AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. 7 



or elsewhere, as the United Society shall direct.'" 

 In consequence of this agreement, the Minutes of the 

 two Societies were deposited in the Cabinet of the 

 United Society, where they now are, and it appears 

 from the Minutes of the American Society, that on 

 the 2nd of September 1762, it was still called "The 

 Junto."* The Minutes from 1762 to 1766 are missing. 

 In 1766, the Society changed its name, but was still 

 in fact the Junto. 



There was no other Association in Philadelphia, 

 that bore that name. In the year 1736 (as Franklin 

 relates in his autobiography) the Junto wanted to 

 increase the number of its members, which was 

 limited to twelve. Franklin dissuaded them from it, 

 by persuading them that it would be better for each 

 member to form a limited Club, unconnected with 

 them, but pursuing the same objects. Five or six of 

 those Clubs, he says, were completed. They were 

 called the Vine, the Union, the Band, etc., but none 

 of them assumed the name of the Junto. 9 What 

 became of them afterwards does not appear. It is 

 probable that they had not a long existence. 



There can be no doubt, therefore, that the Society, 

 which in 1766 assumed the name of the " American, " 

 was Franklin's old Junto of 1727, and no other. It 

 is hardly credible that while the old Junto existed, 



7 See the minutes of the two societies. 



8 See the minutes. 



"1 Sparks' "Franklin," 129. 



