Though he did not consider himself a man of letters, Franklin was throughout his long life a writer. His writing was incidental to his business as a journalist and statesman. He also corresponded widely with various classes of people. Fortunately many of these writings have been preserved, and from these and the Autobiography a number of valuable lives have been written. The student will find pleasure in referring to the Franklin volumes of the American Statesmen Series and of the American Men of Letters Series. The three volume life by Mr. John Bigelow and the one volume, The Many-sided Franklin, by Paul Leicester Ford, will supply the years of Franklin's life not included in his autobiography, the writing of which was several times interrupted by public business of the greatest importance, and finally cut short by the long illness that preceded his death.
Read the pages devoted to Franklin in Brander Matthews' Introduction to American Literature. Matthews says of him, "He was the first great American—for Washington was twenty-six years younger." "He was the only man who signed the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Alliance with France, the Treaty of Peace with England, and the Constitution under which we still live."
As you read Franklin's pages be on the alert for material to support Mr. Matthews' statement, "Franklin was the first of American humorists, and to this day he has not been surpassed in his own line." Will one of you report to the class on "Franklin's Humor"?
Franklin was far in advance of his times on many questions. In 1783, when concluding the Treaty of Peace with England, he tried to secure the adoption of a clause protecting the property of non-belligerents in subsequent wars. England would not accept this advanced idea, but Frederick II of Prussia agreed to it, and since that time all civilized governments have united in embodying it in the Law of Nations.
Franklin was one of the first and, in proportion to his means, one of the greatest of American philanthropists. He said that he had "a trick for doing a deal of good with a little money." In lending some money to one who had applied to him for assistance, he instructed the borrower to pass it on to some one else in distress as soon as he could afford to repay it. "I hope it may thus go through many hands, before it meets with a knave that will stop its progress."
Mr. Bigelow's Life of Franklin reproduces the philosopher's exact spelling. He was one of the early spelling reformers. See his "Petition of the Letter Z," p. 116, The Many-sided Franklin.
(In the following notes the numerals refer to the pages of the text.)
[Page 17.] "Ecton, in Northamptonshire." In 1657 George Washington's grandfather emigrated to Virginia from this same English county.
"Franklin, ... an order of people." Do you recall one of the titles of Cedric, the Saxon, in Scott's Ivanhoe?