On the 5th of June following he writes to Charles W. F. Dumas:

I approve much of the principles of the confederacy of the neutral powers, and am not only for respecting the ships as the house of a friend, though containing the goods of an enemy, but I even wish, for the sake of humanity, that the law of nations may be further improved by determining that even in time of war all those kinds of people who are employed in procuring subsistence for the species, or in exchanging the necessaries or conveniences of life, which are for the common benefit of mankind, such as husbandmen on their lands, fishermen in their barks, and traders in unarmed vessels, shall be permitted to prosecute their several innocent and useful employments without interruption or molestation, and nothing taken from them, even when wanted by the enemy, but on paying a fair price for the

same.

Franklin incorporated this idea in the last diplomatic act of his lifethe treaty with Prussia-which was so highly commended by Washington.

On the 15th of May, 1781, in his letter to Samuel Cooper, expressing sentiments on the adoption of the new constitution of Massachusetts, 2 he again illustrates his faith in the power of the people to adjust themselves to new conditions:

It gives me great pleasure to learn that your new constitution is at length settled with so great a degree of unanimity and general satisfaction. It seems to me upon the whole an excellent one, and that if there are some parts that one might have wished a little different they are such as could not in the present state of things have been well obtained otherwise than they are, and if by experience found inconvenient will probably be changed hereafter.

He disapproved the provision in the constitution for public taxation to maintain the clergy; did not think it right to tax Quakers and others who do not approve of the New England ecclesiastical system, and advocated that abolition of religious qualifications which was effected in Massachusetts in 1820, and before the close of the first quarter of the present century had disappeared from nearly all the State constitutions. Franklin, like Jefferson, disapproved of both property and religious qualifications for the exercise of the franchise.

Franklin's utilitarian ideas appear on every page of his writings. The custom in America of planting rows of trees along our streets, which has added a touch of beauty to our towns, had the approval of Franklin, who said in a letter to Francis Hopkinson of December 24, 1782:

I own I now wish we had two rows of them in every one of our streets. The comfortable shelter they would afford us when walking, from our burning summer suns, and the greater coolness of our walls and pavements, would, I conceive, in the improved health of the inhabitants, amply compensate the loss of a house now and then by fire, if such should be the consequence; but a tree is soon felled, and as axes are at hand in every neighborhood, may be down before the engines arrive.

It is noticeable that an argument now common for the planting of trees, the additional beauty of the street, is not suggested by Franklin.

John Adams' criticism on this point, p. 171.

2 The constitution of 1780, the only one of the eighteenth-century State constitutions now in force was amended in 1820 to abolish religious qualifications.

It probably did not occur to him. Seldom indeed does he advocate the beautiful when the utilitarian is also an argument. He was somewhat of a Philistine in his notions, and his constant repetition of the useful and the beneficial resolves his whole scheme of education into a broad system, which, though promoting the general welfare, would be none the less strong if embellished with an element of the beautiful. To Franklin the cooling shade of the tree and the consequent improved health of the inhabitants was the chief reason for planting the trees along our streets, but we occasionally yearn in Franklin's writings for a few words that would intimate an occasional appreciation of a thingthat was not merely an industrial improvement or an instrument for material comfort. Franklin was deficient in the sense of the beautiful and throughout his scheme for the education of children, and in whatsoever intimations of his ideas of education there may be scattered through his works, we can gather little that encourages the study of art for art's sake. He was fond of music and was a discriminating listener. We should not forget that the American colonies were meagerly supplied with beautiful things, that their amusements were somewhat rude, and they had few notions of the artistic in education. Franklin, too, was born in New England, and the plain, substantial comforts of his New England home always satisfied his ideals of life. As he knew nothing of the artistic in his own training and education, he made no provision for it in the education of others. We may say, then, that in the whole effort of American education to teach the beautiful in art, music, painting, and drawing we have an education which was not begun by Franklin. But in our industrial schools, our technical schools, our manualtraining schools, and our means for teaching and acquiring skill in the applied arts we have the consummation of Franklin's most cherished notions in education.

