Godfrey, the glazier, and inventor of Hadley's Quadrant: "He knew little out of his way, and was not a pleasing companion; as like most great mathematicians I have met with, he expected universal precision in every thing said or was forever denying or distinguishing upon trifles, to the disturbance of all conversation; he soon left us."

Besides Godfrey, Breintnall and Webb, of whom we have spoken, there was included Nicholas Scull, the 'surveyor general, who loved books and sometimes made a few verses.' Scull (1687-1762) was a runner and interpreter for the Delaware Indians, sheriff and civil engineer. His map of Pennsylvania was published by an act of Parliament in January, 1759. Scull's chief claim to remembrance is a satire in verse, Kawanio Chekeeteru, 1755, or a True Relation of a Bloody Battle fought between George and Lewis. It is an attack on the Quakers for preventing proper measures being taken to defend the province from the French and Indians. The argument ran as follows:

"How George, for to regain his Right,
With Lewis held a dreadful Fight;
In which the man who rais'd the strife;
Was vanquished, and lost his Life;
Whereon a warm dispute arose,
About the legal Use of Blows."

Other members of this provincial club are thus characterized by Franklin: William Parsons, 'bred a shoemaker, but loving reading, had acquired a considerable share of mathematics, with a view to astrology and afterwards laughed at it; he became surveyor-general'; William Maugridge was a ' joiner, but a most exquisite mechanic and a solid sensible man'; Hugh Meredith, a 'Welsh Pennsylvanian, thirty years of age, had been bred to country work; he was honest,

sensible, a man of experience and fond of reading'; Stephen Potts, a young country man of full age, had been bred to the same, of great wit and humor, but a little idle'; David Harry, an apprentice from the country, who bought out Keimer when he started to the Barbadoes and later followed him there, was proud, dressed and lived handsomely, spent much time abroad, became indebted and was forced to return to his country work in Pennsylvania '; Robert Grace was a young gentleman of some fortune, generous, lively and witty; a lover of punning and of his friends'; and William Coleman was then merchant's clerk, about my age, who had the coolest, clearest head, the best heart, and the exactest morals of almost any man I ever met with. He became afterwards a merchant of great note and one of the provincial judges.'

962

This group of men, utterly incongruous, it would seem to us, as the nucleus for a successful club, met in a tavern or alehouse until the rich member, Grace, gave them a room in his house. Oftentimes a member would bring a book for use in the debate or for a declamation, and this led Franklin to suggest that all transfer their books to the room for reference during the day and at the meetings. After a year of communal service the owners, whose books had suffered injury, carried the volumes home. This deprivation gave to the founder the idea of a subscription library. In 1731 a plan was evolved whereby each member subscribed four shillings for the first purchase of books and ten shillings for a period

62 In Hazard's Register of Pennsylvania for March, 1835, there is a letter from Robert Vaux, enclosing a manuscript which he had obtained from his grandfather, Hugh Roberts, the intimate friend of Franklin. This adds a few names of early members to the original eleven, with the remark that most of them were born in 1706. Hugh Roberts, Philip Syng, Enoch Flower, Joseph Wharton, William Griffiths, Luke Morris, Joseph Turner, Joseph Shippen, Joseph Trotter, Samuel Jervis and Samuel Rhoades. In a letter from Roberts to Franklin, June 24, 1785, he says: "Franklin, Syng and I are the last three survivors of the Junto."

of fifty years for the perpetuation of the library. The number of subscribers was soon enlarged from fifty to one hundred. Logan and Franklin gave the list of chosen books to their English agent, Peter Collinson, who added as his gift Newton's Principia and Gardener's Dictionary. Non-subscribers could obtain books by leaving a pledge for the value and paying a charge of eight pence a week for a folio, six pence for a quarto and four pence for all others. This wise, economical policy made the plan eminently successful and brought deserved fame to the oldest and one of the most valuable of American city libraries. Of it Franklin said: "Reading became fashionable and our people having no public amusements to divert their attention from study, became better acquainted with books and in a few years were observed by strangers to be better instructed and more intelligent than people of the same rank generally are in other countries.' 63

This club, which continued forty years, was a satisfactory memory to its founder, and was to him 'the best school of philosophy, morality and politics, that existed in the province.' He often refers to it in his letters as 'the good old club,' the ancient Junto'; in one of 1766 he says: "Remember me affectionately to the Junto."

In 1743 this organization became the nucleus of the American Philosophical Society, with Franklin as its first secretary. Six of the nine members were from the Junto. All ingenious persons throughout the provinces were invited to co-operate, but Philadelphia was to be the center because of conveniences of post and sea and the advantage of a good, growing library.' Their aim was to extend throughout the world the knowledge and usefulness of discoveries and inventions in arts and sciences. A physician, a botanist, 63 See Autobiography, Vol. 1, page 169.

a mathematician, a mechanic, a geographer, a general natural philosopher, the president, the secretary and the treasurer must reside in Philadelphia. Here we see implied a rapid growth in the professional sciences. Since the city could fulfil this requirement there must have been a growth in the knowledge of the classics, especially Latin, a growth in the possession of books, by the individual or the city, but greatest of all, a growth in the habit of reading. In these few years this people had advanced from sermons as their only form of reading to general history, science and literature. Latin, German and French were being studied; some of the English writers were being read and we may soon expect many reprints.

CHAPTER III

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AS A PHILADELPHIA WRITER Environment of Franklin-Early Training-Editorial ExperienceRemoval to Philadelphia-Early Success-Publications, Gazette, Poor Richard, Father Abraham-Founding of the Academy— Foreign Work for the Colonists-Last Years in Philadelphia-Neglect of the Autobiography-Characteristics-Essays-Correspondence-Work for Home Reforms, For the Revolution-BagatellesCharacter of Man and Writings-Personal Philosophy-Religious Attitude-Representative of His Age.

IN the first forty years of the existence of the colony of Pennsylvania we have seen that no great monument of literature had been produced, nor was any man of letters known throughout his own or foreign lands. The thrift and industry of the people were bringing unusual financial success to Philadelphia, which was now developing from a village into a city. The general population, made up, not of Quakers alone, but of many sects and nationalities, enjoyed a cosmopolitan atmosphere. The people were ready for swift advancement in many lines if an able leader should appear to direct them. This man came, philosopher, diplomatist, politician, economist, printer, scientist, inventor, citizen, under the name of Benjamin Franklin.1

Though born of honest Puritan stock in Boston, Franklin saw by the time he was seventeen that he could never live there. His reading of Shaftesbury and Collins was inexcusable to the Puritans. He was correct to them only' when

1 Were it not for the fact that a study of Pennsylvania literature with Franklin omitted would resemble the play of Hamlet without the hero, this chapter would not have been written, the subject having been so thoroughly treated by Prof. J. B. McMaster in his volume in the "American Men of Letters."