DATE OF THE FOUNDATION OF THE SOCIETY. 171 



pare questions and papers for discussion. It was pro- 

 vided that any member who absented himself three suc- 

 cessive nights without apology should be dropped. In 

 1734 Franklin was Grand Master of the Masons in 

 Pennsylvania; two years later he was Clerk of the 

 Assembly; in the next year he was postmaster at Phil- 

 adelphia ; so busy a man may well have outgrown the 

 Junto. In May, 1743, he issued his proposals for the 

 formation of the American Philosophical Society, which 

 was a Society with plan and aims very different from 

 those of his Junto ; but so busy was he at this time, that 

 in the November following he wrote to Cadwalader 

 Golden: "My long absence from home put my business 

 so far behindhand that I had no leisure to forward the 

 scheme of the Society. " At this time he was perfect- 

 ing his Pennsylvania fire-place and making his experi- 

 ments in electricity. In 1748 he entered the City Coun- 

 cils. In 1749 he became a commissioner of the Peace, 

 and at the same time he issued his "Proposals relating 

 to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania. " He was 

 chosen President of the Board of Trustees of the Col- 

 lege which resulted from this effort. In 1750 he was 

 elected to the Assembly of Pennsylvania, and was made 

 a commissioner to arrange a treaty with the Indians. 

 It would seem, then, that for a considerable number of 

 years before this date he was much too absorbed in 

 affairs of great importance, and far too busy in his 

 regular round of duties, to have remained one of the 

 twelve active members of the Junto, or, at its revival in 



