36 



teanial year of his age, in 1756, the proud honor of Master of 

 Arts from the College of William and Mary, the first degree 

 ever conferred by that institution on any man. Thus Virginia 

 and Pennsylvania united in doing honor to the man whom 

 Lord Chatham pronounced " not only an honor to the English 

 people but to human nature." 



In Franklin's diploma, a copy of which is preserved upon 

 the college records, the faculty declared that their action had 

 been taken in order to show to the Virginia youth an exam- 

 ple of a truly noble man, or, as it is better expressed in the 

 Latin, Juventuti Virginiensi exemplum valde eyregium. 



Nor, if we can judge by subsequent events, was that exam- 

 ple lost upon those for whom it was intended. As Franklin 

 was the first man to make science, which had been previously 

 merely " an object of admiration in temples and palaces," a 

 handmaid to the common arts and uses of life ; as be was the 

 first to teach that she should be made to minister to the wants 

 and comforts of society ; as his whole life and his whole action 

 enunciated a practical spirit ; so twenty years later, when the 

 rebellion of the colonies ensued, that practical spirit was 

 shown in thousands of Virginians formed upon the model of 

 the illustrious Pennsylvanian's example ; in a Washington who 

 led our army to victory, in a Jefterson who reformed our laws, 

 and in a Marshal who construed them — all of them like- 

 Franklin eminently plain and eminently practical men. And 

 that spirit thus set working, according to the sentiments of 

 this toast, expunging error and maintainiyig truth, has gone on 

 operating to the present day; it has produced a Fulton, a 

 Morse, a Maury, a Bell and an Edison, until to-day we stand in 

 not only what Ave may pronounce the age of centennials, but 

 '' an age of ages " whose common maxim in all the depart- 

 ments of life — m history, government, politics and poetry — is : 



