Part 2

Moreover, he fed himself on the best literature; and this, too, was extraordinary for a boy in his position. Some of his early essays, published in pamphlet form, have very dry titles. “A Dissertation on Liberty, Necessity, and Pain,” and “A Modest Inquiry into the Nature and Necessity of Paper Currency” are hardly alluring; but these papers are full of shrewd reasoning and common sense--qualities that are conspicuous in all his future writings. Franklin’s newspaper articles were a splendid preparation for his political work.

Franklin was very fond of paraphrasing the Bible in a humorous way, and fond of hoaxes, like the “Edict of the King of Prussia,” in which he made Frederick the Great claim a right to the Kingdom of Great Britain, because the British Isles were originally Anglo-Saxon colonies; and, having reached a flourishing condition, deserved to be levied upon. Franklin greatly enjoyed seeing the English take this seriously. It was copied widely. So was another satire of 1773, called “Rules for Reducing a Great Empire to a Small One,” descriptive of the British government.

While in France his pen was always busy. Many of his letters were practically essays. For Madame Brillon the “Ephemera,” the “Morals of Chess,” “Dialogue between Franklin and the Gout,” “Story of the Whistle,” and “Petition of the Left Hand” were written.

Franklin’s letters, so numerous and so witty, cover all periods of his life. His electrical experiments and theories were all announced in this form. His letters written home from England before the Revolution are delightful reading.

“Poor Richard” was a real creation. The character made Franklin known in England and France before he lived in those countries. “It was quite common a hundred years ago,” writes a biographer, “to charge Franklin with being a plagiarist. It is true that the sayings of ‘Poor Richard,’ and a great deal that went to make up the almanac, were taken from Rabelais, Bacon, Rochefoucault, Roy Palmer, and others. But ‘Poor Richard’ changed and re-wrote them to suit his purpose, and gave most of them a far wider circulation than they had before.”

“There is no little enemy”; “Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half-shut afterwards”; “Lend money to an enemy, and thou’lt gain him; to a friend and thou’lt lose him”; “Necessity never made a good bargain”; “A word to the wise is enough”; “God helps those that help themselves”; “The sleeping fox catches no poultry”; “Drive thy business, let that not drive thee”; “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise”; “Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other”--are some of Poor Richard’s proverbs that have passed into our everyday speech.

PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR. VOL. 6. No. 7. SERIAL No. 155 COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.

_BENJAMIN FRANKLIN_

_As Printer_

SIX

“Benjamin Franklin, printer,” was Franklin’s favorite way of describing himself. He was, indeed, a printer all his life. When only twelve, he became apprentice to his half-brother, James, but quarreled with him and ran away, finally reaching Philadelphia. Here he obtained employment and the patronage of Sir William Keith, Governor of Pennsylvania and Delaware, who gave him the public printing to do. Persuaded to try his fortune in London with Keith’s patronage, Franklin set sail with high hopes; but, on arriving, he found that Keith had played him false, and that no letter of credit, as promised, awaited him. After a year and a half of struggle and adventure, he was back in Philadelphia working at his trade. Franklin was now twenty-one. In a short time he started in business with a partner, and the firm of Franklin & Meredith limped along slowly but surely until Franklin became possessed of the leading newspaper in Philadelphia, to which he gave a new title, the _Pennsylvania Gazette_.

This he improved in every way, making it the best and most widely read newspaper in the Colonies. By this time (1729) Franklin had a very well-trained pen, and his journalistic writings and published pamphlets had attracted much attention. He now dropped his partner, and, to help out his small income, he opened a shop, where he sold stationery, goose-feathers, soap, liquors, and groceries. About this time he printed the laws of Delaware.

The _Pennsylvania Gazette_ grew better and better all the time; for it contained anecdotes, extracts from English newspapers and articles which Franklin had written for and read to his club, the Junto.

In Colonial days every printer issued an almanac. Franklin followed the rule; but the annual he published differed in no way from any of the others until 1733, when Franklin, having nobody to prepare his almanac, had to write it himself. He published it as the work of a Richard Saunders, called in Franklin’s genial way, “Poor Richard.” In a note to “Courteous Reader,” Poor Richard introduced himself, little anticipating the success he was to have.

