Benjamin Franklin: Self-Revealed, Volume 1 — Chapter 3, Franklin, the Philanthropist and Citizen, Part 2

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."