6 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGIN OF THE 



On the 16th of September 1758" I do not quite 

 like your absenting yourself from the good old Club, 

 the Junto. I exhort you, therefore, to return to your 

 duty." 3 



On the 26th February 1761 " You tell me you 

 sometimes visit the ancient Junto. I wish you would 

 do it oftener. Since we have held that Club till 

 we have grown gray together, let us hold it out to 

 the end." 4 



On the 7th of July, 1765 "I wish you would con- 

 tinue to meet the Junto, notwithstanding that some 

 effects of our political misunderstandings may some- 

 times appear there. It is now, perhaps, one of the 

 oldest Clubs, as I think it was formerly one of the 

 best, in the King's dominions. It wants but about 

 two years of forty since it was established." 5 



And lastly, 27th Feb. 1766 "Bemember me affec- 

 tionately to the Junto."* 



It may be asked, perhaps, whether the Society 

 which was joined to the "Philosophical," and then 

 bore the name of the "American" Society, was really 

 the old Junto mentioned in the above extracts. This 

 objection can be easily answered. By the articles of 

 union agreed upon between the two Societies, on the 

 20th of December 1768, it is stipulated 



Art. 7: "That the books and all the curiosities, etc. 

 of the former Societies, be deposited in the Cabinet 



3 Ibid., 182. 5 Ibid., 301. 



4 Ibid., 223. 6 Ibid., 308. 