From Bayne's journal we have a brief but interesting account of Franklin's conversation on a number of important matters. John Bayne, an intimate friend of Sir Samuel Rommilly, visited Franklin at Passy in August, 1783. It is of this visit that Rommily wrote in his journal: Of all the celebrated persons whom in my life I have chanced to see, Dr. Franklin, both from his appearance and his conversation, seemed to me the most remarkable, The conversation on American politics led Dr. Franklin to express his belief in universal suffrage. He said he thought that "the all of one man was as dear to him as the all of another;" though he excluded from participation in the franchise minors, servants, and others liable to undue influence. We should not forget that at this time religious and property qualifications obtained in nearly all the American States, and the abolition of these qualifications did not come until Franklin had been dead fifty years. Franklin's love of mankind led him to advocate manhood suffrage, and he stands with the Jeffersonian school, in this respect.

In this conversation Franklin advanced a favorite notion of his-that

he inclined to doubt of the necessity of having teachers or ministers for the express purpose of instructing the people in their religious duties," and approved of the system among the Quakers, who have no preachers, their mode of instruction encouraging all to participate in the meeting who think themselves qualified to contribute to the welfare of their neighbors.

He thought that the general peace of Europe might be secured if the powers would refer all disputes between each other to some third person or set of men or power. Other nations, seeing the advantage of this, would gradually accede, and perhaps in one hundred and fifty or two hundred years all Europe would be included." His mind was so universal in its consideration of the wants of mankind and he was so accustomed to consider matters of international concern that he arrived at the solution of international difficulties-arbitration-generations before it was actually employed. The humane and peaceful method of arriving at a judgment in disputes between nations, such as has been witnessed in the settlement of the Alabama claims, conforms with Franklin's views expressed eighty eight years before. This anticipation of the condition of international affairs of the future suggests again that Franklin would have contributed to the world a system of international law had none existed before his day.

Amidst the cares of public office his mind turned to the scenes of his boyhood, and there is a delightful touch of nature in his expression of his feelings concerning his native place, expressed in a letter to Samuel Mather, written at Passy, May 12, 1784:

Ilong much to see my native place and to lay my bones there. I left it in 1723; I visited it in 1733, 1743, 1753, 1763. In 1773 I was in England; in 1775 I had a sight of it, but could not enter it, being in the possession of the enemy. I had hoped to have been there in 17×3, but could not obtain my dismission from this employment here, and now I fear I shall never have that happiness. My best wishes, however, attend my dear country: Esto perpetua! It is now blessed with an excellent constitution. May it last forever.

Few indeed of New England birth are there who do not feel with Franklin a strong desire at times to revisit their native place. The wish of Franklin that the constitution of his native place might be perpetual seems in process of fulfillment, for the constitution of 1780, which Franklin knew, remains the supreme law of Massachusetts,

The estimate which we have placed upon the work of Franklin is quite like that which his contemporaries placed upon that work. On the 26th of July, 1784, the Count de Campomanes, writing from Madrid, acknowledged through Mr. Camichael, a letter from Franklin and a collection of his miscellaneous writings.

All these writings [continued he] exhibit proofs of their having proceeded from a statesman endowed with foresight and vigilant for the best interests of his country, according to the political combinations and systems of government under which they were composed, and they manifest, at the same time, founded on prin ciples and calculations carried to as high a degree of demonstration as the vicissi

tude and inconsistency of the various systems adopted for the government of men will admit. Your views and reflections show the solidity and permanence of your principles, whether considered as applicable to the American colonies in their former condition, or in that of independent States. In both cases your efforts have been directed to the general good, without running into those extremes which are apt to lead astray weak minds in so long and arduous a contest, as we have seen in America, for the establishment of a new State, consisting of thirteen provinces under different constitutions, and, at last, united in a bond of union for the mutual benefit of each other. Nature, which you so profoundly studied, is indebted to you for investigating and explaining phenomena which wise men had not before been able to understand; and the great American philosopher, at the same time he discovers these phenomena, suggests useful methods for guarding men against their dangers.