“Poor Richard’s Almanac” appeared every year thereafter, for twenty-five years, the annual sale averaging 10,000 copies a year, far in excess of any other Colonial publication. “Poor Richard” is now a “classic”; even those that have not read it have heard of it. Moreover, many people quote the homely proverbs without knowing it; for Poor Richard’s wisdom became part and parcel of our English speech long ago. Sometimes it has been published as “Father Abraham’s Speech,” and “The Way to Wealth,” and it has been translated into every modern language.

Besides his newspaper and almanac printing, Franklin printed books. He brought out the first novel ever published in America--Richardson’s “Pamela” (1744). Franklin’s tremendous industry and his general thrift made him successful enough to retire at the age of forty-two. Then came a brief interval, before his political career began in earnest, during which he lived “more like a man of taste and a scholar accustomed to cultured surroundings than a self-made man who had battled for years with the material world.”

The year 1748, though marking the end of Franklin’s career as active printer, did not terminate his interest in the setting of type and issuing his writings from his own press. Even in Passy, when in the midst of his busy diplomatic duties, he had a printing-press of his own from which he issued those “bagatelles” that so charmed the French ladies of his acquaintance.

Cleverly the printer speaks in the famous epitaph:

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. But the work shall not be lost; For it will (as he believed) appear once more In a new and more elegant edition Revised and corrected by The Author

Franklin’s grandson, William Temple Franklin, who claimed to have the original _Ms_, said the date upon it was 1728. This disposes of the theory that Franklin took the idea from the Latin epitaph of an Eton school-boy, published in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ for February, 1736. But, as writing comic epitaphs was a fashion in those days, there is no reason why both should not have been original.

PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR. VOL. 6. No. 7. SERIAL No. 155 COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.

THE MENTOR · DEPARTMENT OF BIOGRAPHY MAY 15, 1918

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

By ALBERT BUSHNELL HART

_Professor of Government, Harvard University_

Entered as second-class matter March 10, 1913, at the postoffice at New York, N. Y., under the act of March 3, 1879. Copyright, 1918, by The Mentor Association, Inc.

_MENTOR GRAVURES_

THE YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 1723

THE MATURE BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 1777

FRANKLIN DRAWING ELECTRICITY FROM THE SKY

_MENTOR GRAVURES_

FRANKLIN BEFORE THE LORDS OF WHITEHALL, LONDON, 1775

DRAFTING THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

FRANKLIN AT THE COURT OF FRANCE, 1778

Think of an American Revolution without Benjamin Franklin! As well think of English Literature without Shakespeare, a Civil War without Lincoln. Franklin _was_ the Revolution itself. That is, he prepared the way for it, represented it, infused it with his lively spirit. He was indispensable. If the British had carried out their cheerful project of hanging Sam Adams, Patrick Henry would have continued to breathe out the flame of Liberty. Washington and Franklin, however, were unique figures. Without the courage, faith and personal leadership of Washington, the army would have gone to pieces at Valley Forge, and the United States of America would have been postponed.

On the other hand, it was Franklin’s cool sagacity that convinced first the French and then the British that there was an America; that several million people were determined to cling together as a nation. Washington was the standing proof of the willingness of Americans to fight for self-government; Franklin was the man who went far to convince the world that Americans were capable of carrying on their government after they got it. Besides his reputation as the greatest American writer of his time, and the most renowned scientific man, he gained and deserved the repute of being a main supporting pillar of the new United States of America.

_Franklin in Massachusetts_

In a time when most Americans passed their lives within the borders of their own colony, Franklin was a citizen of two colonies, and an official of four. He honored Massachusetts by being born in Boston in 1706, the son of an emigrant, like millions after him--his father being of English birth. Benjamin was a human kind of boy, eager to run away to sea; went to the kind of school kept by a school-master only two years of his life; educated himself on a mixed diet of John Bunyan, “Plutarch’s Lives” and the “Spectator”; became a kind of printer’s devil to his brother James; and early got into trouble through incautious writing for the newspapers. At seventeen the graceless youth ran away from home. Yet he came back four times to visit Boston, and toward the end of his life wrote, “I long much to see again my native place and to lay my bones there--my best wishes attend my dear country.”

