handle a pen, thought it convenient to oblige and encourage me * * * * Bradford had printed an address of the House to the Governor, in a coarse, blundering manner; we reprinted it elegantly and correctly, and sent one to every member. They were sensible of the difference; it strengthened the hands of our friends in the House, and they voted us their printers for the year ensuing.[1]
And this was the work of a young Printer who was his own Editor and only twenty-three years of age. Modern times record no instances of greater ingenuity and industry.
The Junto in 1731 afforded Franklin thoughts of another scheme; he says[2]
By clubbing our books to a common library, we should, while we lik'd to keep them together, have each of us the advantage of using the books of all the other members, which would be nearly as beneficial as if each owned the whole: * * * yet some inconveniences occurring for want of due care of them, the collection after about a year was separated; and each took his books home again. And now I set on foot my first project of a public nature, that for a subscription library. I drew up the proposals, got them put into form by our great scrivener, Brockden, and by the help of my friends in the Junto, procured fifty subscribers of forty shillings each to begin with, and ten shillings a year for fifty years, the term our company was to continue. * * this was the mother of all the North American subscription libraries, now so numerous. These libraries have improved the general conversation of the Americans, made the common tradesmen and farmers as intelligent as most gentlemen from other countries, and perhaps have contributed in some degree to the stand so generally made throughout the colonies in defence of their privileges.
He writes this in 1771 in the dawn of our great struggle, of his co-directors in the institution of the Library Company of Philadelphia on I July 1731. Thomas Hopkinson, Philip Syng, and Thomas Cadwalader, became also his co-trustees eighteen years later in the Academy and College, and his faithful friend William Coleman was elected Treasurer. This Company attracted to itself in later years the testamentary gift to the public of the fine private library of James Logan whose knowledge and judgment had been consulted by Franklin in the first selection of books for their shelves. The oldest public library in the country owes its inception and planting to a young man but twenty-five years
