In his plan for the education of youth in Pennsylvania Franklin outlines his ideas of university training, but all the parts of the Proposals are not wholly after Franklin's ideas. Franklin discovered that his idea of an English school education was not sufficient to win the financial support of all the subscribers. Many of them thought that provision should be made for the study of the ancient languages, and it was in order to gain the advantage of the support of these gentlemen that Franklin, in his spirit of compromise, inserted this clause:

When youth are told that the great men, whose lives and actions they read in history, spoke two of the best languages that ever were, the most expressive, copious, beautiful; and that the finest writings, the most correct compositions, the most perfect productions of human wit and wisdom, are in those languages, which have endured for ages, and will endure while there are men; that no translation can do them justice, or give the pleasure found in reading the originals; that those languages contain all science; that one of them is become almost universal, being the language of learned men in all countries; and that to understand them is a distinguishing ornament; they may be thereby made desirous of learning those languages and their industry sharpened in the acquisition of them. All intended for divinity should be taught Latin and Greek; for physic, the Latin, Greek, and French; for law, the Latin and French; for merchants, the French, German, and Spanish; and, though all should not be compelled to learn Latin, Greek, or the modern foreign languages, yet none that have an ardent to learn them should be refused; their English, arithmetic, and other studies absolutely necessary, being at the same time not neglected.

To strengthen his defense of English studies he wrote at this time his Sketch of an English School', which was printed in pamphlet form at his press but did not receive much attention. At the opening of the Academy Mr. Peters preached a sermon which was favorably received and printed in pamphlet form at Franklin's press; with characteristic sagacity Franklin sewed together his pamphlet, "A Sketch of an English School," with Mr. Peters's sermon and so got his notions before the public. Forty years after the foundation of the Academy, Franklin wrote his Observations Relating to the Intentions of the Original Founders of the Academy in Philadelphia, which are appended, and in which may be found an elaboration of his views with respect to education. He anticipated the revolt against the classics which has come in our day and has resolved Latin and Greek into the region of the dead. It is not inexpedient to say that Franklin's idea of studying such languages as would be of utility to those who pursued them is the correct principle in that department of education. In conformity with Franklin's notion we have the modern elective course, which is the practical result of Franklin's challenge of the advantage and utility of compelling all persons who pursue higher education to pursue the same subjects in the same way for different ends. It will be noticed that there is a touch of humorous satire when Franklin writes in a spirit of compromise that "no translations can do the finest writings in Latin and Greek justice," or give the "pleasure found in reading

See page 36, supra.

the originals," and that these languages contain all science." It should not be forgotten, however, that Franklin owed his fame to the publi cation of his electrical investigations in the Latin tongue as well as in French, Spanish, and Italian.

When he spoke for the study of modern languages and the resolution of Latin and Greek to a secondary place in modern education, he was confronting the entire educational opinion of his times. The first struggle between the old system and Franklin's ideas of the new education occurred in Philadelphia in the very institution which Franklin had been instrumental in founding, and the history of that struggle is told by Franklin himself two years before his death.1

It will be noted that in Franklin's plan of a school there was a provision for the education of poor children. He had clear ideas respecting the education of orphans, and the doctrines of equity regulated his ideas of charity. His Hints for Consideration Respecting the Orphan SchoolHouses in Philadelphia' formulate the large experience of his life in charitable matters. He laid down controlling principles for such an institution, as follows: (1) For the regular inspection of the institution; (2) That the labor of the orphans should not be made for the profit of the establishment; (3) That an account should be opened with each orphan, crediting him with his labor, and debiting him for the maintenance of his education; (4) At his discharge on coming of age, his accounts should be balanced, and he should be urged and in honor bound to pay any indebtedness, and he should receive any credit due him; (5) Upon leaving the institution, he should receive decent clothing, some money, and, if deserving, a certificate of good behavior; (6) The institution should aid him in entering upon a business or securing a position in life. Stephen Girard seems to have been influenced by these principles 3 in founding Girard College.

