Volume 1 — BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.

A TYPICAL AMERICAN CITIZEN.

Bicentenary of the Famous Man Whom Joseph H. Choate Has Styled "The Greatest of American Diplomats"—Contrasts of a Successful Career—Franklin's Own Practical Rules of Conduct, and the Epitaph He Wrote for Himself.

An original article written for The Scrap Book.

It is two hundred years since Benjamin Franklin was born. The anniversary, important though it is, has led to reflections concerning the man rather than enthusiasm over him. We are struck by the great variety of his activities and accomplishments, and by the sanity of his conduct.

Benjamin Franklin is not named as the greatest American. Washington and Lincoln always will be ranked before him, because in certain achievements they stand altogether alone. The deeds which made Washington and Lincoln great required special gifts in mind and character—endowments found in such full measure only in few men and at rare intervals.

Mr. Choate's Eloquent Tribute.

Joseph H. Choate, recently ambassador to Great Britain, in his inaugural address as president of the Birmingham and Midland Institute, in 1903, paid eloquent tribute to Franklin:

His whole career has been summed up by a great French statesman, who was one of his personal friends and correspondents, in six words, Latin words of course: "Eripuit caelo fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis," which, unfortunately for our language, cannot be translated into English in less than twelve: "He snatched the lightning from the skies, and the scepter from tyrants."

Surely the briefest and most brilliant biography ever written. He enlarged the boundaries of human knowledge by discovering laws and facts of Nature unknown before, and applying them to the use and service of man; and that entitles him to lasting fame.

But his other service to mankind differed from this only in kind, and was quite equal in degree. For he stands second only to Washington in the list of heroic patriots who on both sides of the Atlantic stood for those fundamental principles of English liberty which culminated in the independence of the United States, and have ever since been shared by the English-speaking race the world over.

In view of his fifteen years' service in England and ten in France, of the immense obstacles and difficulties which he had to overcome, of the art and wisdom which he displayed, and the incalculable value to the country of the treaties which he negotiated, he still stands as by far the greatest of American diplomats.

Though greatest in no one thing, Franklin was great in many things. He was, in his time and place, a great statesman, a great diplomat. He was a great scientist, a great philosopher, a great inventor, a great man of letters, a great business man.

The Variety of His Talents.

All his qualities were made valuable by his practical sense. He was interested in nothing unless he saw in it some use. The result was that he found use in almost everything. It is no wonder that he is called "the many-sided Franklin."

This practical nature makes Franklin a typical American. Most of the larger figures of the eighteenth century, when we look back to them now, seem a little remote in their way of thinking and acting. They carry the peculiar flavor of their period. But Franklin, as we know him, might be a man of the present day—of any day in American history.

In the course of his life he worked his way up through every social stratum. A self-made man, he was virtually unassisted in his efforts to advance himself. He was the fifteenth child of a poor tallow-chandler and soap-maker. All his public-school education was received before his eleventh year.

A Manager of Men.

Yet we see him in his later life the idol of the French court, pitted against the shrewdest diplomats of the Old World to plead for the struggling American colonies, and gaining his ends almost as much through social tact and charm as by the power of a well-trained mind. He did not lead men—he managed them.

The contrasts in his career can be seen in this condensed biography:

1706—Born in Boston, January 17. 1716—Taken from school and put to work in his father's tallow-chandler's shop. 1718—Apprenticed to his brother in the printing trade. 1723—Ran away to Philadelphia, where he worked as a printer. 1725—Stranded in London and forced to work at his trade. 1729—Began publication of the Pennsylvania Gazette. 1732—First appearance of "Poor Richard's Almanac." Founded a Philadelphia library, first circulating library in America. 1737—Appointed postmaster of Philadelphia. Organized first fire company in America. 1742—Invented the first stove used in this country. 1743—Founded the American Philosophical Society and the University of Pennsylvania. 1748—Retired from active business with an estimated fortune of $75,000. 1752—The kite demonstration to prove that lightning is electricity. 1755—Led in the defense of Pennsylvania against the Indians. 1757—Sent to London as agent of the Colonial Assembly of Pennsylvania. 1763—Traveled sixteen hundred miles, extending and improving postal system. 1766—Gave testimony on the Stamp Act and spoke for the colonies before the House of Commons. 1775—After eleven years in England returned to America to take part in the contest for independence, and was elected to the second Continental Congress. 1776—On Committee of Five to frame the Declaration of Independence. Appointed commissioner to solicit aid from France. 1778—Secured a treaty of alliance with France. 1781—Member of the commission to negotiate a treaty of peace with Great Britain. 1785—President of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. 1787—Assisted in framing the Constitution of the United States. 1790—Died at his home in Philadelphia, eighty-four years of age.

"Stranded in London in 1725;" in 1748 retiring from business "with an estimated fortune of seventy-five thousand dollars"—a real fortune in those days—besides an assured income of five thousand dollars a year from his publishing business. Here is advancement!

Franklin the Scientist.

If Franklin had remained in retirement he would be remembered as a successful colonial gentleman who contributed many maxims and proverbs to the literature of common sense.

But about this time men who had the leisure were everywhere playing with electricity. Experiments in natural science happened to be a fad, much as in recent years have been experiments in table-lifting, automatic writing, and other phenomena of what is called the "subliminal self."

