AS Citizen and Philanthropist 47 



Franklin was the first to propose a public Fast-day 

 in this State and wrote the Proclamation for it, which 

 the Governor adopted and issued. 



And all this while he was filling many another civic 

 duty. The Governor put him on the Commission of 

 the Peace; the corporation of the city chose him as one 

 of the Common Council, and soon after, an Alderman; 

 and the citizens at large elected him a Burgess to rep- 

 resent them in the Assembly, and continued to elect him 

 annually for fourteen years, even during his absence 

 in France. 



In 1749, when he was forty-three, he planned and 

 started the Academy which finally became The Univer- 

 sity of Pennsylvania, — now one of the leading univer- 

 sities of the United States, dear to all of us, and, in 

 our own time, re-created by its great Provost, Dr. Pep- 

 per, also Franklin's successor as presiding officer of 

 this, our Philosophical Society. 



The idea of a public hospital originated in 175 1, 

 with Dr. Thomas Bond, but, discouraged by the apathy 

 of his fellow-citizens, he appealed for aid to Dr. Frank- 

 lin with the plea that there was no carrying through 

 any public-spirited project unless Dr. Franklin counte- 

 nanced it. Dr. Bond's confidence was not misplaced. 

 Dr. Franklin speedily secured two thousand pounds in 

 voluntary gifts, and then induced the Assembly to con- 

 tribute as much more. With these sums the Hospital 



