Benjamin Franklin Representive Selectionswith Introduction Bibliography and Notes by Frank Luthor Mott and Chester EJorgenson

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Title: Benjamin Franklin
Representative selections, with introduction, bibliograpy, and notes

Author: Frank Luther Mott
Chester E. Jorgenson

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BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

Pen drawing by Kerr Eby, after an
engraving by Mason Chamberlin

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

ÆT. 56

Benjamin Franklin

REPRESENTATIVE SELECTIONS, WITH

INTRODUCTION, BIBLIOGRAPHY, AND NOTES

BY

FRANK LUTHER MOTT

Director, School of Journalism

University of Iowa

AND

CHESTER E. JORGENSON

Instructor in English
University of Iowa

AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY

New York · Cincinnati · Chicago

Boston · Atlanta

Copyright, 1936, by

AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY

All rights reserved

Mott and Jorgenson's Franklin

W.P.I.

Made in U.S.A.

PREFACE

Benjamin Franklin's reputation in America has been singularly distorted by the neglect of his works other than his
Autobiography and his most utilitarian aphorisms. If America has contented herself with appraising him as "the earliest
incarnation of 'David Harum,'" as "the first high-priest of the religion of efficiency," as "the first Rotarian," it may be that
this aspect of Franklin is all that an America plagued by growing pains, by peopling and mechanizing three thousand
miles of frontier, has been able to see. That facet of Franklin's mind and mien which allowed Carlyle to describe him as
"the Father of all Yankees" was appreciated by Sinclair Lewis's George F. Babbitt: "Once in a while I just naturally sit
back and size up this Solid American Citizen, with a whale of a lot of satisfaction." But this is not the Franklin of
"imperturbable common-sense" honored by Matthew Arnold as "the very incarnation of sanity and clear-sense, a man
the most considerable ... whom America has yet produced." Nor is this the Franklin who emerges from his collected
works (and the opinions of his notable contemporaries) as an economist, political theorist, educator, journalist, scientific
deist, and disinterested scientist. If he wrote little that is narrowly belles-lettres, he need not be ashamed of his
voluminous correspondence, in an age which saw the fruition of the epistolary art. The Franklin found in his collected
and uncollected writings is, as the following Introduction may suggest, not the Franklin who too commonly is
synchronized exclusively with the wisdom and wit of Poor Richard.

Since the present interpretation of the growth of Franklin's mind, with stress upon its essential unity in the light of
scientific deism, tempered by his debt to Puritanism, classicism, and neoclassicism, may seem somewhat novel, the
editors have felt it desirable to document their interpretation with considerable fullness. It is hoped that the reader will
withhold judgment as to the validity of this interpretation until the documentary evidence has been fully considered in its
genetic significance, and that he will feel able to incline to other interpretations only in proportion as they can be equally
supported by other evidence. The present interpretation is also supported by the Selections following—the fullest
collection hitherto available in one volume—which offer, the editors believe, the essential materials for a reasonable
acquaintance with the growth of Franklin's mind, from youth to old age, in its comprehensive interests—educational,
literary, journalistic, economic, political, scientific, humanitarian, and religious.

With the exception of the selections from the Autobiography, the works are arranged in approximate chronological
order, hence inviting a necessarily genetic study of Franklin's mind. The Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity,
Pleasure and Pain, never before printed in an edition of Franklin's works or in a book of selections, is here printed
from the London edition of 1725, retaining his peculiarities of italics, capitalization, and punctuation. Attention is also
drawn to the photographically reproduced complete text of Poor Richard Improved (1753), graciously furnished by
Mr. William Smith Mason. The Way to Wealth is from an exact reprint made by Mr. Mason, and with his permission
here reproduced. One of the editors is grateful for the privilege of consulting Mr. Mason's magnificent collection of
Franklin correspondence (original MSS), especially the Franklin-Galloway and Franklin-Jonathan Shipley (Bishop of
St. Asaph) unpublished correspondence. With Mr. Mason's generous permission the editors reproduce fragments of
this correspondence in the Introduction.

The bulk of the selections have been printed from the latest, standard edition, The Writings of Benjamin Franklin,
collected and edited with a Life and Introduction by Albert Henry Smyth (10 vols., 1905-1907). For permission to use
this material the editors are grateful to The Macmillan Company, publishers. The editors are indebted to Dr. Max
Farrand, Director of the Henry E. Huntington Library, for permission to reprint part of Franklin's MS version of the
Autobiography.

Chester E. Jorgenson is preparing an analysis and interpretation of Franklin's brand of scientific deism, its sources and

[v]

[vi]

[vii]

relation to his economic, political, and literary theories and practice. Fragments of this projected study are included,
especially in Section VII of the following Introduction. For the past two years Mr. Jorgenson has enjoyed the kindness
and generosity of Mr. William Smith Mason, and has incurred an indebtedness which cannot be expressed adequately
in print.

The work of the editors has been vastly eased by Beata Prochnow Jorgenson's assistance in typing, proofreading, et
cetera. They are extremely grateful to Professor Harry Hayden Clark for incisive suggestions and valuable editorial
assistance.

