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LEARN ONE THING
EVERY DAY
MAY 15 1918
SERIAL NO. 155
THE
MENTOR
BENJAMIN
FRANKLIN
By ALBERT BUSHNELL HART
Professor of Government
Harvard University
DEPARTMENT OF
BIOGRAPHY
VOLUME 6
NUMBER 7
TWENTY CENTS A COPY
A Bit of Ben Franklin Wisdom
When I was a child seven years old, my friends, on a holiday, filled my pocket with coppers. I went directly to a shop where they sold toys for children; and, being charmed with the sound of a whistle that I met by the way in the hands of another boy, I voluntarily offered and gave all my money for one. I then came home and went whistling all over the house, much pleased with my whistle, but disturbing all the family. My brothers, and sisters, and cousins, understanding the bargain I had made, told me I had given four times as much for it as it was worth; put me in mind of what good things I might have bought with the rest of the money; and laughed at me so much for my folly that I cried with vexation; and the reflection gave me more chagrin than the whistle gave me pleasure.
This, however, was afterward of use to me, the impression continuing on my mind; so that often, when I was tempted to buy some unnecessary thing, I said to myself, Don’t give too much for the whistle; and I saved my money. As I grew up, came into the world, and observed the actions of men, I thought I met with many, very many, who gave too much for the whistle.
When I saw one too ambitious of court favour, sacrificing his time in attendance on levees, his repose, his liberty, his virtue, and perhaps his friends, to attain it, I have said to myself, This man gives too much for his whistle.
When I saw another fond of popularity, constantly employing himself in political bustles, neglecting his own affairs, and ruining them by that neglect, He pays, indeed, said I, too much for his whistle.
If I knew a miser, who gave up every kind of comfortable living, all the pleasure of doing good to others, all the esteem of his fellow citizens, and the joys of benevolent friendship, for the sake of accumulating wealth, Poor man, said I, you pay too much for your whistle.
When I met with a man of pleasure, sacrificing every laudable improvement of the mind or of his fortune to mere corporeal sensations, and ruining his health in their pursuit, Mistaken man, said I, you are providing pain for yourself instead of pleasure; you give too much for your whistle.
If I see one fond of appearance, or fine clothes, fine houses, fine furniture, fine equipages, all above his fortune, for which he contracts debts and ends his days in prison, Alas! say I, he has paid dear, very dear, for his whistle.
When I see a beautiful, sweet-tempered girl married to an ill-natured brute of a husband, What a pity, say I, that she should pay so much for a whistle!
In short, I can conceive that great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by the false estimates they have made of the value of things, and by their giving too much for their whistle.
ENGRAVED BY H. DAVIDSON FROM THE SCULPTURE BY R. TAIT MCKENZIE. COURTESY OF THE CENTURY CO.
THE YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 1723
ONE
Benjamin Franklin, born in Boston, Massachusetts, January 17, 1706 (January 6, Old Style), of humble parents, was one of the heroes of the War of Independence, one of the cleverest of American diplomats, and one of the greatest American politicians and statesmen. But this was not all: he possessed so many talents that he can only be described properly as a universal genius.
Franklin’s life is one huge catalogue of performances, hard indeed to tabulate, for he went from one thing to another with remarkable rapidity and excelled in everything that he undertook. A recital of his accomplishments sounds like a round of the old counting game, “Doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief.” He was, in fact, all the list but the “thief”—even the “beggarman.”
Franklin’s father, Josiah Franklin, a candle maker, intended that his son should enter the ministry of the Puritan Church, and with this idea sent him, when eight years old, to the Boston Grammar School. A year of this was too much for the slender means of the father, so Benjamin was sent to George Brownell for instruction. A year of this and Franklin’s school days were ended. He worked in his father’s shop for a time, and then apprenticed himself to his brother James, a printer.
While engaged in the printing business (and this did not merely consist of setting type and printing books, but in writing articles for his paper and also many political pamphlets that prepared the way for his future career), he was clerk of the General Assembly in 1736 (holding this office until 1751); postmaster in Philadelphia in 1737; and, after he gave up the post of clerk of the General Assembly, a member of that body for thirteen years (1751-1764). His activity in public affairs was enormous: he organized the first police and fire company in Philadelphia; established an academy which became the University of Pennsylvania; organized an important debating club—the Junto (1727); took the lead in improving the paving of the city; developed the lighting of the streets; organized a militia force; founded a city hospital, and in every way concerned himself with the bettering of conditions, both civic and political. He undertook to provide Braddock with horses and wagons for the march against Fort Duquesne, and, in 1756, he had charge of the Northwest frontier for a month, during which he erected blockhouses and watched the wily Indians.