Franklin was fond of suggesting the future greatness of America; its increasing population, its acquisition of territory, and the spread of the English language not only throughout America, but throughout the world. In a letter to William Strahan, Passy, August 19, 1784, he touches on this:

By the way, the rapid growth and extension of the English language in America must become greatly advantageous to the booksellers and holders of copyright in England. A vast audience is assembling there for English authors, ancient, present, and future, our people doubling every twenty years; and this will demand large and of course profitable impressions of your most valuable books. I would, therefore, if I possessed such rights, entail them, if such a thing be practicable, upon my posterity; for their worth will be continually augmenting.

This is a prophecy of the circulation of Macaulay, Thackeray, Dickens, Tennyson, and other writers who have found their largest audiences in America. The recent perfection of the international copyright tends to the realization of Franklin's suggestion of "entailing" such rights to the advantage of the posterity of English writers. In the same

letter he says:

The subject, however, leads me to another thought, which is that you do wrong to discourage the emigration of Englishmen to America. In my piece on population I have proved, I think, that emigration does not diminish, but multiplies a nation. You will not have fewer at home for those that go abroad, and as every man who comes among us and takes up a piece of land becomes a citizen, and by our Constitution has a voice in elections and a share in the Government of the country, why should you be against acquiring by this fair means a repossession of it, and leave it to be taken by foreigners of all nations and languages, who by their numbers may drown and stifle the English, which otherwise would probably become in the course of two centuries the most extensive language in the world, the Spanish only excepted? It is a fact that the Irish emigrants and their children are now in possession of the Government of Pennsylvania by their majority in the Assembly, as well as of a great part of the territory, and I remember well the first ship that brought any of them

over.

The present agitation of the question of immigration, based upon the danger to American institutions of stifling their Anglo-Saxon character, suggests how true was Franklin's anticipation. It is also true that the occupation of Central and South America by Spain made the Spanish language one of the imperial languages of the world, and that Spanish and English, a century after Franklin wrote this letter, are the two

most extensive languages in the new world. These wise judgments of Franklin were based upon intuition, rather than upon reason, for many of the elements which would enter into such a conclusion were beyond the view of Franklin. We should not forget that facilities for acquiring the almost innumerable data which lead to such conclusions were greatly limited in his time, and the comprehensive character of his mental operations becomes the more remarkable when we reflect upon the limitations under which such operations proceeded. As a case in point, we might refer to Mr. Bryce's American Commonwealth, a remarkable book, produced by a scholarly and sympathizing Englishman, whose intuitions equipped him to describe American institutions, but whose reasons for the character of our institutions are frequently defective. There must be in Franklin's philosophy a dependence upon the intuitions rather than a scheme for the enlargement of the reasoning powers; he observed, he felt, he knew; speculation attracted him but little, and he judged of the utilities almost wholly by intuition.

After the war it was realized by thoughtful Americans that the Articles of Confederation were defective, and that a National Constitution was necessary. I can not follow minutely the thoughts and the work of Franklin for the National Constitution, but there are several passages in his writings which illustrate his views. Writing to George Whateley, from Passy, May 23, 1785, he says:

Our Constitution seems not to be well understood with you. If the Congress were a permanent body, there would be more reason in being jealous of giving it powers. But its members are chosen annually; can not be chosen more than three years successively, nor more than three years in seven; and any of them may be recalled at any time, whenever their constituents shall be dissatisfied with their conduct. They are of the people, and return again to mix with the people, having no more durable preeminence than the different grains of sand in an hourglass. Such an assembly can not easily become dangerous to liberty. They are the servants of the people, sent together to do the people's business, and promote the public welfare; their powers must be sufficient, or their duties can not be performed.

He did not value highly the mere forms of government, and his keen recognition of the essential importance of administration, rather than elaborate statements of the theory of government, is repeatedly set forth from this time on. Destined himself to participate in the making of the National Constitution, it is interesting to follow the communication of his own ideas, gained through his long and useful public life. I think I interpret him correctly when I say that he valued a useful administration of government more highly than a good form of government badly administered. Perhaps Franklin displays the greatness of his practical judgment nowhere more instructively than in his appreciation of the importance of administration of government. The eighteenth century produced many eminent men who contributed to

'See his last speech in the convention of 1787, in which he says: "I think a general government necessary for us, and there is no form of government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered." P. 13, supra.