FOUR AMERICAN LEADERS

By
Charles W. Eliot

Boston
American unitarian association
1906

Copyright, 1906
American Unitarian Association

Note

The four essays in this volume were written for celebrations or commemorations in which several persons took part.  Each of them is, therefore, only a partial presentation of the life and character of its subject.  The delineation in every case is not comprehensive and proportionate, but rather portrays the man in some of his aspects and qualities.

Contents

I. Franklin 1

An address delivered before the meeting of the American Philosophical Society to commemorate the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of Benjamin Franklin, Philadelphia, April 20, 1906.

II.  Washington 31

An address given before the Union League
Club of Chicago at the exercises in commemoration
of the birth of Washington, February
23, 1903.

III.  Channing 57

An address made at the unveiling of the
Channing statue on the occasion of the one
hundredth anniversary of the birth of William
Ellery Channing, Boston, June 1, 1903.

IV.  Emerson 73

An address delivered on the commemoration
of the centenary of the birth of Ralph
Waldo Emerson, Boston, May 24, 1903.

Four American Leaders

FRANKLIN

The facts about Franklin as a printer are simple and plain, but impressive.  His father, respecting the boy’s strong disinclination to become a tallow-chandler, selected the printer’s trade for him, after giving him opportunities to see members of several different trades at their work, and considering the boy’s own tastes and aptitudes.  It was at twelve years of age that Franklin signed indentures as an apprentice to his older brother James, who was already an established printer.  By the time he was seventeen years old he had mastered the trade in all its branches so completely that he could venture, with hardly any money in his pocket, first into New York and then into Philadelphia without a friend or acquaintance in either place, and yet succeed promptly in earning his living.  He knew all departments of the business.  He was a pressman as well as a compositor.  He understood both newspaper and book work.  There were at that time no such sharp subdivisions of labor and no such elaborate machinery as exist in the trade to-day; and Franklin could do with his own eyes and hands, long before he was of age, everything which the printer’s art was then equal to.  When the faithless Governor Keith caused Franklin to land in London without any resources