In 1757, he was sent to London as agent for the people to petition the Crown. He returned home in 1762, expecting to settle down and devote the remainder of his life to scientific investigation and the pleasures of the pen. He brought with him many degrees and honors, and he thought that his public life was over. In two years’ time, however, he was again sent to England as agent to settle questions in relation to taxation, and represented not only Pennsylvania, but New Jersey, Georgia, and Massachusetts. He remained until 1775, and was, therefore, in England during all the stormy days of the Stamp Act. On the day after his return he was elected to the Continental Congress, and was one of the committee of five to draw up the Declaration of Independence. On September 26, 1776, he was chosen commissioner to France with Arthur Lee and Silas Deane, and arrived in Paris on December 22, 1776, after a perilous passage, to be welcomed like a hero. On October 28, 1776, he was appointed sole plenipotentiary to the Court of France. In 1781, he was appointed one of a commission to make peace with Great Britain. He returned to Philadelphia in 1785, having made commercial treaties with Sweden (1783) and Prussia (1785).
Even then, Franklin’s work was not finished. He was elected a member of the municipal council of Philadelphia, and was made a delegate to the Convention that drew up the Federal Constitution. It is interesting, also, to note that he signed a petition to Congress, in 1790, to abolish slavery. He died in Philadelphia on April 17, 1790, aged eighty-four.
These extraordinary activities, including those of a politician, diplomat, philanthropist, civic reformer, philosopher, scientist, printer, and author, covered a period of sixty years. And in between all these separate careers, as we might call them, we find stray hours filled with delightful pursuits and such pleasant diversions as studies in the realm of music, improving the musical glasses, and buying Bow, Worcester, and Chelsea china of the newest fashion. Moreover, Franklin always found time to write beautifully and to enjoy social pleasures.
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THE MATURE BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 1777
TWO
Benjamin Franklin was the first distinguished American “self-made man.” He took himself in hand at an early age, and with only two years schooling, educated himself so that he became a man of science, a man of letters, a philosopher, a statesman and a diplomat, and acquired a fortune besides. And not only was he all of these things, more than creditably, but he took rank among the greatest minds of the highly educated and scientific Eighteenth Century. This was a period of original investigation: much “new thought” of all kinds was coming into the world, and Franklin’s mind was exactly the type of mind that was characteristic of this age—particularly in France. Apart from his genial personality and his talent for always doing the right thing and the popular thing socially, his scientific and philosophical tastes were precisely those in fashion in France.
How did this man attain to such power and eminence? At twenty-three he was half-educated and crude. At forty he was known as one of the most famous scientists of the day and a brilliant writer; and before he was fifty he had received the Copley medal from the Royal Society; the freedom of the City of Edinburgh; LL.D. from the University of St. Andrews; degrees from Harvard, Yale, and William and Mary; and, in 1762, D.C.L. from Oxford.
What were the characteristics and the tastes, and what was the disposition and the appearance of the extraordinary personage who accomplished all these things? These are questions that are naturally asked.
We never think of Franklin in his youth. We picture him according to the Duplessis (dew-ples′-see) portrait painted in Paris when he was seventy-two; or, according to the old prints that show him wearing the familiar old fur cap and the heavy-rimmed spectacles. Franklin was rather tall (about five feet ten inches), corpulent and heavy, with rounded shoulders. He was a good swimmer; he was muscular and strong, and he was a believer in vegetarianism and air-baths. In late years he suffered from gout in his foot, and wrote in Paris a humorous dialogue from which we get a very good idea of the old gentleman’s habits and tastes. On his appeal to Gout to spare him, his persecutor exclaims: “Not a jot; your rhetoric and your politeness are thrown away; your apology avails nothing. If your situation in life is a sedentary one, your amusements, your recreations, at least, should be active. You ought to walk or ride; or, if the weather prevents that, play at billiards. But let us examine your course of life. While the mornings are long and you have leisure to go abroad, what do you do? Why, instead of gaining an appetite for breakfast by salutary exercise, you amuse yourself with books, pamphlets, or newspapers, which commonly are not worth the reading. Yet you eat an inordinate breakfast, four dishes of tea with cream, and one or two buttered toasts, with slices of hung beef, which I fancy are not things the most easily digested. Immediately afterwards you sit down to write at your desk, or converse with persons who apply to you on business. Thus the time passes till one, without any kind of bodily exercise. But all this I could pardon, in regard, as you say, to your sedentary condition. But what is your practice after dinner? Walking in the beautiful garden of those friends with whom you have dined, would be the choice of men of sense; yours is to be fixed down to chess, where you are found engaged for two or three hours!”
