AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. 23 



I shall now pass on to the second, which ought to 

 be the third, and is the last volume, as it ends with 

 the Union of the two Societies. 



I am now proceeding to the most interesting part 

 of this communication. Though a period of less 

 than three years is yet before me, it is replete with 

 matter of the highest interest. The humble Junto 

 by its association with another body, which a quarter 

 of a century before had tried the same experiment 

 and failed, is going to form a Society for the purpose 

 of promoting, extending, and disseminating knowl- 

 edge, and America, Colonial America, not yet freed 

 from her subjection to the power of Great Britain, 

 is going to take her place in the great Eepublic of 

 Literature and Science. We must follow her in this 

 progress. 



There can be no doubt that Dr. Franklin, during 

 his stay in this city, did everything in his power to 

 revive and excite the zeal of his favorite Junto, and it 

 appears that he succeeded to a degree that he did not 

 expect or even foresee; for in his letters down to the 

 year 1766, he speaks only of the old Junto, and in- 

 vites his friends to attend more regularly to its meet- 

 ings, but at the time when he thus wrote the Junto 

 were meditating on the means of extending their 

 sphere of action, and their usefulness from them- 

 selves to the world at large. 



Near forty years had elapsed since their first estab- 

 lishment in 1727; the country, in the meantime, had 