F. L. M.
C. E. J.

CONTENTS

Introduction

I. Franklin's Milieu: The Age of Enlightenment, xiii
II. Franklin's Theories of Education, xxxii
III. Franklin's Literary Theory and Practice, xlvi
IV. Franklin as Printer and Journalist, lvii
V. Franklin's Economic Views, lxiv
VI. Franklin's Political Theories, lxxxii
VII. Franklin as Scientist and Deist, cx

Chronological Table, cxlii

Selected Bibliography

I. Works, cli
II. Collections and Reprints, cliii
III. Biographies, clv
IV. Biographical and Critical Studies, clviii
V. The Age of Franklin, clxxiv
VI. Bibliographies and Check Lists, clxxxvi

Selections

From the Autobiography, 3
Dogood Papers, No. I (1722), 96
Dogood Papers, No. IV (1722), 98
Dogood Papers, No. V (1722), 102
Dogood Papers, No. VII (1722), 105
Dogood Papers, No. XII (1722), 109
Editorial Preface to the New England Courant (1723), 111
A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain (1725), 114
Rules for a Club Established for Mutual Improvement (1728), 128
Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion (1728), 130
The Busy-Body, No. 1 (1728/9), 137
The Busy-Body, No. 2 (1728/9), 139
The Busy-Body, No. 3 (1728/9), 141
The Busy-Body, No. 4 (1728/9), 145
Preface to the Pennsylvania Gazette (1729), 150
A Dialogue between Philocles and Horatio (1730), 152
A Second Dialogue between Philocles and Horatio (1730), 156
A Witch Trial at Mount Holly (1730), 161
An Apology for Printers (1731), 163

[viii]
[ix]

Preface to Poor Richard (1733), 169
A Meditation on a Quart Mugg (1733), 170
Preface to Poor Richard (1734), 172
Preface to Poor Richard (1735), 174
Hints for Those That Would Be Rich (1736), 176
To Josiah Franklin (April 13, 1738), 177
Preface to Poor Richard (1739), 179
A Proposal for Promoting Useful Knowledge among the British Plantations in

America (1743), 180

Shavers and Trimmers (1743), 183
To the Publick (1743), 186
Preface to Logan's Translation of "Cato Major" (1743/4), 187
To John Franklin, at Boston (March 10, 1745), 188
Preface to Poor Richard (1746), 189
The Speech of Polly Baker (1747), 190
Preface to Poor Richard (1747), 193
To Peter Collinson (August 14, 1747), 194
Preface to Poor Richard Improved (1748), 195
Advice to a Young Tradesman (1748), 196
To George Whitefield (July 6, 1749), 198
Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pensilvania (1749), 199
Idea of the English School (1751), 206
To Cadwallader Colden Esq., at New York (1751), 213
Exporting of Felons to the Colonies (1751), 214
Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries,

Etc. (1751), 216

To Peter Collinson (October 19, 1752), 223
Poor Richard Improved (1753)—facsimile reproduction, 225
To Joseph Huey (June 6, 1753), 261
Three Letters to Governor Shirley (1754), 263
To Miss Catherine Ray, at Block Island (March 4, 1755), 270
To Peter Collinson (August 25, 1755), 272
To Miss Catherine Ray (September 11, 1755), 274
To Miss Catherine Ray (October 16, 1755), 277
To Mrs. Jane Mecom (February 12, 1756), 278
To Miss E. Hubbard (February 23, 1756), 278
To Rev. George Whitefield (July 2, 1756), 279
The Way to Wealth (1758), 280
To Hugh Roberts (September 16, 1758), 289
To Mrs. Jane Mecom (September 16, 1758), 291
To Lord Kames (May 3, 1760), 293
To Miss Mary Stevenson (June 11, 1760), 295
To Mrs. Deborah Franklin (June 27, 1760), 298
To Jared Ingersoll (December 11, 1762), 300
To Miss Mary Stevenson (March 25, 1763), 301
To John Fothergill, M.D. (March 14, 1764), 304
To Sarah Franklin (November 8, 1764), 307
From A Narrative of the Late Massacres in Lancaster County (1764), 308
To the Editor of a Newspaper (May 20, 1765), 315
To Lord Kames (June 2, 1765), 318
Letter Concerning the Gratitude of America (January 6, 1766), 321
To Lord Kames (April 11, 1767), 325
To Miss Mary Stevenson (September 14, 1767), 330
On the Labouring Poor (1768), 336
To Dupont de Nemours (July 28, 1768), 340
To John Alleyne (August 9, 1768), 341
To the Printer of the London Chronicle (August 18, 1768), 343

[x]

[xi]

Positions to be Examined, Concerning National Wealth (1769), 345
To Miss Mary Stevenson (September 2, 1769), 347
To Joseph Priestley (September 19, 1772), 348
To Miss Georgiana Shipley (September 26, 1772), 349
To Peter Franklin (undated), 351
On the Price of Corn, and Management of the Poor (undated), 355
An Edict by the King of Prussia (1773), 358
Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One (1773),

363

To William Franklin (October 6, 1773), 371
Preface to "An Abridgment of the Book of Common Prayer" (1773), 374
A Parable against Persecution, 379
A Parable on Brotherly Love, 380
To William Strahan (July 5, 1775), 381
To Joseph Priestley (July 7, 1775), 382
To a Friend in England (October 3, 1775), 383
To Lord Howe (July 30, 1776), 384
The Sale of the Hessians (1777), 387
Model of a Letter of Recommendation (April 2, 1777), 389
To —— (October 4, 1777), 390
To David Hartley (October 14, 1777), 390
A Dialogue between Britain, France, Spain, Holland, Saxony and America,