Franklin studied electricity with the rest, but with the difference that he made his electrical work amount to something. The results of his experiments were published, arousing a great deal of interest in Europe.

The suggestion that thunder and lightning are electrical phenomena similar to those produced artificially was made by Franklin in 1749. The idea was not altogether new. He, however, emphasized it, and proposed an experiment by which the identity of the two manifestations of the electric fluid might be proved.

His scheme involved the erection of an iron rod on a church steeple or high tower to draw electricity from passing clouds. The experiment was first actually carried out by a Frenchman, D'Alibard.

When Franklin made his famous experiment with the kite in 1752 the theory he was seeking to prove had already been established. Yet the credit of the discovery belongs to him by right of prior suggestion.

Franklin offered, instead of the two-fluid theory of electricity, the then revolutionary one-fluid theory; discovered the poisonous nature of air breathed out from the lungs; made important meteorological discoveries, including the fact that the Gulf Stream is warmer than the surrounding ocean; proved, by experiment with colored cloths on snow, that different colors absorb the heat of the sun in different quantities.

These are among his scientific achievements. From each he drew some practical inference. He invented the lightning-rod; devised systems of ventilation for buildings, and suggested that white, since it absorbs the least heat, is the best color to wear in summer.

IN LITERATURE AND PUBLIC LIFE.

His reputation as a man of letters rests upon his journalistic work, essays, and correspondence, and his unique autobiography. He founded the first literary newspaper in America, thus becoming the first editor as distinguished from the mere news-gatherer. He founded the first literary club in America—the famous Junto. He was the first to illustrate a newspaper, and to point out the advantages of illustrated advertisements.

Though his claim to eminence as a man of letters is not to be gainsaid, he was not, in the finer distinction, a literary man. He represented no literary tradition, nor did he establish one. His practical genius confined the elements of his literary manner to lucidity, simplicity, and directness. There was no really idealistic touch in his writing. But his frankness and his genial humor kept him from ever becoming dull. His autobiography is one of the most interesting personal narratives ever written.

But Franklin's greatest work was his work as a statesman and diplomat. Between 1757 and 1775 he represented in England first his own colony of Pennsylvania and later the group of colonies. His zeal got him into trouble, for he made public, though by permission, some letters written by Governor Hutchison, of Massachusetts, in which the English government was advised to use harsh measures with the colony.

Attacked in the Privy Council for his "bad faith," Franklin stood silent until the vituperation ended, and then quietly withdrew. His demeanor inspired Horace Walpole's famous epigram:

On that fateful day Franklin was dressed in "a new suit of spotted Manchester velvet." The man's sense of humor appears in the fact that he deliberately laid that suit aside and did not put it on again until the day when he signed the treaty of alliance between France and the American colonies.

His labors in France during the period of the American Revolution are part of the history of the time. As the French historian Lacretelle says:

His virtues and renown negotiated for him; and before the second year of his mission had expired no one conceived it possible to refuse fleets and armies to the countrymen of Franklin.

A PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE.

How did Franklin make himself so effective a man? How did he succeed where others failed? The secret lies in his practical philosophy of life. Fortunately he bequeathed that secret to us in the maxims which he composed for his own guidance during his voyage back to America from England when he was twenty-two years of age. The pithy phrases are full of vitality to-day.

Eat not to dulness; drink not to elevation.

Speak naught but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.

Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.

Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and if you speak, speak accordingly.

Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation.

Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.

Drive thy business; let not thy business drive thee.

Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.

One to-day is worth two to-morrows.

Buy what thou hast no need of and ere long thou shalt sell thy necessaries.

Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half-shut afterward.

They that won't be counseled can't be helped.

A man may, if he knows not how to save as he gets, keep his nose all his life to the grindstone, and die not worth a groat at last.

Worldly wise, these maxims; but sound rules of conduct. Franklin was no doddering Polonius, looking for advantage where others could have none. He was worldly wise, but he employed his worldly wisdom to serve not only himself but his friends, his neighbors, and finally his country.

FRANKLIN AS A RELIGIOUS MAN.

The venerable Edward Everett Hale, whose span of years reaches far back to almost touching distance with the great and good ones of the nation's infancy, sheds new light upon Benjamin Franklin's religious life in a recent article in the Independent:

Franklin had an indifference, almost amusing, to the sectarian divisions of the Christian Church. Because of this ever-amusing indifference to sect, there has grown up a doubt in extreme circles whether Franklin was what is called a religious man. But it is quite certain, nothing is more certain, that he recognized the Divine Providence, the being and love of God, the work and gospel of Jesus Christ, and immortality of man, and that he was eager to take part as a Christian man in the best work of the Christian Church.

Dr. Hale admits that Franklin "did not know the difference between an Episcopalian and a Roman Catholic," but thinks that he was nevertheless "one of the men who, as the English Prayer Book says in its grand way, 'profess and call themselves Christians.'"

After Franklin's death, an epitaph, written by himself when twenty-three years of age, was found among his papers. Though it was not chiseled upon his tomb, we may quote it here:

The body of B. FRANKLIN, Printer, Like the cover of an old book, its contents torn out, and stripped of its lettering and gilding, lies here, food for worms. But the work shall not be wholly lost; for it will, as he believed, appear once more, in a new and more perfect edition, corrected and amended by the Author. He was born January 17, 1706. Died 17. B.F.