Quakers had given him reason to suppose them not altogether inimical to defensive measures in which they were not called upon to join too directly. Dur

ing the public fervour respecting the battery, it was proposed that a small sum should be granted by the fire-company in aid of that scheme; but when it was recollected that the Friends were twenty-two in number, out of the thirty of which the company consisted, the minority could hardly hope for success. A meeting however was appointed to consider the subject, when the other eight members punctually appeared, with but one Quaker, a Mr Morris. He was strenuous in his opposition, and deprecated even the discussion of the grant, as tending to disturb the long-continued harmony of the company. The hour for proceeding to business at length arrived, and still no increase of Friends. Mr Morris then requested a little delay, for he was quite sure that his brethren were coming. Franklin however states the following strange facts. A waiter called him down to speak with "two gentlemen," who proved to be members of their own body. They informed him that at a neighbouring tavern six other Friends were waiting to come with them, if necessary, and vote for the measure, but that, as it might involve them in disputes with their brethren, they requested not be called upon except in case of necessity. Secure of his object, Franklin now returned to the society, and consented to a further delay, which Morris considered as very fair; and after the lapse of an hour, he remaining still unsupported, the measure was carried by eight to one. "Thus as of the twenty-two Quakers, eight were ready to vote with us," says Franklin, and "eleven, by their absence, manifested that they were not inclined to oppose the measure, I computed that the proportion of Quakers sincerely against the defence, was as one to twenty-one only." Franklin ayers distinctly, that his long experience in the Pennsylvanian assembly gave him constant opportunities of observing evasive conduct in the Quakers, and their never-ending em

barrassment on the question of war. Desirous of conciliating the government at home, they were unwilling to refuse all supplies of that nature, which their regard for their own principles would have taught them to deny. Monies, known to be designed for military purposes, were therefore, for a long time, granted "for the king's use." But when a local governor demanded such supplies, as this phrase would have been inapplicable, others were invented. On one occasion, he says, the vote was for "bread, flour, wheat, and other grain," with a view to include gunpowder! He therefore observed to a member of the fire-company, when he was apprehensive of being outvoted in his proposal in favour of the battery," If we fail, let us move the purchase of a fire-engine with the money: the Quakers can have no objection to that, and-then-we will buy a great gun, which is certainly a fire-engine."

Franklin's post of clerk to the Assembly, he was told, would be endangered, during this memorable year, by his conduct in military affairs; and he was urged to resign, being assured the Quakers would endeavour to displace him. His reply to a young expectant of the office, who gave him this advice (out of regard, as he said, to his honour) was not lacking in sagacity. He had read, he observed, of some pub lic men who made it a rule never to ask for an office,

and never to refuse one. 'I approve,' said he, 'of this rule, and shall practise it with a small addition. I shall never ask, nor refuse, nor ever resign, an office. If they will have my office of clerk, to give to another, they shall take it from me. I will not, by giving it up, lose my right, some time or other, of making reprisal on my adversaries.'

Speaking further of the tergiversation of the Quakers, arising from their public pledges respecting war, he commends the policy of an obscure American sect, with which he about this time became acquainted, called the Dunkers. They complained to him of the calumnies that were in circulation respecting them;

when he advised the publication of their principles or articles of belief. One of the founders of the sect replied, "When we were first drawn together as a society, it pleased God to enlighten our minds so far as to see that some doctrines which were esteemed truths were errors, and that others which we had esteemed errors were real truths. From time to time he has been pleased to afford us farther light, and our principles have been improving, and our errors diminishing. Now we are not sure that we are arrived at the end of this progression, and at the perfection of spiritual or theological knowledge; and we fear, that if we should once print our confession of faith, we should feel ourselves as if bound and confined by it, and perhaps be unwilling to receive further improvements; and our juniors still more so, as conceiving what these elders and founders had done was something sacred, never to be departed from."

The argument of this honest man resembles that of a modern writer of much greater name, ,* who, after triumphantly narrating his progress through every known gradation of opinions on the person of Christ, boasted literally, "That he did not know when his creed would be fixed!"

At the close of the Spanish and French war in 1748, Franklin renewed his attention to the subject of education. The Junto was again moved to influence the good work of founding a superior academy, and our author circulated proposals relating to the education of youth in Pennsylvania, and Ideas of an English School, for the consideration of the Trustees;' the whole being announced as the plan of some 'publicspirited gentleman,' according to his former advice of keeping individuals in such cases in the background. A subscription was proposed to be paid by five annual instalments, and the sum of 5000l. was soon engaged for, and placed under the management of twenty-four trustees; Franklin and a Mr Francis being intrusted to draw up the constitution of the academy. This being accomplished to his satisfaction, a house

* Dr Priestley.

was hired, and the school opened the same year. Of this institution a leading feature was the perfect education of youth in the English language; a subject upon which Franklin was strenuous all his days. In choosing the rector, it was enjoined that 'great regard is to be had to his polite speaking, writing, and understanding, the English tongue.'

The original house of the institution was soon too small for the students; and the preaching-house formerly named was finally appropriated to their use. It was built, Franklin informs us, for no particular sect; while the moving cause of its erection was a want of public accommodation for Mr Whitfield, the subscribers to the building agreed that it was to be opened for the use of any respectable religious teacher; so that, Franklin drily observes, "had the mufti of Constantinople sent a missionary to preach Mahometanism in Philadelphia, he would have found a pulpit at his service.' Through this general designation of the building, Franklin, on the demise of one of the original trustees, was chosen in his place, as a man of no sect;' and at the period when the academy wanted better accommodation, the building being rarely required for its first purposeș, and its funds being in arrears, a fair compromise was suggested between the parties. The trustees of the building ceded it to the academy, who paid all its debts, and agreed to keep open, for ever, a capacious public hall for the use of any preacher requiring it, on the terms of the original trust.

This institution was deservedly popular, not only in Philadelphia and other parts of America, but also in England; and many considerable donations were accordingly bestowed upon it. Two large gold medals were brought over from friends in England by Dr Franklin (in 1775) as prizes for such young gentlemen as should compose the best essays on subjects to be proposed by the college. For one of them there were five competitors, who wrote upon the following subject" The motives to and advantages of a perpe

tual union between Britain and her colonies:" and the essays were of such great merit, that they were not only published in all parts of America, but afterwards reprinted in England. Such an institution had long been a desideratum in the colonies, and now became valued in proportion to its importance. It was filled with able professors. Its funds were continually increased by contributions from England, to the period of the separation of the colonies, and land, &c. was granted for its use by the proprietaries, and also by the assembly; and finally the trustees were incorporated by charter. Thus arose the university of Philadelphia, the seat of American literature and science, which has supplied the United States with its most eminent scholars, competitors in scientific attainments with the literati of the world.

It is here due to Franklin to observe that, to the close of life, he was peculiarly tenacious of the primary design of this academy, namely, to afford the young people of Philadelphia an accurate acquaintance with the English tongue, and to cultivate amongst them superior correctness and delicacy of taste in English composition. Even when stepping into the grave, in 1789, he declaims against the too great preponderance of Greek and Latin, and "the starvation" of the English part of the scheme of education; and imagines himself surrounded by the departed spirits of his dear friends, the original founders, urging him to use the only tongue of theirs now left, in demanding that justice for the next generation which had been denied, he says, to the present. Many of his reflections on this subject are sensible, but some prejudices were also mingled with it; attributable, in a great degree, to the contracted sphere of his own education. Justice perhaps requires us to insert here, from his observations on the original intentions of the founders of the academy (1789) the following illustration of his opinions:

"The origin of Latin and Greek schools among the different nations of Europe is known to have been