394

To Charles de Weissenstein (July 1, 1778), 397
The Ephemera (1778), 402
To Richard Bache (June 2, 1779), 404
Morals of Chess (1779), 406
To Benjamin Vaughan (November 9, 1779), 410
The Whistle (1779), 412
The Lord's Prayer (1779?), 414
The Levée (1779?), 417
Proposed New Version of the Bible (1779?), 419
To Joseph Priestley (February 8, 1780), 420
To George Washington (March 5, 1780), 421
To Miss Georgiana Shipley (October 8, 1780), 422
To Richard Price (October 9, 1780), 423
Dialogue between Franklin and the Gout (1780), 424
The Handsome and Deformed Leg (1780?), 430
To Miss Georgiana Shipley (undated), 432
To David Hartley (December 15, 1781), 434
Supplement to the Boston Independent Chronicle (1782), 434
To John Thornton (May 8, 1782), 443
To Joseph Priestley (June 7, 1782), 443
To Jonathan Shipley (June 10, 1782), 445
To James Hutton (July 7, 1782), 447
To Sir Joseph Banks (September 9, 1782), 448
Information to Those Who Would Remove to America (1782?), 449
Apologue (1783?), 458
To Sir Joseph Banks (July 27, 1783), 459
To Mrs. Sarah Bache (January 26, 1784), 460
An Economical Project (1784?), 466
To Samuel Mather (May 12, 1784), 471
To Benjamin Vaughan (July 26, 1784), 472
To George Whately (May 23, 1785), 479
To John Bard and Mrs. Bard (November 14, 1785), 481
To Jonathan Shipley (February 24, 1786), 481
To —— (July 3, 1786?), 484

[xii]

Speech in the Convention; On the Subject of Salaries (1787), 486
Motion for Prayers in the Convention (1787), 489
Speech in the Convention at the Conclusion of Its Deliberations (1787), 491
To the Editors of the Pennsylvania Gazette (1788), 493
To Rev. John Lathrop (May 31, 1788), 496
To the Editor of the Federal Gazette (1788?), 496
To Charles Carroll (May 25, 1789), 500
An Account of the Supremest Court of Judicature in Pennsylvania, viz. the

Court of the Press (1789), 501

An Address to the Public (1789), 505
To David Hartley (December 4, 1789), 506
To Ezra Stiles (March 9, 1790), 507
On the Slave-Trade (1790), 510
Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America, 513
An Arabian Tale, 519
A Petition of the Left Hand (date unknown), 520
Some Good Whig Principles (date unknown), 521
The Art of Procuring Pleasant Dreams, 523

Notes, 529

INTRODUCTION

I. FRANKLIN'S MILIEU: THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT

Benjamin Franklin's reputation, according to John Adams, "was more universal than that of Leibnitz or Newton,
Frederick or Voltaire, and his character more beloved and esteemed than any or all of them."[i-1] The historical critic
recognizes increasingly that Adams was not thinking idly when he doubted whether Franklin's panegyrical and
international reputation could ever be explained without doing "a complete history of the philosophy and politics of the
eighteenth century." Adams conceived that an explication of Franklin's mind and activities integrated with the thought
patterns of the epoch which fathered him "would be one of the most important that ever was written; much more
interesting to this and future ages than the 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.'" And such a historical and critical
colossus is still among the works hoped for but yet unborn. Too often, even in the scholarly mind, Franklin has become
a symbol, and it may be confessed, not a winged one, of the self-made man, of New-World practicality, of the
successful tradesman, of the Sage of Poor Richard with his penny-saving economy and frugality. In short, the Franklin
legend fails to transcend an allegory of the success of the doer in an America allegedly materialistic, uncreative, and
unimaginative.

It is the purpose of this essay to show that Franklin, the American Voltaire,—always reasonable if not intuitive,
encyclopedic if not sublimely profound, humane if not saintly,—is best explained with reference to the Age of
Enlightenment, of which he was the completest colonial representative. Due attention will, however, be paid to other
factors. And therefore it is necessary to begin with a brief survey of the pattern of ideas of the age to which he was
responsive. Not without reason does one critic name him as "the most complete representative of his century that any
nation can point to."[i-2]

When Voltaire, "the patriarch of the philosophes," in 1726 took refuge in England, he at once discovered minds and an
attitude toward human experience which were to prove the seminal factors of the Age of Enlightenment. He found that
Englishmen had acclaimed Bacon "the father of experimental philosophy," and that Newton, "the destroyer of the
Cartesian system," was "as the Hercules of fabulous story, to whom the ignorant ascribed all the feats of ancient
heroes." Voltaire then paused to praise Locke, who "destroyed innate ideas," Locke, than whom "no man ever had a
more judicious or more methodical genius, or was a more acute logician." Bacon, Newton, and Locke brooded over
the currents of eighteenth-century thought and were formative factors of much that is most characteristic of the
Enlightenment.