But notwithstanding his sedentary life and his gout and his other maladies, Franklin lived to be eighty-four, preserving his extraordinary brightness and gayety to the last. His mental faculties were unimpaired, his face was fresh and serene, and his spirits were buoyant.
This charming vivacity and this play and sparkle of mind greatly contributed towards making Franklin so beloved of the French. His life in Paris was the happiest of his whole career. He was very social, and he therefore enjoyed the Parisian garden parties and dinners, the attractive women, and the literary, scientific and philosophical men. He left France with reluctance, saying he could never forget the years of happiness that he had spent “in the sweet society of a people whose conversation is instructive, whose manners are highly pleasing, and who, above all the nations in the world, have, in the greatest perfection, the art of making themselves beloved by strangers.”
Franklin had a great talent for making friends; and one of the greatest pleasures of his life was the enjoyment of his children and grandchildren. He was always ready with a witty retort, and he loved a joke and a hearty laugh. In fact, nothing seemed too large or too small for Benjamin Franklin.
Regarding religion, he early revolted against New England Puritanism and went through various stages of belief; but in his old age he had faith in the immortality of the soul. His tolerance led John Adams to say: “The Catholics thought him a Catholic. The Church of England claimed him. The Presbyterians thought him half a Presbyterian, and Friends believed him a wet Quaker.” Of his morals he has himself written, and he prepared a moral code with comments.
Intellectual, practical, industrious, capable and genial, combining so many qualities in one mind and with a vast amount of public work achieved, Franklin remains a puzzle, for he seems to have had abundant time to enjoy those social talents which amounted to genius.
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FROM AN ENGRAVING BY ROBERT WHITECHURCH. FROM THE PAINTING BY C. SCHUESSELE
FRANKLIN BEFORE THE LORDS IN COUNCIL. Whitehall Chapel, London, 1774
THREE
Franklin prepared himself unconsciously for political life even in his boyhood, when he wrote articles for his brother’s newspaper attacking the established religious and political system of Massachusetts. In the paper that he established when he was but twenty-three—the Pennsylvania Gazette—he handled the questions of the day in masterly fashion. About this time he published a pamphlet in favor of paper money, which shows how early his mind was directed towards large questions concerning the government. When he joined the Pennsylvania Assembly, he became a leader of the Quaker majority; and, to represent the interests of the Colony, he was sent as commissioner, or agent, to England. He remained there for five years, returning to Philadelphia in 1762, only to stay at home until 1764, when he was sent on his second mission to England. This time he remained for ten years. The period covered the exciting agitations regarding the Stamp Act, its passage, its repeal, and all the tumultuous proceedings that finally led to the Revolution.
Franklin’s composure during the ordeal of Parliamentary investigation, his witty replies, and his brilliant evasions to embarrassing questions greatly enhanced his reputation. His clever satirical essays, published in separate pamphlets, were widely circulated. During this period of activity Franklin lived in Craven Street, London, pursued his scientific studies, was appointed on committees to put lightning-rods on St. Paul’s Cathedral and the government’s powder magazines, attended meetings of various scientific and learned societies and clubs of which he was a member, was entertained by the nobility, and knew everybody of distinction in the political, scientific, artistic, and literary worlds.
Returning home, he was made one of the deputies to the Continental Congress, which met in Philadelphia, and was also a member of the Pennsylvania Legislature, and a member of the Committee of Safety to prepare the defenses of the province.
