DATE OF THE FOUNDATION OF THE SOCIETY. 193 



been said, in three cases, William Franklin, Philip 

 Syng and George Eoberts, sons of members of the 

 older body. In all cases that can be identified, they 

 were much younger men than the members of the old 

 Junto. This body, formed in 1750 in close imitation 

 and close personal connection with the body established 

 23 years before, ought therefore to be looked upon as 

 an offshoot of it, a younger branch, just such a body as 

 those five or six "subordinate clubs " described by 

 Franklin in his Autobiography as having been formed 

 in 1736 with the same rules as the parent Society. 



This view of the case having been once accepted, 

 many pieces of minor evidence fall readily into place. 

 A letter from Cadwalader Golden to Wm. Franklin, 

 written in the same year as that of Thomson to Ben- 

 jamin Franklin, speaks twice of the "young Junto, " 

 just as Franklin and Eoberts speak of the "ancient 

 Junto." 11 The word Junto, therefore, as applied to 

 both societies, may well have been looked upon as a 

 generic rather than a specific term. They were both 

 Juntos, an elder and a younger. So the later general 

 tradition, which is spoken of in the committee's report, 

 of the connection of the American Philosophical So- 

 ciety with Franklin's Junto may not have discrimi- 

 nated between the two forms of the Junto. Even Dr. 

 Smith's references in his address of 1791 may be ex- 

 plained as due to a misunderstanding of the relations 

 of the two societies, to which we now possess the clue 



nKeport, pp. 138-9. 