To Bacon was given the honor of having distinguished between the fantasies of old wives' tales and the certainty of
empiricism. Moved by the ghost of Bacon, the Royal Society had for its purpose, according to Hooke, "To improve the
knowledge of naturall things, and all useful Arts, Manufactures, Mechanick practises, Engynes and Inventions by
Experiments."[i-3] The zeal for experiment was equaled only by its miscellaneousness. Cheese making, the eclipses of
comets, and the intestines of gnats were alike the objects of telescopic or microscopic scrutiny. The full implication of
Baconian empiricism came to fruition in Newton, who in 1672 was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. Bacon was
not the least of those giants upon whose shoulders Newton stood. To the experimental tradition of Kepler, Brahe,
Harvey, Copernicus, Galileo, and Bacon, Newton joined the mathematical genius of Descartes; and as a result became
"as thoroughgoing an empiricist as he was a consummate mathematician," for whom there was "no a priori
certainty."[i-4] At this time it is enough to note of Newtonianism, that for the incomparable physicist "science was
composed of laws stating the mathematical behaviour of nature solely—laws clearly deducible from phenomena and
exactly verifiable in phenomena—everything further is to be swept out of science, which thus becomes a body of
absolutely certain truth about the doings of the physical world."[i-5] The pattern of ideas known as Newtonianism may
be summarized as embracing a belief in (1) a universe governed by immutable natural laws, (2) which laws constitute a
sublimely harmonious system, (3) reflecting a benevolent and all-wise Geometrician; (4) thus man desires to effect a
correspondingly harmonious inner heaven; (5) and feels assured of the plausibility of an immortal life. Newton was a
believer in scriptural revelation. It is ironical that through his cosmological system, mathematically demonstrable, he lent
reinforcement to deism, the most destructive intellectual solvent of the authority of the altar.

Deists, as defined by their contemporary, Ephraim Chambers (in his Cyclopædia ..., London, 1728), are those "whose
distinguishing character it is, not to profess any particular form, or system of religion; but only to acknowledge the
existence of a God, without rendering him any external worship, or service. The Deists hold, that, considering the
multiplicity of religions, the numerous pretences to revelation, and the precarious arguments generally advanced in proof
thereof; the best and surest way is, to return to the simplicity of nature, and the belief of one God, which is the only truth
agreed to by all nations." They "reject all revelations as an imposition, and believe no more than what natural light
discovers to them...."[i-6] The "simplicity of nature" signifies "the established order, and course of natural things; the
series of second causes; or the laws which God has imposed on the motions impressed by him."[i-7] And attraction, a
kind of conatus accedendi, is the crown, according to the eighteenth century, of the series of secondary causes.
Hence, Newtonian physics became the surest ally of the deist in his quest for a religion, immutable and universal. The

[xiii]

[xiv]

[xv]

[xvi]

Newtonian progeny were legion: among them were Boyle, Keill, Desaguliers, Shaftesbury, Locke, Samuel Clarke,
'sGravesande, Boerhaave, Diderot, Trenchard and Gordon, Voltaire, Gregory, Maclaurin, Pemberton, and others. The
eighteenth century echoed Fontenelle's eulogy that Newtonianism was "sublime geometry." If, as Boyle wrote,
mathematical and mechanical principles were "the alphabet, in which God wrote the world," Newtonian science and
empiricism were the lexicons which the deists used to read the cosmic volume in which the universal laws were
inscribed. And the deists and the liberal political theorists "found the fulcrum for subverting existing institutions and
standards only in the laws of nature, discovered, as they supposed, by mathematicians and astronomers."[i-8]

Complementary to Newtonian science was the sensationalism of John Locke. Conceiving the mind as tabula rasa,
discrediting innate ideas, Lockian psychology undermined such a theological dogma as total depravity—man's innate
and inveterate malevolence—and hence was itself a kind of tabula rasa on which later were written the optimistic
opinions of those who credited man's capacity for altruism. If it remained for the French philosophes to deify Reason,
Locke honored it as the crowning experience of his sensational psychology.[i-9] Then, too, as Miss Lois Whitney has
ably demonstrated, Lockian psychology "cleared the ground for either primitivism or a theory of progress."[i-10] In
addition, his social compact theory, augmenting seventeenth-century liberalism, furnished the political theorists of the
Enlightenment with "the principle of Consent"[i-11] in their antipathy for monarchial obscurantism. Locke has been
described as the "originator of a psychology which provided democratic government with a scientific basis."[i-12] The full
impact of Locke will be felt when philosophers deduce that if sensations and reflections are the product of outward
stimuli—those of nature, society, and institutions—then to reform man one needs only to reform society and institutions,
or remove to some tropical isle. We remember that the French Encyclopedists, for example, were motivated by their
faith in the "indefinite malleability of human nature by education and institutions."[i-13]

"With the possible exception of John Locke," C. A. Moore observes, "Shaftesbury was more generally known in the
mid-century than any other English philosopher."[i-14] Shaftesbury's a priori "virtuoso theory of benevolence" may be
viewed as complementary to Locke's psychology to the extent that both have within them the implication that through
education and reform man may become perfectible. Both tend to undermine social, political, and religious
authoritarianism. Shaftesbury's insistence upon man's innate altruism and compassion, coupled with the deistic and
rationalistic divorce between theology and morality, resulted in the dogma that the most acceptable service to God is
expressed in kindness to God's other children and helped to motivate the rise of humanitarianism.