At 53 Franklin had become, by the application of his own maxims, a man of independent fortune, and much respected by his neighbors, and of good reputation throughout the colonies. There had been a long and bitter dispute in Pennsylvania, respecting the rights of the Proprietaries and of the Assembly, chiefly turning upon the question whether the estates of the Penns should be taxed as other realty in the Province was taxed. Franklin had earnestly and efficiently advocated the rights of the Assembly, and it was as their representative that he went to England in 1757. His biographer remarks that— It was Franklin who chiefly educated the colonies in the knowledge of their rights Hedid this in many ways, by his Junto, by his newspaper, by his conversation, by the libraries founded through him, by the taste for science which he communicated, but especially by the ardor and ability with which he waged this long warfare against arrogant stupidity embodied in the degenerate offspring of William Penn.

See infra the Observations, etc.

2 See the Hints, p. 52, supra.

3 See Girard College, p, 189.

His experiments in electricity had already been recognized in England and in France, and he was welcomed by the literary and learned men of the time. Franklin's defects in education were never suspected by the academic world that sought his society.' He was a genius in his capacity for reading, a good listener, and though easy in his manners, gay and witty, he never sought to indulge the company with "flashes of silence." No sooner had he settled in London than his instinct to effect improvements showed itself, and smoky street lamps and filthy streets were the object of his attention. It is not my purpose to write a biography of Franklin, nor even to catalogue his experiments, but by reference to some of them to suggest the utilitarian character of the man and the origin of his educational ideas.

The inattention of the ministry afforded him an opportunity for travel, and in 1757 he visited Scotland, where the University of St. Andrews conferred upon him the title of Doctor, by which he has ever since been known. Here he met Hume, Robertson, and Lord Kames, and it is thought by one of his biographers that Franklin's remark to Dr. Robertson "suggested the well-known Macaulayan image of the New Zealander sitting upon the arch of London Bridge contemplating the ruin of St. Paul's."2

But Franklin was engaged in a larger service for his countrymen than the favorable acquaintance of eminent men; he was almost continually writing and printing pamphlets on the American Colonies for the enlightenment of the English public. The dark and dreary waste of English opinion on the Americans at that time seemed impervious to the beams of Franklin's genius, and he succeeded but feebly at first in piercing that darkness, but the rays of his intelligence at last fell upon fertile soil and there sprang up a liberal party in the kingdom, which, at last, laid hold of the Government and compelled the acknowledgment of American independence.

The usefulness of Franklin at this time may be understood by any who choose to read his numerous pamphlets and his letters. Franklin's farsightedness is illustrated in one of his cherished opinions expressed to Lord Kames, "that the foundations of the future grandeur and stability of the British Empire lie in America." He opposed the restoration of Canada to the French, saying:

If we keep it, all the country from the St. Lawrence to the Mississippi will, in another century, be filled with British people; Britain itself will become vastly more populous, by the immense increase of its commerce, the Atlantic Sea will be covered with your trading ships, and your naval power, thus continually increasing, will extend your influence round the whole globe and awe the world.

He ever believed and labored to effect that Canada and the Thirteen Colonies should comprise a political unit, and it was only by a blunder

1Instance the honorary degrees he received from William and Mary College, St. Andrew's, Oxford, and Cambridge.

2 Parton.

of his colleague in Paris, when the final treaty of peace was made in 1783, that England failed to include Canada with the United States.'