_Franklin as a Pennsylvanian_

On his arrival in Philadelphia in 1723, Benjamin Franklin began to make himself a commonwealth builder, and for more than thirty years he was one of the motive forces in that colony. From the first he found himself more at home in Philadelphia than in Boston. A man never overdisposed to self-denial, he enjoyed the comfort, the good dinners, the pleasant associations, the building up of social forces. Still, at that time Franklin had a much greater interest in Benjamin Franklin than in the community around him. He even showed the unusual enterprise of going abroad in 1725, a practice commonly reserved for wealthy Colonials who wanted to spend their money like gentlemen.

Returning in 1727, he, first of all, laid the foundations of a printing business large and profitable for the time. In 1729, then only twenty-three years old, he started a newspaper for himself, which speedily made him a force in the community. Once launched as a publisher, Franklin extended his ventures more and more widely; and in 1740 he founded a _General Magazine_, and was one of the first Americans to discover how much money can be sunk in a literary periodical and in how short a time.

In 1732, he began the most popular and the most effective of all his publications--_Poor Richard’s Almanac_, an annual which sold the incredible number of ten thousand a year, and which applied the sagacity and humor of the writer to setting forth a standard of morals, which, however utilitarian and self-seeking, had a powerful influence upon a crude and growing people. Indeed, it is almost the only bit of American literature that circulated throughout the Colonies and infused a national spirit into the half century preceding the Revolution.

Once established as a man of property and influence, Franklin bent his energies to setting up a new standard of education. In 1743, he issued proposals for an academy of learning, and in 1744 founded the American Philosophical Society. In 1749, he raised the great sum of five thousand pounds for the new school, and secured an excellent building for it. This far-reaching plan also included a “Free School--for the Instruction of Poor Children in Reading, Writing and Arithmetic”--apparently the first suggestion of a free school in his commonwealth. In 1755, his school developed into a college which subsequently became the University of Pennsylvania. No man in America had such solid and thorough-going views as to the value of education.

As has been the case with many journalists, his calling speedily brought him into political relations, for he was chosen to be the official printer of the Colonial legislature; and thereafter for fifty-nine years was seldom out of some form of public employment. Thus established as a kind of public character, Franklin set himself to improve both city and Colonial governments.

In 1737, he was made postmaster of Philadelphia, and caused great surprise by his prompt and accurate financial accounts.

Benjamin Franklin also organized himself into the first Good Government Club on record. Backed by at least half the press of the city (for he owned one of the two newspapers), and unanimously supported by the postmaster, he demanded a regeneration of the city. Eventually, he succeeded in dispossessing the old constables, who served in rotation, and in securing a police force, paid for that special service. He organized a fire company, which not only operated its hand engine when necessary, but carried materials for covering and protecting goods. He was also the first of many exasperated persons to criticize the Philadelphia pavements.

When later elected member of the Common Council, and then an Alderman and also a local Justice of Peace, Franklin, like some other good Philadelphia citizens, became rather apathetic. Nevertheless, these honors were not unwelcome, for he said of himself: “I shall never _Ask_, never _Refuse_, nor ever _Resign_ an office.” By this time Franklin was involved in the public life of the colony. In 1736, he obtained the office of clerk to the General Assembly, which he continued to hold for many years.

Colonial affairs became especially important when war broke out with France and Spain in 1744. The Quakers were then the great problem in the Pennsylvania government, since their principles forbade them to fight, or even to vote money for military purposes. Franklin relates that by a judicious application of Madeira wine to the gullet of Governor Clinton of New York, he borrowed eighteen cannon for the defense of Philadelphia. He did more. He so aroused the Quakers that although they refused to authorize the purchase of powder for the army, “because that was an ingredient of war,” they voted an aid to New England of three thousand pounds to be put into the hands of the Governor, and appropriated it “for the purchase of bread, flour, wheat or other grain.” The Governor accepted with the remark, “I shall take the money, for I understand very well their meaning; _other grain_ is gunpowder.” Franklin himself suggested that the Quakers be importuned to permit the purchase of a fire engine; and then, said he, “we will buy a great gun, which is certainly a _fire engine_.”