His most important work was yet to come. In September, 1776, he was appointed, by vote of Congress, the agent to represent in France the united Colonies, which had just declared their independence of Great Britain. Accordingly, he left Philadelphia and arrived in France in December.
In our infancy of diplomatic service the old gentleman of seventy was banker, merchant, judge of admiralty, consul, director of the navy, ambassador to France, and negotiator with England for the exchange of prisoners and for peace. He accomplished his mission with such success that he was the idol of the French nation. Franklin was liked by the French for his social qualities, his scientific accomplishments, his philosophical mind, and his humorous and satirical writings. Moreover, he was worshiped as the personification of liberty.
His mission in France ended in 1785.
The last important work of his life was helping to frame the national document that took the place of the Articles of Confederation; and his plan regarding representation in Congress was the one adopted.
The most active period of his life, as he himself has told us, was between his seventieth and his eightieth years. If any statesman ever deserved the name of “grand old man,” it certainly was Benjamin Franklin.
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FROM THE PAINTING BY BENJAMIN WEST
FRANKLIN DRAWING ELECTRICITY FROM THE SKY
FOUR
One of the stories that has always charmed schoolchildren is that of Dr. Franklin and his kite; and the quaint little illustration that appeared in Franklin’s lifetime, and that was printed by him hundreds of times over, is still reproduced in the accounts of this experiment. It was not until 1746, or 1747, after Franklin had been making original researches in science for about five years, that he took up the subject of electricity. Franklin was then forty-one years old. The subject was literally “in the air.” Peter Collinson, of London, had presented to the Philadelphia Library one of the new glass tubes that was rubbed with silk or skin to produce electricity. Franklin began at once to experiment with this tube, and people came in crowds to see his performances. Thomas Hopkinson and Philip Syng, who experimented with him, discovered electrical fire, and invented an electrical machine for producing the electrical spark. Franklin discovered what is now known as “positive” and “negative” electricity. He also attempted to explain, in his letters to Collinson, thunder and lightning as phenomena of electricity; and, in 1759, sent him a paper announcing his invention of the lightning-rod, and an explanation of its purpose and action. He also suggested an experiment that would prove that lightning was a form of electricity; and to show that lightning was attracted by points he proposed that a man should stand on a tall steeple, or tower, with a pointed rod and draw electricity from the thunder-clouds. The experiment was tried in France and England, and Franklin was proclaimed the discoverer of the identity of lightning with electricity. Some of the scientists used a tall metal rod. Franklin now thought of the kite experiment, because there were no steeples in Philadelphia tall enough. To an ordinary kite covered with silk he fixed a sharp, pointed wire, rising about a foot above the frame of the kite. To the end of the twine next the hand a silk ribbon was tied; and where the silk and twine joined a key was fastened. When the thunder-clouds passed over the kite, the pointed wire drew the electric fire from them, and down the string to the key, from which electric fire was obtained. This experiment was made in 1752; and the news, as contained in Franklin’s simple letter to Mr. Collinson, spread over the world, and with various theatrical embellishments in the telling.
“Franklin,” writes one of his biographers, “cannot be ranked among the great men of science, the Newtons, the Keplers, or the Humboldts, Huxleys or Darwins. He belongs, rather, in the second class, among the minor discoverers. But his discovery of the nature of lightning was so striking and so capable of arousing the wonder of the masses of mankind and his invention of the lightning rod was regarded as so valuable that he has received more popular applause than men whose achievements were greater and more important. His command of language had seldom been put to better use than in explaining the rather subtle ideas and conceptions in the early development of electricity. Even now, after the lapse of one hundred and fifty years, we seem to gain a fresher understanding of that subject by reading his homely and beautiful explanations; and modern students would have an easier time if Franklin were still here to write their text-books.”
Public business and long years of diplomatic service interrupted the original study of science to a great extent; but even so, in England, in France, and in the closing years of his life in Philadelphia, Franklin found time, now and then, to devote to that loving investigation of Nature, which, after his thirtieth year, became the great passion of his life.
