254 The Franklin Bi-centennial 



THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE 

 ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE 



(Seal) 



We, the President and Council of the 



British Association for the Advancement of 



Science, 

 hold that you, the 



President and Fellows of the American Philosophical 

 Society, do well to clebrate the two hundredth anniver- 

 sary of the birth of 



Benjamin Franklin 



For the commemorations of great men serve, as it were, 

 to mark the rungs in the ladder of progress up which 

 mankind has climbed; and, further, such ceremonies can 

 hardly fail to point out to us, the living generation, how 

 earnestly we must strive if we would prove ourselves 

 worthy descendants of our great predecessors. 



Although Franklin was equally great as a States- 

 man and as an Investigator of Nature, we take it that 

 it is as a Discoverer, rather than as one of the Founders 

 of the American Commonwealth, that you now recall 

 his fame. 



