and had great influence in centering the attention of Europe upon America. It is also known that the statesmen who coöperated in the formation of the United States, Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Jay, Morris, and others were brought up in the new school of Adam Smith. The Wealth of Nations had a most important influence in the organization of government in America (1776 to 1789); the doctrines of Smith are traceable in the debates of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and references to the influence of the Wealth of Nations are scattered through the works of the statesmen of the period.'

It is not too much to say that Franklin's influence on economic education is illustrative of his whole educational doctrine. He gave to Adam Smith apt illustrations of the utility of the ideas of the Wealth of Nations. So great had been the changes in America due to its development that the illustrations in the Wealth of Nations which bear particularly upon the American colonies are now hardly estimated at their original value; it should be remembered that this book, which Buckle calls "the most important book ever written," and "the most valuable contribution ever made by a single man toward establishing the principles on which governments should be based," was the first work by a European scholar which made use of the American colonies as apt illustrations of its doctrines and pointed to those colonies as the country where the new political economy should develop in all its strength. Had Franklin done nothing else in the world than contribute these illustrations to Adam Smith's book, he would have had a high place among the great educators of mankind. As the first book on the economic basis of modern government in America, the Wealth of Nations should be classed with the Federalist, De Tocqueville's Democracy in America, and Bryce's American Commonwealth.

Franklin influenced English opinion by his association with the leading men of the times. A suggestion only can be made of the educational influence of such association by mentioning some of Franklin's English friends. Particular examination of the diaries and journals. of the public men of the time would illustrate the extent of Franklin's influence; he was intimate with Burke, Hume, Lord Kames, Sir John Pringle, Dr. Fothergill, Dr. Cannon, Dr. Richard Price, Dr. Priestley, and the Bishop of St. Asaph's; Lord Shelbourne, the Marquis of Rockingham, Lord de Lespencer, Lord Bathurst, Lord North, the astronomer Maskyline, and Lord Morton, were among his acquaintances.

But

'Mr. Joseph Wharton, founder of the Wharton School of Finance and Economy in the University of Pennsylvania, has in his possession Washington's copy of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, the edition in four volumes. Some errors in the proof are corrected in Washington's hand and there is other evidence that he had read the work carefully.

2Prof. John Bach McMaster tells me that references to the Wealth of Nations are numerous in the newspapers and pamphlets of this period, 1777-1730. [Editor.]

it was with Dr. Priestley, Dr. Shipley, the bishop of St. Asaph, and David Hume, that Franklin was most intimate.

A conversation between Franklin and Priestley is recorded when one evening, at the Royal Society, the question arose as to what was the most desirable invention that remained to be made. To which Franklin replied, "the spinning of two threads at the same time." We are told that before Franklin left London, Hargraves and Arkwright had perfected machinery by which forty threads were spun by the same motion.1

Franklin's reply is illustrative of his utilitarianism; he lived in the days of leather breeches and vests, and even of greatcoats, when the poor were not clad in comfort. So expensive was woolen cloth that a family was obliged to make full use of it when once in their possession, and, as is attested by the recorded wills of thousands of Americans of that time, the personal apparel of the parents was transmitted to the individual members of the family."

Franklin's services to his country by educating England to an understanding of the conditions of the American colonies were temporarily suspended by his return to America in 1775, when it seemed to many that he had failed in securing the object of his mission. Subsequent events, however, proved that his humorous contributions to the newspapers, in which he discussed in a broad way the American situation, had educated the public mind and his intimacy with men and women of eminence and learning had laid the foundations of a political party.

