69 



tion given to all ingenious persons to co-operate and 

 correspond with them on the laudable occasion.&quot; 



Here Dr. Bond distinctly recognizes the Philosoph 

 ical Society as the elder parent of our institution, 

 and its earliest date to be 1743. 



The Committee, having considered the assumption 

 that Franklin was a member of the Society- Junto, 

 because it was no other than the Frank! in- Junto, and 

 examined all the suggestions thrown out by Mr. 

 Du Ponceau to explain why, being a member, he is 

 never mentioned as snch on the minutes, as either 

 present or absent, will now proceed to give, as more 

 immediately connected with this part of the subject, 

 a connected view of what is known or probable in 

 relation to the Society-Junto. 



Besides the minutes of this Junto in the possession 

 of the Society, the Committee have no other source 

 of information than the important letter of Charles 

 Thomson already referred to. These minutes were 

 originally in two volumes; one, commencing with 

 September 22nd, 1758, the other, with April 25th, 

 1766. At the end of the first volume, some irregular 

 minutes of the Society, after the union (namely 

 from 1774 to 1779) had been inserted. Mr. J. 

 Francis Fisher, at the time one of our Secretaries, 

 kindly undertook to arrange our early minutes, and 

 with that view took to pieces the first volume above 

 referred to, in order to separate the part relating 

 to the united Society, and had the Junto part of it 



