Benjamin Franklin laid the first stone of an institution which was destined to outgrow in usefulness and in influence any other of the creations of his fertile brain, when he announced in a communication to the printers of his Pennsylvania Gazette which appeared on 24 August, 1749, the prospectus of his scheme for the higher education of youth in his adopted city in the following sentences:
In the settling of new countries, the first care of the planters must be to provide and secure the necessaries of life; this engrosses their attention, and affords them little time to think of any thing farther. We may therefore excuse our ancestors, that they established no Academy or college in this province, wherein their youth might receive a polite and learned education. Agriculture and mechanic arts, were of the most immediate importance; the culture of minds by the finer arts and sciences, was necessarily postpon'd to times of more wealth and leisure.
Since those times are come, and numbers of our inhabitants are both able and willing to give their sons a good education, if it might be had at home, free from the extraordinary expence and hazard in sending them abroad for that purpose; and since a proportion of men of learning is useful in every country, and those who of late years come to settle among us, are chiefly foreigners, unacquainted with our language, laws and customs; it is thought a proposal for establishing an Academy in this province, will not now be deemed unseasonable. Such a proposal the publick may therefore shortly expect. In the meantime, please to give the following letter of the younger Pliny to Cornelius Tacitus,[1] a place in your paper, as it seems apropos to the design above mentioned.
Pliny junior to Cornelius Tacitus.
I Rejoice that you are safely arrived in Rome; for tho' I am always desirous to see you, I am more particularly so now. I purpose to continue a few days longer at my house in Tusculum, in order to finish a work which I have upon my hands: For I am afraid, should I put a stop to this design, now that it is so nearly compleated, I shall find it difficult to resume it. In the meanwhile, that I may lose no time, I send this letter before me, to request a favour of you, which I hope shortly to ask in person. But before I inform you what my request is, I must let you into the occasion of
- ↑ See Melmoth's Letters of Pliny the Consul, Book IV. Letter 13. Franklin's Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania are repeated in full in Appendix I.