The idea of progress[i-15] was popularized (if not born) in the eighteenth century. It has been recently shown that not
only the results of scientific investigations but also Anglican defenses of revealed religion served to accelerate a belief in
progress. In answer to the atheists and deists who indicted revealed religion because revelation was given so late in the
growth of the human family and hence was not eternal, universal, and immutable, the Anglican apologists were forced
into the position of asserting that man enjoyed a progressive ascent, that the religious education of mankind is like that of
the individual. If, as the deists charged, Christ appeared rather belatedly, the apologists countered that he was sent only
when the race was prepared to profit by his coming. God's revelations thus were adjusted to progressive needs and
capacities.[i-16]

Carl Becker has suggestively dissected the Enlightenment in a series of antitheses between its credulity and its
skepticism. If the eighteenth-century philosopher renounced Eden, he discovered Arcadia in distant isles and America.
Rejecting the authority of the Bible and church, he accepted the authority of "nature," natural law, and reason. Although
scorning metaphysics, he desired to be considered philosophical. If he denied miracles, he yet had a fond faith in the
perfectibility of the species.[i-17]

Even as Voltaire had his liberal tendencies stoutly reinforced by contact with English rationalism and deism,[i-18] so were
the other French philosophes, united in their common hatred of the Roman Catholic church, also united in their
indebtedness to exponents of English liberalism, dominated by Locke and Newton. If, as Madame de Lambert wrote in
1715, Bayle more than others of his age shook "the Yoke of authority and opinion," English free thought powerfully
reinforced the native French revolt against authoritarianism. After 1730 English was the model for French thought.[i-19]
Nearly all of Locke's works had been translated in France before 1700. Voltaire's affinity for the English mind has
already been touched on. D'Alembert comments, "When we measure the interval between a Scotus and a Newton, or
rather between the works of Scotus and those of Newton, we must cry out with Terence, Homo homini quid
præstat."[i-20]

Any doctrine was intensely welcome which would allow the Frenchman to regain his natural rights curtailed by the
revocation of the Edict of Nantes, by the inequalities of a state vitiated by privileges, by an economic structure tottering
because of bankruptcy attending unsuccessful wars and the upkeep of a Versailles with its dazzling ornaments, and by a
religious program dominated by a Jesuit rather than a Gallican church.[i-21] Economic, political, and religious abuses
were inextricably united; the spirit of revolt did not feel obliged to discriminate between the authority of the crown and
nobles and the authority of the altar. Graphic is Diderot's vulgar vituperation: he would draw out the entrails of a priest
to strangle a king!

Let us now turn to the American backgrounds. The bibliolatry of colonial New England is expressed in William
Bradford's resolve to study languages so that he could "see with his own eyes the ancient oracles of God in all their
native beauty."[i-22] In addition to furnishing the new Canaan with ecclesiastical and political precedent, Scripture

[xvii]

[xviii]

[xix]

[xx]

[xxi]

provided "not a partiall, but a perfect rule of Faith, and manners." Any dogma contravening the "ancient oracle" was a
weed sown by Satan and fit only to be uprooted and thrown in the fire. The colonial seventeenth century was one
which, like John Cotton, regularly sweetened its mouth "with a piece of Calvin." One need not be reminded that
Calvinism was inveterately and completely antithetical to the dogma of the Enlightenment.[i-23] Calvinistic bibliolatry
contended with "the sacred book of nature." Its wrathful though just Deity was unlike the compassionate, virtually
depersonalized Deity heralded in the eighteenth century, in which the Trinity was dissolved. The redemptive Christ
became the amiable philosopher. Adam's universally contagious guilt was transferred to social institutions, especially the
tyrannical forms of kings and priests. Calvin's forlorn and depraved man became a creature naturally compassionate. If
once man worshipped the Deity through seeking to parallel the divine laws scripturally revealed, in the eighteenth
century he honored his benevolent God, who was above demanding worship, through kindnesses shown God's other
children. The individual was lost in society, self-perfection gave way to humanitarianism, God to Man, theology to
morality, and faith to reason. The colonial seventeenth century was politically oligarchical: when Thomas Hooker
heckled Winthrop on the lack of suffrage, Winthrop with no compromise asserted that "the best part is always the least,
and of that best part the wiser part is always the lesser."[i-24] If the seventeenth-century college was a cloister for
clerical education, the Enlightenment sought to train the layman for citizenship.

With the turn of the seventeenth century several forces came into prominence, undermining New England's Puritan
heritage. Among those relevant for our study are: the ubiquitous frontier, and the rise of Quakerism, deism, Methodism,
and science. The impact of the frontier was neglected until Professor Turner called attention to its existence; he writes
that "the most important effect of the frontier has been in the promotion of democracy here and in Europe.... It produces
antipathy to control, and particularly to any direct control.... The frontier conditions prevalent in the colonies are
important factors in the explanation of the American Revolution...."[i-25] In the period included in our survey the frontier
receded from the coast to the fall line to the Alleghenies: at each stage it "did indeed furnish a new field of opportunity, a
gate of escape from the bondage of the past; and freshness, and confidence, and scorn of older society, impatience of
its restraints and its ideas, and indifference to its lessons, have accompanied the frontier."[i-26] One recalls the spirited
satire on frontier conditions, as the above aspects give birth to violence and disregard for law, in Hugh Brackenridge's
Modern Chivalry. Under the satire one feels the justness of the attack, intensified by our knowledge that Brackenridge
grew up "in a democratic Scotch-Irish back-country settlement." If the frontiersmen during the eighteenth century did
not place their dirty boots on their governors' desks, they were partially responsible for an inveterate spirit of revolt,
shown so brutally in the "massacres" provoked by the "Paxton boys" of Pennsylvania. One is not unprepared to
discover resentment against the forms of authority in a territory in which a strong back is more immediately important
than a knowledge of debates on predestination. Granting the importance of the frontier in opposing the theocratic Old
Way, it must be considered in terms of other and more complex factors.