Franklin's writings seem the spontaneous production of an easy mind; on the contrary, they are the result of painstaking effort, of repeated interlineation, revision, and rewriting, and his best pieces were rewritten seven or eight times before he published them. Among the Franklin papers in Washington are many which are the successive copies of such pieces. It is surprising at first thought that a man so busy as Franklin could find time and would have the patience to give such detailed attention to the pieces which he wrote for the pleasure of his friends, but Franklin loved details and excelled in the exquisite practice of literary refinement until his anecdote or his scientific paper, freed from all useless words, illustrated the standard of the simple and concise style which he so frequently pronounced most perfect. His frequent defense of an English education was doubtless suggested by his own patience and experience in writing these perfect productions in his own tongue. He could not see any advantage in traveling along an Italian Row, a Spanish Row, and a French Row in the midst of this

"There are spinning mules in operation now in the city of Philadelphia which will spin one thousand threads at a time." [Charles Heber Clarke to Editor.] History of New England," remarks on

2 See Weeden's "Social and Economic "cloth" and "textile fabrics."

literary Vanity Fair when the English way was so direct, so convenient, and so plain.'

Franklin never outgrew the lessons of his own efforts in self-education. Perhaps no better illustration of the effects of education upon the mind when men are called to decide on important matters is found than in the curious judgment of the committee appointed by Congress July 4, 1776, consisting of Franklin, Jefferson, and John Adams, to prepare a device for a seal for the General Government. The various devices proposed by the members of the committee suggest the education which each had received in his boyhood. We learn from Adams that Dr. Franklin proposed as a device, "Moses lifting up his wand and dividing the Red Sea, and Pharaoh in his chariot overwhelmed with the waters." The motto, "Rebellion to Tyrants is obedience to God." Probably Franklin's memory of his home training in Milk Street, where his childish ideas were colored by incidents in Jewish history, may explain the origin of this device.

Jefferson proposed as a device, "The children of Israel in the wilderness; led by a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night; and on the other side, Hengist and Horsa, the Saxon chiefs, from whom we claim the honor of being descended, and whose political principles and form of Government we have assumed." Evidently Jefferson's youthful training was not wholly biblical and the curious mixture of Hebraism and British mythology was characteristic of the constructive Jeffersonian politics.

Adams forgot his Old Testament training and thought the choice. should be of Hercules, "as engraved by Gribelin in some editions of Lord Shaftesbury's works. The hero resting on his club; Virtue point-. ing to her rugged mountain on one hand and persuading him to ascend; Sloth, glancing at her flowery paths of pleasure, wantonly reclining on the ground, displaying the charms both of her eloquence and person, to seduce him into vice." John Adams had read Lord Shaftesbury at the turning point of his youthful education, and characteristically leaving the plain illustrations of Hebrew history, he preferred the abstractions of the founder of North Carolina.

It might be thought that in suggesting a seal for the United States Franklin would have proposed a figure of a saw, or a hammer, or a printing press. We are told that after nearly six weeks' deliberation Moses and Pharaoh and Hengist and Horsa and Lord Shaftesbury were left behind, and the committee proposed an emblematic seal suggestive of the composite character of American institutions: "A rose for England, a thistle for Scotland, a harp for Ireland, a fleur-de-lis for France, a black eagle for Germany, a lion for the Low Countries." The United

1See his Observations Relative to the Intentions of the Original Founders of the Academy in Philadelphia, in which he vigorously defends an English education.

2The Seal of the United States, how it was developed and adopted; Washington, Department of State, 1892.

States was to appear upon the border by its initials, and the goddess of liberty in armor, with a spear, cap, and shield, was to support the emblazonment; Justice, with her naked sword, was to guard all. All was to be under "the eye of Providence in a radiant triangle, whose glory extends over the shield and beyond the figures. Motto: 'E Pluribus Unum." And round the whole the legend "Seal of the United States of America, MDCCLXXVI.” Franklin seems to have won the committee to his idea, and on the other side of the seal Pharaoh was to sit in his chariot, with a crown on his head and a sword in his hand, passing through the divided waters of the Red Sea in pursuit of the fleeing Israelites. But even here Franklin illustrated his diplomacy by compromising with Jefferson in the device of a pillar of fire in a cloud, expressive of the Divine presence which beamed on Moses, who stood on the shore extending his hand over the waters and causing the fearful overflow. Franklin's motto was retained. Happily for the device on our national seal, Dr. Franklin at this time was sent to France and other committees, following out the suggestions of Franklin's famous story of the hatter, suppressed all of the original design except the motto and the eye of Providence.

