173 



Benjamin Franklin's Association with the Society. 



It is difficult for me to realize that I stand here to-night as 

 the representative of the American Philosophical Society 

 briefly to present to you Dr. Franklin as the founder of that 

 Society, as the spirit which influenced its life, as the one who 

 crowned its career with the scientific honors of the day in 

 which he lived ; the Society that has endeavored to perpetu- 

 ate his memory by an adherence to the principles which he 

 incorporated in its origin and which have been faithfully, 

 I think, preserved by his successors. 



The origin of the American Philosophical Society may be 

 traced to that junto which Franklin established in the city of 

 Philadelphia when he was about twenty-two or twenty-three 

 years of age, for the promotion of useful knowledge. His 

 associates, with himself, prosecuted their studies and their delib- 

 erations with such success that it influenced, no doubt, all of 

 their careers, but especially the career of Benjamin Franklin. 

 He never forgot his early introduction to the kingdom of knowl- 

 edge and he went on year by year with the great idea in his 

 mind and memory that a part of his life-work was to be found 

 in the establishment of a great Society having for its object 

 the promoting of useful knowledge. In the year 1740 he 

 issued his proposals for the formation of such a Society and 

 labored sedulously for its accomplishment, sketching out the 

 objects that it should pursue, the duties that its members 

 should perform, their applications to science and to each other, 

 and, aware that there must be a pilot to steer the ship and a 

 man to keep the log, was not ambitious to be president of the 

 Society, but took upon himself the humble office of its secre- 

 tary. He performed the duties appertaining to that office with 

 such fidelity and success that it reached a considerable point of 