Reinforcing Edwards's Great Awakening, George Whitefield, especially in the Middle Colonies, challenged the growing
complacence of colonial religious thought with his insistence that man "is by nature half-brute and half-devil." It has been
suggested that Methodism in effect allied itself with the attitudes of Hobbes and Mandeville in attacking man's nature,
and hence by reaction tended to provoke "a primitivism based on the doctrine of natural benevolence."[i-27]

The "New English Israel" was harried by the Quakers,[i-28] who preached the priesthood of all believers and the right of
private judgment. They denied the total depravity of the natural man and the doctrine of election; they gloried in a loving
Father, and scourged the ecclesiastical pomp and ceremony of other religions. They were possessed by a blunt
enthusiasm which held the immediate private revelation anterior to scriptural revelation. Faithful to the inner light, the
Quakers seemed to neglect Scripture. Although the less extreme Quakers, such as John Woolman, did not blind
themselves to the need for personal introspection and self-conquest, Quakerism as a movement tended to place the
greater emphasis on morality articulate in terms of fellow-service, and lent momentum to the rise of humanitarianism
expressed in prison reform and anti-slavery agitation. Also one may wonder to what extent colonial Quakerism tended
to lend sanction to the rising democratic spirit.

In the person of Cotton Mather, until recently considered a bigoted incarnation of the "Puritan spirit ... become
ossified," are discovered forces which, when divorced from Puritan theology, were to become the sharpest wedges
splintering the deep-rooted oak of the Old Way. These forces were the authority of reason and science. In The
Christian Philosopher,[i-29] basing his attitude on the works of Ray, Derham, Cheyne, and Grew,[i-30] Mather
attempted to shatter the Calvinists' antithesis between science and theology, asserting "that [Natural] Philosophy is no
Enemy, but a mighty and wondrous Incentive to Religion."[i-31] He warned that since even Mahomet with the aid of
reason found the Workman in his Work, Christian theologians should fear "lest a Mahometan be called in for thy
Condemnation!"[i-32] Studying nature's sublime order, one must be blind if his thoughts are not carried heavenward to
"admire that Wisdom itself!" Although Mather mistrusted Reason, he accepted it as "the voice of God"—an experience
which enabled him to discover the workmanship of the Deity in nature. Magnetism, the vegetable kingdom, the stars
infer a harmonious order, so wondrous that only a God could have created it. If Reason is no complete substitute for
Scripture it offers enough evidence to hiss atheism out of the world: "A Being that must be superior to Matter, even the
Creator and Governor of all Matter, is everywhere so conspicuous, that there can be nothing more monstrous than to
deny the God that is above."[i-33] Sir Isaac Newton with his mathematical and experimental proof of the sublime
universal order strung on invariable secondary causes, Mather confessed, is "our perpetual Dictator."[i-34] Conceiving of
science as a rebuke to the atheist, and a natural ally to scriptural theology, Mather, like a Newton himself, juxtaposed

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rationalism and faith in one pyramidal confirmation of the existence, omnipotence, and benevolence of God. Here were
variations from Calvinism's common path which, when augmented by English and French liberalism, by the influence of
Quakerism and the frontier, were to give rise to democracy, rationalism, and scientific deism. The Church of England
through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had "pursued a liberal latitudinarian policy which, as a mode of thought,
tended to promote deism by emphasizing rational religion and minimizing revelation."[i-35] It was to be expected that in
colonies created by Puritans (or even Quakers), deism would have a less spectacular and extensive success than it
appears to have had in the mother country. If militant deism remained an aristocratic cult until the Revolution,[i-36]
scientific rationalism (Newtonianism) long before this, from the time of Mather, became a common ally of orthodoxy. If
a "religion of nature" may be defined with Tillotson as "obedience to Natural Law, and the performance of such duties
as Natural Light, without any express and supernatural revelation, doth dictate to man," then it was in the colonies, prior
to the Revolution, more commonly a buttress to revealed religion than an equivalent to it.