Everything in the way of scientific research fascinated him: he investigated earthquakes, eclipses, storms, winds, the science of sound, the laws of hot air and its movements, ventilation, water-spouts, phosphorescence (“light in sea-water,” he called it), the cause of saltiness in the sea, the Gulf Stream, rainfall, evaporation, the aurora borealis, light, heat, the daily motion of the earth, and many other subjects. He studied music as a science, and invented a new kind of musical glasses (fashionable at that time) called “Armonica.” He studied political economy in a scientific way, and was so interested in agriculture that he tried experiments on his New Jersey farm. He also invented the “Pennsylvania fireplace” and the “Franklin” stove. Though his scientific writings are numerous, they are in the form of essays and letters. His investigations and experiments were thus made known to the world in letters to friends in France and England; for, as there were no scientific periodicals in those days, men of learning kept up a lively correspondence and occasionally issued a pamphlet.
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FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY CHAPPEL
DRAFTING THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE—FRANKLIN, JEFFERSON, ADAMS, LIVINGSTON, SHERMAN
FIVE
Franklin was a master of style. He had what critics call “a light touch”; and he had the rare faculty of making any subject interesting. He even wrote charmingly about stoves! How did he acquire this wonderful skill, this clear and beautiful language which dropped so easily from his pen, however dry the theme? No matter what essay, what letter, what political pamphlet, or what year of “Poor Richard” we may pick up, we are always held by Franklin’s magic personality. His “Autobiography” is considered one of the greatest works of its kind ever written.
A careful study of the third volume of Addison’s “Spectator,” and experimenting with it in various ways, seems to have been the beginning of Franklin’s literary education. It was a queer task for a young boy—particularly one of an uncultured family—to impose upon himself; but he tells us that he was encouraged, for, “I thought I might possibly in time come to be a tolerable English writer, of which I was extremely ambitious.”
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.
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ENGRAVED BY WILLIAM O. GELLER, OF LONDON. FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY BARON JOLLY, OF BRUXELLES
FRANKLIN AT THE COURT OF FRANCE, 1778—Seated Figures Are Louis XVI And Marie Antoinette
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:
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.
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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
FRANKLIN
From an engraving after a painting by Duplessis
TRANSLATION OF THE INSCRIPTION—“Honor of the New World and Humanity, this true and amiable sage guides and enlightens them; like another Mentor, he hides in the common eye a divinity, beneath the features of a mortal.”—M. Feutry.
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.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN’S BIRTHPLACE
It stood on Milk Street, Boston, until destroyed by fire in 1810
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.”
THE SO-CALLED “VERSAILLES” PORTRAIT OF FRANKLIN
From an engraving by Levy, owned by Clarence W. Bowen, Brooklyn, N. Y.
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.
MRS. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Born Deborah Reed. From a portrait painted by Matthew Pratt, and now owned by the Rev. F. B. Hodge, Wilkesbarre, Pa.
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.
FRANKLIN GIVING PART OF HIS BREAD TO A POOR WOMAN
Philadelphia, 1723
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.
DR. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
From a painting by Duplessis in 1778. The original, in the Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, is believed to be the best likeness of Franklin
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.
PORTRAIT OF FRANKLIN
Owned by H. C. Thompson, Philadelphia
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.”
ANOTHER DUPLESSIS PORTRAIT OF FRANKLIN
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
From the original painting by Chappel
BUST OF FRANKLIN
By P. J. Chartigny In the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
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.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
From the portrait by Martin, painted in England in 1765
STATUE OF FRANKLIN, NEW YORK
Designed by E. Classman
STATUETTE OF FRANKLIN
White metal. French, nineteenth century. Metropolitan Museum of Art
FRANKLIN MONUMENT IN NEW ORLEANS
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.’”
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
By Boyle
This statue stands at Ninth and Chestnut Streets, Philadelphia, close to the spot where Franklin first drew electricity from the sky
STATUETTE OF FRANKLIN AND LOUIS XVI.
French porcelain. Metropolitan Museum of Art
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.’”
FRENCH PLAQUE
After Cochin by Dupont. Metropolitan Museum of Art
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.
THREE PLATES BEARING PORTRAITS OF FRANKLIN
Made by Veuve Perrin, Marseilles, France, late in the eighteenth century. Metropolitan Museum of Art
July 21, 1775, Franklin formally presented to Congress a skilful plan for a federal government, which was the foundation stone of the present Federal Constitution. It contains some things out of the Albany plan of 1754; and had it been adopted as it stood, would have been a better instrument of government than was later drawn up by Congress. Franklin proposed and urged a strong, vigorous and well-knit union. He was also a member of the committee to draw up the Declaration of Independence in 1776. His principal contribution to the discussion was his famous retort when somebody said, “We must all hang together”—“Yes, we must all hang together, or we shall all hang separately.” Franklin took an honorable part in the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention of 1776, and to him was due the fine phrase in the Pennsylvania Bill of Rights, “That all men have a natural and inalienable right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences and understanding.”