From his position of political and intellectual influence in Pennsylvania, Franklin easily passed into the larger field of general Colonial policies and public service. In 1754, he was made one of the commissioners to a joint congress of seven colonies, which met at Albany; from beginning to end of that meeting he was the leading spirit, and he prepared what is practically the first plan for a Federal Constitution. This was to include a Grand Council, which is the earliest suggestion of a national legislature. The Congress of Albany liked the plan and approved it, but the home government frowned upon it, and Franklin records that “the Assemblies did not adopt it, as they all thought there was too much prerogative in it; and in England it was judged to have too much of the democratic.” Franklin called to mind the Confederation of the Iroquois and marveled that the “Six Nations of ignorant slaves[A] should be capable of forming a scheme for such a union and be able to execute it in such a manner, so that it has subsisted for ages, and appears indissoluble; and yet that a like union should be impracticable for ten or a dozen English colonies.”

[A] The word “slaves” is no doubt used here in the sense of “savages.”

In the war that followed, Franklin showed himself almost the only vigorous administrator. He was the man who found the wagons necessary for Braddock’s expedition, he was even chosen colonel of a militia regiment. Then, in 1757, he was sent by the Pennsylvania Assembly to be the agent of the Colony in England, and thus entered on a new and important career.

Many Englishmen found their way to the American Colonies and made reputations there. Franklin was one of the few Americans that became renowned in England. For years he stood for the thought that Englishmen in Great Britain and the Colonies were alike citizens of a common Anglo-Saxon empire, which might look forward to a glorious future. He even ventured to assert that “the foundations of the future grandeur and stability of the British empire lie in America.”

The English government bestowed upon him the important post of deputy-postmaster-general for the Colonies. He so impressed the men of learning that he received doctorates of law from the universities of St. Andrews, Oxford, and Edinburgh. Yet his public functions were the lesser part of his influence; he found friends everywhere, and by his personal relations with ministers and private persons affected the minds of the British. The colonies of Georgia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts also designated him as their agent, and his various public offices brought him in the large income for that time of fifteen hundred pounds a year.

When the question of the Stamp Act arose in 1766, Franklin appeared before the House of Commons to protest, and in his examination occurred the famous passage:

“Question--‘Can anything less than a military force carry the Stamp Act into execution?’

“Answer--‘I do not see how a military force could be applied to that purpose.’

“Question--‘Why may it not?’

“Answer--‘Suppose a military force be sent into America, they will find nobody in arms; what are they then to do? They cannot force a man to take stamps who chooses to do without them. They will not find a rebellion; they will indeed make one.’”

Franklin’s position had great weight in bringing about the repeal of the Stamp Act; and thereafter he strove with all his might to prevent the breaking up of the empire. When the storm broke in 1775, Franklin needed to make no choice. An American through and through, he never thought of anything but casting his lot with that of his countrymen; and on March 21, 1775, he left England, and became an original Son of the American Revolution. The conditions have never been better set forth than in his own words: “And now the affair is nearly in the situation of Friar Bacon’s project of making a brazen wall round England for its eternal security. His servant, Friar Bungey, slept while the brazen head, which was to dictate how it may be done, said, ‘_Time_ is and _Time_ was.’ He only waked to hear it say, ‘_Time is past_.’”

_Franklin in the Revolution_

When Franklin arrived at Philadelphia, May 5th, he found himself at once a member and a leader in a body of men who, without any legal mandate, were called upon to create, to organize, and to defend the United States. The day after Franklin’s arrival in America he was designated by Pennsylvania as a member of the Continental Congress which was to meet shortly. A few days later he was elected a member of the Pennsylvania Colonial Assembly. The next year he was chosen member and president of the State Constitutional Convention; and in 1776, he was appointed envoy of the United States to France. Besides these dignities, in that year and a half, he was one of the half dozen men who designated the framework of the future state and national governments of America.