It was on this voyage to France, rough and painful, that Franklin, though suffering the miseries of unwholesome accommodations and almost continuous sea-sickness, "contrived every day to take the temperature of the ocean, in order to verify anew his discovery of the warmth of the Gulf Stream." He could no more resist the opportunity of making experiments than he could resist being cheerful. An interesting collection of data might be made from his writings illustrative of his notions on experimentation. It may be said that scarcely a page of his collected works fails to contain some suggestion of experiment to determine the usefulness of a proposition. Franklin's chief influence in American education is due to his starting this enginery of experiment, and in the wake of his useful life there followed a noble number of distinguished men who have contributed to the welfare of mankind by their experiments in connection with institutions founded by Franklin, or under the impulse of his ideas, such as the University of Pennsylvania, the American Philosophical Society, and the Franklin Institute.

In France Franklin continued to educate Europe in American affairs, and not only in American affairs but in the principles of representative government. He put into the hands of Dr. Dubourg1 a volume of the first constitutions of the American States, and superintended their translation into French. It is of these constitutions that Thomas Paine said "they were to liberty what grammar is to language; they define its parts of speech and practically construct them into syntax." Their publication was resisted for a long time by the French Government, but pub

'It was M. Dubourg who had been chiefly instrumental in publishing many of Franklin's letters on electricity.

lic opinion at last forced their publication. The effect of bringing American ideas before the people of France is touched on in Franklin's letter to Dr. Samuel Cooper in May, 1777:

All Europe is on our side of the question as far as applause and good wishes can carry them. Those who live under arbitrary power do nevertheless approve of liberty, and wish for it; they almost despair of recovering it in Europe; they read the translations of our separate colony (?) constitutions with rapture; and there are such numbers of them everywhere who talk of removing to America, with their families and fortunes, as soon as peace and our independence shall be established, that it is generally believed we shall have a prodigious addition of strength, wealth, and arts, from the emigrations of Europe; and it is thought that, to lessen or prevent such emigrations, the tyrannies established there must relax, and allow more liberty to their people. Hence it is a common observation here, that our cause is the cause of all mankind, and that we are fighting for their liberty in defending our

own.

This passage illustrates much of Franklin's economy; he would appeal to the public, he would induce immigration at a time when immigration was almost unknown, when the difficulties in the way of the German or French or Dutch family who would find a home in America were sufficient to keep them in their own country. Franklin would proceed on universal principles and make his cause "the cause of all mankind." He touched the French mind at the point when the slightest friction kindled a flame, and the effect of the publication of these American Constitutions in hastening and shaping the French Revolution is beyond computation. It is known that Turgot and Neckar opposed French aid to the American Colonies on the ground of the tremendous cost to France, not merely in depleting the treasury, but in undermining the monarchy.

It is Franklin's work in France that gave expression there to the philosophy of David Hume and the economy of Adam Smith. Doubtless these three men, Franklin, Hume, and Adam Smith, were the triumvirate of the eighteenth century. The philosophy of Hume, the economy of Adam Smith, and the practicality of Franklin represent the three controlling ideas in that creative period; to these three influences, cooperating at a critical time in the development of constitutional government, the world owes the development of modern science, of modern industry, and the triumph of representative government. The meeting of three such forces in the world by the communion of Frankline and Hume and Smith in their conversations in Edinburgh, suggests a subject for philosophical examination.

In Franklin's "Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania" he told the reader that

The idea of what is true merit should also be often presented to youth, explained, and impressed on their minds as consisting in the inclination joined with the ability to serve mankind, one's country, friends, and family, which ability is, with the blessing of God, to be acquired or greatly increased by true learning, and should indeed be the great aim and end of all learning.