cniiril.l 544 [Marchl5, 



sophical Society was in his way somewhat of a Philolo- 

 gist, though it may be taken for granted that he never 

 abandoned the pursuits of Philosophy for those of Phi- 

 lology, as Seneca in the ([notation upon the programme 



seems to assert was done by the wise men of his day. But 

 philology in this age means something very different from 

 what it meant when Seneca wrote these words, or when 

 Franklin presided over the deliberations of this Society, 

 whose Centennial we celebrate to-night. Dr. Murray, the 

 President of the Philological Society of England, says, 

 in a late number of the Independent, that as recently as 

 twenty-five years ago, " English Philology was in its pre- 

 scientilic babyhood ;" so that Franklin, though he was no 

 mean Latin scholar and knew several modern languages, 

 could not have played what would now be regarded a lead- 

 ing role as a Philologist. Yet the illustrious sage brought 

 his philosophy to bear upon the English language at a point 

 where many of the great Philologists are now concentrating 

 their strength, namely, the reform in spelling. Not only 

 did this practical, honest, economical printer revolt at the 

 unnecessary expenditure of time and labor in setting up the 

 silent letters and of paper and ink in printing them, but 

 his philosophic soul w 7 as vexed at the wild and reckless 

 spelling that obeyed no law and could be reduced to no 

 order. He published a dissertation upon the subject, based 

 upon these three eminently philosophical principles, (1) that 

 there should be no letter that is not sounded, (2) that every 

 letter should be confined to one sound, and, (3) that there 

 should be no distinct sotmtis in the language without letters 

 to express them. To carry out his reform he invented a 

 new alphabet, contemptuously dismissing six of the present 

 letters as useless and introducing: six new characters to ex- 



