When Franklin was forty-two, he had accumulated a fortune of seventy-five thousand dollars. It gave him an income of about four thousand dollars a year, which he said was all he wanted; so he sold out his business, intending to devote his entire energies to the study of science and languages. He had lived just one-half his days; and had he then passed out, his life could have been summed up as one of the most useful that ever has been lived. He had founded and been the life of the Junto Club—the most sensible and beneficent club of which I ever heard.
The series of questions asked at every meeting of the Junto, so mirror the life and habit of thought of Franklin that we had better glance at a few of them:
- Have you read over these queries this morning, in order to consider what you might have to offer the Junto, touching any one of them?
- Have you met with anything in the author you last read, remarkable, or suitable to be communicated to the Junto; particularly in history, morality, poetry, physics, travels, mechanical arts, or other parts of knowledge?
- Do you know of a fellow-citizen, who has lately done a worthy action, deserving praise and imitation; or who has lately committed an error, proper for us to be warned against and avoid?
- What unhappy effects of intemperance have you lately observed or heard; of imprudence, of passion, or of any other vice or folly?
- What happy effects of temperance, of prudence, of moderation, or of any other virtue?
- Do you think of anything at present in which the members of the Junto may be serviceable to mankind, to their country, to their friends, or to themselves?
- Hath any deserving stranger arrived in town since last meeting that you have heard of? And what have you heard or observed of his character or merits? And whether, think you, it lies in the power of the Junto to oblige him, or encourage him as he deserves?
- Do you know of any deserving young beginner, lately set up, whom it lies in the power of the Junto in any way to encourage?
- Have you lately observed any defect in the laws of your country, of which it would be proper to move the legislature for an amendment? Or do you know of any beneficial law that is wanting?
- Have you lately observed any encroachment on the just liberties of the people?
- In what manner can the Junto, or any of its members, assist you in any of your honorable designs?
- Have you any weighty affair on hand in which you think the advice of the Junto may be of service?
- What benefits have you lately received from any man not present?
- Is there any difficulty in matters of opinion, of justice and injustice, which you would gladly have discussed at this time?
The Junto led to the establishment, by Franklin, of the Philadelphia Public Library, which became the parent of all public libraries in America. He also organized and equipped a fire-company; paved and lighted the streets of Philadelphia; established a high school and an academy for the study of English branches; founded the Philadelphia Public Hospital; invented the toggle-joint printing-press, the Franklin Stove, and various other useful mechanical devices.
After his retirement from business, Franklin enjoyed seven years of what he called leisure, but they were years of study and application; years of happiness and sweet content, but years of aspiration and an earnest looking into the future. His experiments with kite and key had made his name known in all the scientific circles of Europe, and his suggestive writings on the subject of electricity had caused Goethe to lay down his pen and go to rubbing amber for the edification of all Weimar.
Franklin was in correspondence with the greatest minds of Europe, and what his "Poor Richard Almanac" had done for the plain people of America, his pamphlets were now doing for the philosophers of the Old World.
In Seventeen Hundred Fifty-four, he wrote a treatise showing the Colonies that they must be united, and this was the first public word that was to grow and crystallize and become the United States of America. Before that, the Colonies were simply single, independent, jealous and bickering overgrown clans. Franklin showed for the first time that they must unite in mutual aims.
In Seventeen Hundred Fifty-seven, matters were getting a little strained between the Province of Pennsylvania and England. "The lawmakers of England do not understand us—some one should go there as an authorized agent to plead our cause," and Franklin was at once chosen as the man of strongest personality and soundest sense. So Franklin went to England and remained there for five years as agent for the Colonies.
He then returned home, but after two years the Stamp Act had stirred up the public temper to a degree that made revolution imminent, and Franklin again went to England to plead for justice. The record of the ten years he now spent in London is told by Bancroft in a hundred pages. Bancroft is very good, and! have no desire to rival him, so suffice it to say that Franklin did all that any man could have done to avert the coming War of the Revolution. Burke has said that when he appeared before Parliament to be examined as to the condition of things in America, it was like a lot of schoolboys interrogating the master.
With the voice and tongue of a prophet, Franklin foretold the English people what the outcome of their treatment of America would be. Pitt and a few others knew the greatness of Franklin, and saw that he was right, but the rest smiled in derision.