HEAD OF FRANKLIN
Nineteenth-century, French tortoise-shell snuff-box. Metropolitan Museum of Art
Benjamin Franklin was now seventy years old, and said of himself to a fellow member of Congress, “I am old and good for nothing; but as the storekeepers say of their remnants of cloth, I am but a fag end, and you may have me for what you please to give.” Yet he accepted the most important post of his life when in September, 1776, he was elected commissioner to France. There for nine years he served his country as the most popular, most sagacious, and most successful foreign minister ever appointed by the United States.
ONE OF FRANKLIN’S INGENIOUS DEVICES FOR TEACHING THE LESSONS OF PRACTICAL WISDOM
FRANKLIN TEARS THE LIGHTNING FROM THE SKY AND THE SCEPTER FROM THE TYRANTS
Seated beside him is the figure of America. From a sepia drawing by Fragonard, owned by Clarence S. Bement, Philadelphia
He was not merely a diplomatic representative; he was a commercial and financial agent, fitted out vessels, issued commissions, borrowed money. Well did Horace Walpole say of him that Franklin was furnishing materials for writing the History of the Decline of the British Empire. Without Franklin the two treaties of 1778 with France could not have been obtained. By his personal relations with Englishmen of note, he was the natural starting point for overtures of concord; and in the negotiations of the peace of 1782 he stood alongside the eager, impetuous, and hotly national John Adams, and courteous, high bred and determined John Jay, as chief of that remarkable triumvirate of negotiators.
PRINTING PRESS AT WHICH FRANKLIN WORKED WHEN A BOY IN BOSTON
Now exhibited in the rooms of the Mechanics’ Institute, Boston, Mass.
After all, Franklin’s chief service abroad was not so much the obtaining of favorable terms as the maintaining of American character. Who could deny the right to be a nation to a people whose best aspirations were typified by this shrewd, hard-headed, kindly man, a gallant among the fashionables, a philosopher among scientists, a statesman among ministers, a man among men?
At seventy-nine years of age most men expect retirement, and it was very grateful to Franklin that, on his return to America in 1785, he should almost immediately be chosen by Pennsylvania to be the president of the commonwealth. His universal popularity was shown by the people of western North Carolina (now east Tennessee), who, in 1784, set up a short-lived frontier commonwealth, to which by way of compliment they gave the name of Franklin. In 1787, Franklin readily accepted membership in the Federal Convention, as one of the Pennsylvania delegation. He was somewhat out of touch with the real difficulties of the time, and most of his suggestions were overruled, but his influence throughout was in favor of a well organized, strong central government; and he was almost the only member to introduce an element of humanity and good humor.
MRS. SARAH BACHE
Daughter of Franklin
On the last day of the convention he rose to urge a spirit of compromise, a willingness to yield something of one’s own opinion; to avoid the spirit of “a certain French lady, who, in a dispute with her sister, said, ‘I don’t know how it happens, sister, but I meet with nobody but myself that is always in the right.’” When at the end, signatures of the members were appended, numerous enough to make it likely that the Constitution would be accepted by the people, Franklin looked at the sun painted behind the President’s chair, and made a comment which is as applicable to his own reputation as it was to the new Federal Constitution. “I have often and often in the course of the session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that sun behind the President without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting; but now at length, I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting sun.”
This was the end of Franklin’s public life; three years later he died, full of years and honor, with the established reputation of a man of learning, power, and statesmanship. Possessed of a calm dignity that impressed even the frivolous court of France, he added a love of fun such as no other great American public man has shown, except Abraham Lincoln. His Autobiography abounds in delightful pictures of the gawky youth and the serene statesman. His vast powers belong to his country; his great endeavors went into federal government, which he helped to found, to protect, and to restate in the immortal Constitution of 1787. That is his best monument.