Lockian sensism and Newtonian science were the chief sources of that brand of colonial rationalism which at first
complemented orthodoxy, and finally buried it among lost causes. The Marquis de Chastellux was astounded when he
found on a center table in a Massachusetts inn an "Abridgment of Newton's Philosophy"; whereupon he "put some
questions" to his host "on physics and geometry," with which he "found him well acquainted."[i-37] Now, even a
superficial reading of the eighteenth century discloses countless allusions to Newton, his popularizers, and the
implications of his physics and cosmology. As Mr. Brasch suggests, "From the standpoint of the history of science," the
extent of the vogue of Newtonianism "is yet very largely unknown history."[i-38]

In Samuel Johnson's retrospective view, the Yale of 1710 at Saybrook was anything but progressive with its "scholastic
cobwebs of a few little English and Dutch systems."[i-39] The year of Johnson's graduation (1714), however, Mr.
Dummer, Yale's agent in London, collected seven hundred volumes, including works of Norris, Barrow, Tillotson,
Boyle, Halley, and the second edition (1713) of the Principia and a copy of the Optics, presented by Newton himself.
After the schism of 1715/6 the collection was moved to New Haven, at the time of Johnson's election to a tutorship. It
was then, writes Johnson, that the trustees "introduced the study of Mr. Locke and Sir Isaac Newton as fast as they
could and in order to this the study of mathematics. The Ptolemaic system was hitherto as much believed as the
Scriptures, but they soon cleared up and established the Copernican by the help of Whiston's Lectures, Derham,
etc."[i-40] Johnson studied Euclid, algebra, and conic sections "so as to read Sir Isaac with understanding." He gloomily
reviews the "infidelity and apostasy" resulting from the study of the ideas of Locke, Tindal, Bolingbroke, Mandeville,
Shaftesbury, and Collins. That Newtonianism and even deism made progress at Yale is the tenor of Johnson's
backward glance. About 1716 Samuel Clarke's edition of Rohault was introduced at Yale: Clarke's Rohault[i-41] was
an attack upon this standard summary of Cartesianism. Ezra Stiles was not certain that Clarke was honest in heaping up
notes "not so much to illustrate Rohault as to make him the Vehicle of conveying the peculiarities of the sublimer
Newtonian Philosophy."[i-42] This work was used until 1743 when 'sGravesande's Natural Philosophy was wisely
substituted. Rector Thomas Clap used Wollaston's Religion of Nature Delineated as a favorite text. That there was no
dearth of advanced natural science and philosophy, even suggestive of deism, is fairly evident.

Measured by the growth of interest in science in the English universities, Harvard's awareness of new discoveries was
not especially backward in the seventeenth century. Since Copernicanism at the close of the sixteenth century had few
adherents,[i-43] it is almost startling to learn that probably by 1659 the Copernican system was openly avowed at
Harvard.[i-44] In 1786 Nathaniel Mather wrote from Dublin: "I perceive the Cartesian philosophy begins to obteyn in
New England, and if I conjecture aright the Copernican system too."[i-45] John Barnard, who was graduated from
Harvard in 1710, has written that no algebra was then taught, and wistfully suggests that he had been born too soon,
since "now" students "have the great Sir Isaac Newton and Dr. Halley and some other mathematicians for their
guides."[i-46] Although Thomas Robie and Nathan Prince are thought to have known Newton's physics through
secondary sources,[i-47] and, as Harvard tutors, indoctrinated their charges with Newtonianism, it was left to Isaac
Greenwood[i-48] to transplant from London the popular expositions of Newtonian philosophy. A Harvard graduate in
1721, Greenwood continued his theological studies in London where he attended Desaguliers's lectures on experimental
philosophy, based essentially on Newtonianism. From Desaguliers Greenwood learned how

By Newton's help, 'tis evidently seen
Attraction governs all the World's machine.[i-49]

He learned that Scripture is "to teach us Morality, and our Articles of Faith" but not to serve as an instructor in natural
philosophy.[i-50] In fine, Greenwood became devoted to science, and science as it might serve to augment avenues to
the religious experience. In London he had come to know Hollis, who in 1727 suggested to Harvard authorities that
Greenwood be elected Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural and Experimental Philosophy.[i-51] Greenwood
accepted, and until 1737 was at Harvard a propagandist of the new science. In 1727 he advertised in the Boston
News-Letter[i-52] that he would give scientific lectures, revolving primarily around "the Discoveries of the incomparable
Sir Isaac Newton." From 1727 through 1734 he was a prominent popularizer of Newtonianism in Boston.[i-53]

It remained for Greenwood's pupil John Winthrop to be the first to teach Newton at Harvard with adequate mechanical
and textual materials. Elected in 1738 to the Hollis professorship formerly held by Greenwood, Winthrop adopted

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'sGravesande's Natural Philosophy, at which time, Cajori observes, "the teachings of Newton had at last secured a
firm footing there."[i-54] The year after his election he secured a copy of the Principia (the third edition, 1726, edited by
Dr. Henry Pemberton, friend of Franklin in 1725-1726). According to the astute Ezra Stiles, Winthrop became a
"perfect master of Newton's Principia—which cannot be said of many Professors of Philosophy in Europe."[i-55] That
he did not allow Newtonianism to draw him to deism may be seen in Stiles's gratification that Winthrop "was a Firm
friend to Revelation in opposition to Deism." Stiles "wish[es] the evangelical Doctors of Grace had made a greater figure
in his Ideal System of divinity," thus inferring that Winthrop was a rationalist in theology, however orthodox.[i-56]

