AS Statesman and Diplomatist 73 



a school boy. Jefferson was just out of the nursery, and 

 Hamilton was not to be born for ten years, and this long 

 period of precedence he had spent in a way best suited 

 to create the future statesman and diplomatist. 



It has often been said that in the New England town 

 meeting the secret of political science was solved, and 

 the foundations of republican government were laid. If 

 this was so in the abstract, what a concrete example of 

 true training for public life was Franklin's experience 

 here for the cfuarter of a century after his return home 

 from that first hapless journey to London in 1826. He 

 had a natural instinct for public life, quite as strong and 

 controlling as marks the young men of the governing 

 class in England, who are born and bred to it from gen- 

 eration to generation, and how different had been his 

 training! For him, no university, no college, and only 

 school enough for the simplest rudiments of learning. 

 The tallow chandler's shop and the printing office and 

 his own genius for self culture did the rest. It was his 

 keen interest in human affairs, his concern for the wel- 

 fare of the community in which he lived, and his natural 

 ambition for leadership, that with him supplied the 

 place of school and college and university. 



When he walked up Market Street, with a roll under 

 each arm and munching the third, Philadelphia, the 

 modest Quaker village of seven thousand inhabitants, 

 seemed as little likely to be a nursery of greatness, as 



