carry around on

their shoes, the readier access that customers would have to the shops near

the market, freedom from wind-borne dust and other kindred benefits not

likely to escape the attention of a man to whom even the dust of unpaved

streets suggested the following reflections in the _Autobiography_:

Human felicity is produc'd not so much by great pieces

of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little

advantages that occur every day. Thus, if you teach a

poor young man to shave himself, and keep his razor in

order, you may contribute more to the happiness of his

life than in giving him a thousand guineas. The money

may be soon spent, the regret only remaining of having

foolishly consumed it; but in the other case, he

escapes the frequent vexation of waiting for barbers,

and of their sometimes dirty fingers, offensive

breaths, and dull razors; he shaves when most

convenient to him, and enjoys daily the pleasure of

its being done with a good instrument.

A copy of the paper was sent to each house affected by its proposals, every

householder agreed to pay his sixpence, and the sense of comfort

experienced by the entire population of Philadelphia in the more commodious

use of the market prepared their minds for the bill which Franklin later

introduced into the Assembly providing for the paving of the whole city. He

was on the point of embarking on his second voyage to England when this was

done, and the bill was not passed until after he was gone, and then with an

alteration in his method of assessing the paving cost which his judgment

did not deem an improvement; but the bill as passed contained a further

provision for lighting as well as paving the streets of Philadelphia which

he did deem a great improvement. The merit of first suggesting the hospital

Franklin is studious to tell us, though ascribed to him, was due to Dr.

Bond. So likewise he is quick to admit that the honor of giving the first

impulse to municipal lighting in Philadelphia did not belong to him, as had

been supposed, but to John Clifton, who had placed a private lamp at his

own door. Franklin simply followed Clifton's example; but, when the city

began to light its streets, his fertile mind did bring forward a novel idea

which proved a highly useful one. Instead of the globes imported from

London which became so black and opaque from smoke for lack of air, when

the lamps were lighted, that they had to be cleaned every day, and which,

moreover, were totally wrecked by a single blow, he suggested that the

coverings for the city lamps should be composed of four flat panes, with a

long funnel above and inlets below for the free circulation of air. The

result was a covering that remained untarnished until morning and was not

involved in complete ruin by a single fracture.

Such were some of the principal achievements of Franklin for the benefit of

Philadelphia. It is not easy to magnify unduly their significance when we

bear in mind that they were all crowded into a period of some thirty years

during the greater part of which he was faithfully heeding Poor Richard's

maxim, "Keep thy shop and thy shop will keep thee"; to say nothing of the

claims upon his time of political duties and scientific studies and

experiments. Franklin was not the Romulus of Philadelphia; nor was he its

Augustus, who found it of brick and left it of marble. There was solid

brick enough in the structure of American colonial life, but little marble.

However, it can at least be said of him that rarely has any single private

individual, with no great fortune, and with no control over the public

purse except what is conferred by the favor of public opinion won by

personal intelligence and public spirit, laid the foundations of so much

that was of lasting and increasing utility to an infant community destined

to become one of the populous and opulent cities of the world. In how many

other respects his sympathy with human interests in their broader relations

made its influence felt in Colonial America we can only conjecture, but in

many ways, in addition to those already mentioned, its fructifying results

have been brought home to us. It was at his instance that the merchants of

Philadelphia sent the ship _Argo_ to the Arctics to discover a Northwest

Passage. Kalm, the Swedish botanist, when he came to Pennsylvania, found in

him a most helpful friend and patron. He labored untiringly to obtain for

Bartram, the American naturalist, the recognition which he richly merited.

One of the proudest days of his life was when his eager exertions in behalf

of silk culture in Pennsylvania were rewarded by the knowledge that the

Queen of England had not only graciously condescended to accept a sample of

Pennsylvania silk tendered to her by him but proposed to wear it in the

form of a dress. During his third sojourn in England, the hospital at home

was frequently reminded of the strength of his concern for its welfare by

gifts and suggestions more valuable than gifts. To him was entrusted the

commission of purchasing a telescope and other instruments for the

Astronomical School at Harvard College. To the library of Harvard he

occasionally forwarded parcels of books, either his own gifts or gifts from

his friends. In addition to his zealous efforts in the latter part of his

life in behalf of negro emancipation and the relief of the free blacks, he

was for several years one of the associates charged with the management of

the Bray Fund for the conversion of negroes in the British plantations. He

was also a trustee of the Society for the benefit of poor Germans, one of

the objects of which was the establishment of English schools in the German

communities which had become so numerous in Pennsylvania. It was high time

that this object should receive the attention of the Englishry of the

province as one of his letters indicates.

I remember [he said in 1753 in a letter to Richard

Jackson] when they [the Germans] modestly declined

intermeddling in our Elections, but now they come in

Droves and carry all before them, except in one or two

Counties.

Few of their Children in the Country learn English.

They import many Books from Germany; and of the six

Printing-Houses in the Province, two are entirely

German, two half German half English, and but two

entirely English. They have one German Newspaper, and

one half-German. Advertisements, intended to be

general, are now printed in Dutch and English. The

Signs in our Streets have Inscriptions in both

Languages, and in some places only German. They begin

of late to make all their Bonds and other legal

Instruments in their own Language, which (though I

think it ought not to be) are allowed good in our

Courts, where the German Business so increases, that

there is continued need of Interpreters; and I suppose

in a few Years they will also be necessary in the

Assembly to tell one half of our Legislators what the

other half say.[13]

As we are said to be indebted to Jefferson for the introduction into

America of the Lombardy poplar so it is said that we are indebted to

Franklin for the domestication of the yellow willow so useful in the

manufacture of wicker-work. The story is that his observant eye noted the

sprouts, which a willow basket from abroad had put forth, when refreshed by

the water of a creek into which it had been tossed, and that he was at

pains to plant some of them on a lot in Philadelphia. Apparently, he was

the first person, too, to introduce the rhubarb plant into America. He

obtained seed of the broom-corn on one of his visits to Virginia, and took

care to disseminate it in Pennsylvania and other Colonies. When the

Pennsylvania farmers were skeptical about the value of plaster, he framed

in that substance on the surface of a conspicuous field the words: "THIS

HAS BEEN PLASTERED," which were soon rewritten in vegetation that rose

legibly above the general level of its surroundings. One of his suggestions

was an "office of insurance" on the mutual assessment plan against losses

from storms, blights, insects, etc., suffered by farmers. Among his essays

is a concise but highly instructive one on Maize, or Indian Corn, which was

well calculated to make known to the world a plant now hardly less prized

by the American for its general usefulness than the date-palm is by the

Arab. John Adams informs us in his _Diary_ that, on one occasion, when in

Massachusetts, Franklin mentioned that Rhenish grape-vines had been

recently planted at Philadelphia, and had succeeded very well, whereupon

his host, Edmund Quincy, expressed the wish that he could plant some in his

own garden. A few weeks later Quincy received a bundle of the Rhenish slips

by sea from Franklin, and a little later another by post.