GRAVE OF FRANKLIN IN THE CHRIST CHURCH BURIAL GROUND, PHILADELPHIA
The stone nearest the fence covers the bodies of both Franklin and his wife
⁂ Information concerning the above books may be had on application to the Editor of The Mentor.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
From a pastel drawing made in Paris in 1783 by Duplessis, New York Public Library
Benjamin Franklin’s eyes were blue-gray. How do we know this? Because Duplessis’s pastel portrait in colors tells us so. Franklin had bland, shrewd, clear seeing eyes that comprehended in their genial, open glance the whole of human nature. They first saw the light of day on January 17, 1706, and they were closed for—the last time on April 17, 1790. During all those years those luminous blue-gray eyes were observing life closely, studiously and intelligently, and they saw many great things come to pass—the most important being the making of a new nation. The eyes of Franklin saw Liberty in its cradle, and with earnest solicitude, watched its growth and development until it became the watchword and dominating principle of a great republic. Moreover, while witnessing these national events, and sharing actively in them, Franklin had time to look into the everyday affairs of men, to find solutions for many problems of the work-a-day world, to suggest and plan improved methods of doing things, to invent useful devices—and, with his printing establishment as a means of public expression, to give utterance to a system of practical philosophy that was a benefit and blessing to his fellow men. Franklin was the peerless Practical Man, and his writings contain the Complete Gospel of Common Sense.
It would be well if all of us could look at the world through Ben Franklin’s discerning, gray eyes. It is not the gray color of the eye, but the gray matter back of it that counts. I note here the color of Ben Franklin’s eyes only because I have just been “checked up” on the subject of eyes. A reader writes me as follows:
Let me call attention to a discrepancy in the Julius Cæsar number of The Mentor. On cover page 2 the statement is made that Cæsar’s eyes were dark gray. On page 8 it is said that they were black.
Our reader overlooks the fact that the two statements are not made by the same writer. The first statement is made by the English historian James Anthony Froude; the other by George W. Botsford, late professor of ancient history in Columbia University. These two eminent scholars present the conclusions that they have individually drawn from historical study. When two authorities differ it is the duty of The Mentor, as an educational publication, to present the two statements for the reader’s comparison. It is probable that the original evidence on which Mr. Froude and Professor Botsford based their statements was to the effect that Cæsar’s eyes were very dark and piercing in their glance—and that, surely, is near enough for the color of eyes nearly two thousand years ago.
We are reproducing Duplessis’s pastel portrait of Franklin on this page. This picture has a story. Duplessis made several portraits of Franklin; this seems to be the only one in pastel, the others being oil paintings. When Franklin was in France he lived at Passy, a suburb of Paris. A friend and neighbor was M. le Veillard, who frequently urged Franklin to write his memoirs. Franklin lent a willing ear, and it was his wish that his neighbor should translate the memoirs, when finished, into French. With that end in view, he turned over to M. le Veillard much auto-biographical material. This pastel portrait by Duplessis was made especially for M. le Veillard, and when that unfortunate gentleman met his death on the Revolutionary scaffold in 1794, the picture went to his daughter, and later came into the possession of Mr. John Bigelow, when he was United States Minister to France (1865-66). By him it was presented to the New York Public Library, and it now hangs in the trustees’ room.
W. D. Moffat
Editor
There was nothing of any significance in the affairs of mankind that escaped Benjamin Franklin’s attention. Not only political, social, commercial, literary and artistic matters concerned him, but likewise the many problems, great and small, that had to be met in the course of the day’s work. He was the first to conceive the idea of daylight saving—which means that he was, in practical wisdom, 130 odd years ahead of his time.
On an early morning walk along the streets of London in 1784 the thought first came to Franklin, and in passing it on to the world at large he said:
“In a walk through the Strand and Fleet street one morning at 7 o’clock, I observed there was not one shop open, although it had been daylight and the sun up above three hours, the inhabitants of London choosing voluntarily to live by candle light and sleep by sunshine; and yet often complaining a little absurdly of the duty on candles and the high price of tallow.”
Soon thereafter in the Journal de Paris he published an article, later appearing among his essays under the title “An Economical Project,” which further elaborated the advantages of daylight saving; namely, of “Turning the clock forward an hour” so that everybody would live one hour longer by daylight and one hour less by artificial light.
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End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mentor: Benjamin Franklin, Vol. 6,
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