40 FuRNESS: Franklin 



to the making of a citizen. No detail of civic life was 

 there, with which he was not familiar. Hence what- 

 ever else the guise under which he stands proudly forth 

 on this occasion, every word that he uttered, every fibre 

 of his mind, heralds him as the great citizen. 



Nor was this citizen's voice, while reverberating in 

 England, ever silent here at home. Again, it is, prob- 

 ably, not within my province to speak about " Poor 

 Richard's Almanacs" or "Father Abraham's Speech" 

 or the issues from Franklin's press. They will be 

 duly set forth by a voice whose music you will soon 

 hear. But I am not encroaching, when I call atten- 

 tion to the pure philanthropy which lies in scattering 

 broadcast over the land maxims inculcating honesty, 

 sobriety, frugality, and industry, the four cardinal points 

 of civic life, couched in proverbs, whereof the wit and 

 pungency drive the meaning home. We could laugh 

 together, sans intermission, by the half hour, over the 

 shrewdness, the knowledge of human nature, the keenness 

 of those winged words, and barbed shafts, all of them 

 feathered with wit and humour; they are popular today, 

 and will be tomorrow and tomorrow, to the last syllable 

 of recorded time, or as long as " laughter holding both 

 its sides " is friend to man. You know, it is reported that 

 Thomas Jefiferson said that the reason why Franklin 

 was not deputed to write " The Declaration of Inde- 

 pendence " was because he would be sure to put a joke 