A cursory view of the eighteenth-century pulpit discloses that if the clergy did not become deistic they were not blind to
a natural religion, and often employed its arguments to augment scriptural authority. Aware of the writings of Samuel
Clarke, Wollaston, Whiston, Cudworth, Butler, Hutcheson,[i-57] Voltaire, and Locke, Mayhew revolts against total
depravity[i-58] and the doctrines of election and the Trinity, arraigns himself against authoritarianism and obscurantism,
and though he draws upon reason for revelation of God's will, he does not seem to have been latitudinarian in respect to
the holy oracles. Although he often wrote ambiguously concerning the nature of Christ, he asserted: "That I ever denied,
or treated in a bold or ludicrous manner, the divinity of the Son of God, as revealed in scripture, I absolutely deny."[i-59]
He is antagonistic toward the mystical in Calvinism, convinced that "The love of God is a calm and rational thing, the
result of thought and consideration."[i-60] His biographer thinks that Mayhew was "the first clergyman in New England
who expressly and openly opposed the scholastic doctrine of the trinity."[i-61] Coupling "natural and revealed religion,"
he does not threaten but he urges that one "ought not to leave the clear light of revelation.... It becomes us to adhere to
the holy Scriptures as our only rule of faith and practice, discipline and worship."[i-62] In Mayhew one finds an impotent
compromise between Calvinism and the demands of reason, fostered by the Enlightenment. Like Mayhew's, in the
main, are the views of Dr. Charles Chauncy, who reconciled the demands of reason and revelation, concluding that "the
voice of reason is the voice of God."[i-63] Jason Haven and Jonas Clarke are typical of the orthodox rationalists who
were alive to the implications of science, and to such rationalists as Tillotson and Locke. Haven affirms that "by the light
of reason and nature, we are led to believe in, and adore God, not only as the maker, but also as the governor of all
things."[i-64] "Revelation comes in to the assistance of reason, and shews them to us in a clearer light than we could see
them without its aid." Clarke observes that "the light of nature teaches, which revelation confirms."[i-65] Rev. Henry
Cumings, illustrating his indebtedness to scientific rationalism, honors "the gracious Parent of the universe, whose tender
mercies are over all his works ...,"[i-66] a Deity "whose providence governs the world; whose voice all nature obeys; to
whose controul all second causes and subordinate agents are subject; and whose sole prerogative it is to dispense
blessings or calamities, as to his wisdom seems best."[i-67] Simeon Howard discovers the "perfections of the Deity, as
displayed in the Creation" as well as in the "government and redemption of the world."[i-68] Both Phillips Payson[i-69]

and Andrew Eliot[i-70] affirm the identity of "the voice of reason, and the voice of God."

No clergyman of the eighteenth century was more terribly conscious of the polarity of colonial thought than was Ezra
Stiles. Abiel Holmes has told the graphic story of Stiles's struggles with deism after reading Pope, Whiston, Boyle,
Trenchard and Gordon, Butler, Tindal, Collins, Bolingbroke, and Shaftesbury.[i-71] If he finally, as a result of his
trembling and fearful doubt, reaffirmed zealously his faith in the bibliolatry and relentless dogma of Calvinism,[i-72]

Newtonian rationalism was a means to his recovery, and throughout his life a complement to his Calvinism.[i-73] Turning
from his well-worn Bible, the chief source of his faith, he also kindled his "devotion at the stars." It should be
remembered, however, that this tendency among Puritan clergy to call science to the support of theology had been
inaugurated by Cotton Mather as early as 1693,[i-74] and that it was the Puritan Mather whom Franklin acknowledged
as having started him on his career and influenced him, by his Essays to do Good, throughout life.

Only against this complex and as yet inadequately integrated background of physical conditions and ideas (the dogmas
of Puritanism, Quakerism, Methodism, rationalism, scientific deism, economic and political liberalism[i-75]—against a
cosmic, social, and individual attitude, the result of Old-World thought impinging on colonial thought and environment)
can one attempt to appraise adequately the mind and achievements of Franklin, whose life was coterminous with the
decay of Puritan theocracy and the rise of rationalism, democracy, and science.

II. FRANKLIN'S THEORIES OF EDUCATION

Franklin's penchant for projects manifests itself nowhere more fully than in his schemes of education, both self and
formal. One may deduce a pattern of educational principles not undeservedly called Franklin's theories of education,
theories which he successfully institutionalized, from an examination of his Junto ("the best school of philosophy,
morality, and politics that then existed in the province"[i-76]), his Philadelphia Library Company (his "first project of a
public nature"[i-77]), his Proposal for Promoting Useful Knowledge among the British Plantations in America,
calling for a scientific society of ingenious men or virtuosi, his Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in
Pensilvania and Idea of the English School, which eventually fathered the University of Pennsylvania, and from his
fragmentary notes in his correspondence.

Variously apotheosized, patronized, or damned for his practicality, expediency, and opportunism, dramatized for his

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allegiance to materiality, Franklin has commonly been viewed (and not only through the popular imagination) as one
fostering in the American mind an unimaginative, utilitarian prudence, motivated by the pedestrian virtues of industry,
frugality, and thrift. Whatever the educational effect of Franklin's life and writings on American readers, we shall find
that his works contain schemes and theories which transcend the more mundane habits and utilitarian biases ascribed to
him.

Franklin progressively felt "the loss of the learned education" his father had planned for him, as he realized in his hunger
for knowledge that he must repair the loss through assiduous reading, accomplished during hours stolen from recreation
and sleep.[i-78] Proudly he confessed that reading wa...