it all the more necessary for those to study who claim it as their Alma Mater.
He had entitled himself among his fellow trustees bearing honored titles of rank or profession or of courtesy, simply as Printer; this he claimed as his proper designation and of equal honor to his last days, his will reciting "I Benjamin Franklin, Printer," in precedence of his further titles, "late Minister Plenipotentiary from the United States of America to the Court of France, now President of the State of Pennsylvania," when he wrote it on 17 July, 1788. Having a competency by his success in business, he had retired from the active work of his calling in September 1748, disposing of his printing establishment to David Hall, his foreman, on favorable terms to both, which were to be met by Hall within the term of eighteen years during which it was to be carried on in the names of Franklin and Hall, the former assisting in the editing of the Gazette and his Poor Richard's Almanac. But through all his changes and diversities of labors, he clung with tenacity and in honor to his cognomen of Printer.
The leisure he gained by this made no contribution to any personal idleness; he simply turned his activities into more congenial channels of science or education or philanthropy, or indeed politics. His electrical pursuits, begun in 1747, continued unremittingly over a series of years;[1] his Academy and Charitable School of 1749 opened up still further opportunities for
- ↑ These earlier experiments of Franklin were carried on in the house built by John Wister, No. 141 (now 325) Market street in 1731. "It was in this house that Dr. Franklin made his first attempt to 'snatch the lightning from Heaven' and guide it harmlessly to the earth. With this object he here erected his first lightning rod, an hexagonal iron rod, still in our possession, connecting it with a bell which gave the alarm whenever the atmosphere was surcharged with electric fluid. The ringing of this bell so annoyed my grandmother that it was removed at her request." Memoir of Charles J. Wister, by his son, 1866, vol i. pp. 21, 33. John Wister's son, Daniel, who was born 4 February, 1738–39, was a pupil at the Academy 1752–1754, as was also his cousin Caspar in 1752. Watson tells us that in 1750 Franklin owned and was dwelling in the house at the South East corner of Race and Second Streets. Annals i. 532–33.
The earliest residence of Franklin's family known to us was in the building owned by Benjamin Hornor on Market Street above Front, now No. 131, where some of Mr. Hornor's living descendants recollect being shown in their early years traces then remaining of Franklin's printing work. See Family Memorials by Miss Mary Coates, Philadelphia 1885, p. 60. It was here that Franklin writes to Thomas Hopkinson, in 1747: "The din of the Market increases upon me, and that, with frequent
