"Of their Chloes and Phyllises poets may prate,
I sing my plain country Joan,
These twelve years my wife, still the joy of my life,
Blest day that I made her my own."
Franklin's first public improvement carries us back to the early leathern-apron days of the Junto. Books were a rare commodity among the frugal members of that club, and for a while they increased their resources by keeping all their volumes together in the club room for common use. But this plan proving hardly feasible, Franklin in the year 1731 drew up proposals for a city library. His method of arousing public interest in the scheme was one to which he always had recourse on such occasions, and is a credit to his modesty as well as to his shrewdness. "I put myself," he says, "as much as I could out of sight, and stated it as a scheme of a number of friends, who had requested me to go about and propose it to such as they thought lovers of reading." He succeeded, as he always did in his projects, and the library, still an honored institution of Philadelphia, is the parent of all the subscription libraries of the country.
Through the aid of the Junto, also, Franklin set in motion another project. As a boy he had seen the first fire company started in Boston, and now that his Quaker home had grown to be a thriving city, he undertook to introduce the same system there. No doubt many of our readers have seen the curious relics of these colonial fire companies,—old leathern buckets stamped with various devices and with the owner's name, which were used to pass water rapidly from hand to hand. The companies had a social as well as a useful aim, so that families were proud to preserve such memorials of the old days.
Owing to the wretched system in vogue, the night watch of the city had fallen into a deplorable state, the watchmen consisting of a set of ragamuffins who passed their nights in tippling and left the town to take care of itself. To remedy this evil Franklin made use of the Junto and of his paper, "The Gazette," and once more his efforts were successful.
It seemed, indeed, as if there were no limits to his activity. At different times he bent his energies to getting the streets paved, to improving the lighting of the city, to introducing various novelties in agriculture, and to assisting other projects, such as the establishment of the Pennsylvania hospital. More important, perhaps, than these was the founding of the academy which has since developed into the University of Pennsylvania. As early as 1743 we find Franklin regretting that there was no convenient college where he might send his son to be educated; and in 1749 he took up the matter seriously, publishing a pamphlet which he called, "Proposals relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania." Nor did his zeal end here. He continued to urge on the project, and in a short time the money was raised and the school actually opened. Franklin was for more than forty years a trustee of the institution, and took just pride in the good which it accomplished for the community. His purpose in one respect, however, was foiled; he was an ardent advocate of English and the sciences in education, and would have been glad to have the study of Latin and Greek utterly banished from the schools. Fortunately in this matter public opinion was too strong for him, and he was obliged to succumb to the regular curriculum. For some reason, whether because of early lack of training in these studies or because his mind was of such a sort as to be completely absorbed in the present, he was all his life violently prejudiced against the classics, and on his very death-bed one of his last acts was to compose a mocking diatribe against the use of those languages. It is one of the few cases where his judgment was marred, not by the limitations of his intelligence, but a lack of the deeper imagination,—where he applied his footrule of utility to measure quantities beyond its reach.
With Franklin's increasing prosperity and popularity his influence in matters political grew more and more dominant. His first recognition in this field was in 1736, when he was chosen clerk of the General Assembly,—a position which he continued to hold until he was elected a member of the Assembly itself. He found this office very tedious, but amused himself during the long debates by constructing magic squares of figures and by other diversions of the sort. Constant to his practice he lets us know that he retained the position chiefly because it enabled him to get control of the public printing, and once when threatened by the advent of a new member with loss of this lucrative employment he saved himself by his usual recourse to honorable stratagem. Having heard that this gentleman had in his library a certain very scarce and curious book, Franklin wrote him a note expressing a desire to read the volume and asking to borrow it for a few days. The book came immediately, and the two students were at once bound together in friendship. "This is another instance," Franklin adds, "of the truth of an old maxim I had learned, which says: 'He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another than he whom you yourself have obliged.'"
Other positions came to Franklin in due time. The very next year he was made postmaster of Philadelphia, and filled the office so well that some years later he was put at the head of the postal system for the colonies. This gave him an opportunity to become familiar with the political affairs of the whole country and enhanced his usefulness very much.