Franklin not only educated the colonies, but he educated England, and perhaps the most telling lesson that he imparted to the British public was in his examination before the House of Commons in 1765. For the first time England received true information of the state of the colonies, and the information was conveyed to the masters of England themselves. The examination of Franklin before the House of Commons was by no means an accidental or impromptu affair, but nearly all the questions and their answers were arranged beforehand by Franklin and his friends among the liberal members of Parliament. This attorney-like proceeding does not affect the value of the evidence, but by timely shaping the examination it concentrated, in the brief period when Franklin was before the House, all possible information that could be elicited from the best-informed man in the colonies. In this examination Franklin was at home, and he himself played the first part in the most Socratic dialogue in parliamentary history. The whole examination was after Franklin's own heart, and singularly in keeping with his own self-education. Experience and observation equipped him for the task, and his triumph is the proof of the excellence of his method.2

Franklin had a unique method of educating the British public, and he had learned it in his apprentice days in Boston and during the long struggle between the assembly and the proprietaries in Pennsylvania. The method is characteristic of all his political writings; it was by briefly setting the whole question in dispute in a humorous light, by which the reader might see his way to the true conclusion, that is, the conclusion which Franklin wished drawn. This method of political enlightenment is unquestionably good in journalism and in pamphleteering, and has its uses in book-making and public speaking; but this very tendency in Franklin, it is said, excluded him from being asked by his contemporaries to write any of the great state papers of colonial times. It would hardly do to put a joke into the Declaration of Independence. Franklin's English pamphlets are exquisite political hits, of which two are particularly famous: "Rules for reducing a Great Empire to a Small One, Presented to a Late Minister" (Lord Hillsboro, when he entered upon his ministry), and "An Edict of the King of Prussia." These two articles show one phase of Franklin at great advantage. He was the first American humorist.

Franklin was aware that public opinion is won and controlled by the most delicate and yet by the broadest manipulation, and that if he could win the favorable opinion of the British public to American affairs, he would control the votes of the House of Commons. By this procedure he showed the practicality of his mind; he appealed to the power in England which makes and unmakes ministries.

1See p. 161.

2 See the examination in Bigelow, Vol. 3, p. 407.

In appealing to this power he did not proceed blindly by addressing humorous newspaper articles to the general reader; he wrote these masterly articles for the education of the public; and he did more, he became the companion of the first literary and scientific men of England and won many of them to the support of his liberal ideas, not by formal discussions of the rights of the colonies, but by exemplifying in his own character and appointments the nature of American institutions which could produce such a man as he. It is not difficult for us to realize how Franklin thus became the typical American and won respect for America by winning respect for himself. Franklin's chief service to America was in the experimental proof that the human race does not degenerate in this country, but that it could equal, if not surpass, the old country in its productions.'

We must not forget that Franklin appeared in the drawing rooms of London when it was a common doubt among English ladies whether Americans were white or black, whether they dressed in skins or wool, whether they spoke English or Indian, whether they lived in houses or wigwams, and whether Philadelphia did not comprise Pennsylvania. Among the friends of Franklin in England were Adam Smith, who, at the time Franklin met him, was writing his classical work, "The Nature and Cause of the Wealth of Nations," and David Hume, the well-known author of a history of England and essays on politics and philosophy. In Watson's Annals of Philadelphia' it is said that Dr. Franklin once told Dr. Logan that Adam Smith when writing his Wealth of Nations was in the habit of bringing chapter after chapter as he composed it to Franklin, Dr. Price, and others of the literati; then patiently hear their observations and profit by their discussions and criticisms, sometimes re-writing whole chapters, after such conference, and even reversing some of his propositions. Hume is quoted as writing to Adam Smith in 1776, saying, "Your work is probably much improved by your last abode in London." Parton has pointed out that Franklin's papers at this period "contain sets of problems and queries as though agitated at some meeting of philosophers for particular consideration at home." All students of political economy have long known that Smith's "Wealth of Nations" is the first book that illustrates its propositions by allusions to the American colonies. Smith's ideas were new and he was working out a new system of economics; in seeking a field for the application of his ideas it was natural that he should refer to America, a new country, as the region where his ideas might have a practical test.

It is known that the Wealth of Nations was favorably received

The incident of the six tall Americans and the six short Frenchmen together at dinner is in point.

See specially, Franklin's idea of Labor as a measure of wealth, expanded by Smith in Book I; and consult index to "The Wealth of Nations" title "America" for illustrations of Franklin's influence on Smith.