... who has lately committed an error proper for us to be warned against and avoid?” When a new member was initiated he was asked, among other questions, the following:  “Do you think any person ought to be harmed in his body, name, or goods, for mere speculative opinions or his external way of worship?” and again, “Do you love truth for truth’s sake, and will you endeavor impartially to find it, receive it yourself, and communicate it to others?” The Junto helped to educate Franklin, and he helped greatly to train all its members.

The nature of Franklin’s own education accounts for many of his opinions on the general subject.  Thus, he believed, contrary to the judgment of his time, that Latin and Greek were not essential subjects in a liberal education, and that mathematics, in which he never excelled, did not deserve the place it held.  He believed that any one who had acquired a command of good English could learn any other modern language that he really needed when he needed it; and this faith he illustrated in his own person, for he learned French, when he needed it, sufficiently well to enable him to exercise great influence for many years at the French court.  As the fruit of his education he exhibited a clear, pungent, persuasive English style, both in writing and in conversation—­a style which gave him great and lasting influence among men.  It is easy to say that such a training as Franklin’s is suitable only for genius.  Be that as it may, Franklin’s philosophy of education certainly tells in favor of liberty for the individual in his choice of studies, and teaches that a desire for good reading and a capacity to write well are two very important fruits of any liberal culture.  It was all at the service of his successor Jefferson, the founder of the University of Virginia.

Franklin’s studies in natural philosophy are characterized by remarkable directness, patience, and inventiveness, absolute candor in seeking the truth, and a powerful scientific imagination.  What has been usually considered his first discovery was the now familiar fact that northeast storms on the Atlantic coast begin to leeward.  The Pennsylvania fireplace he invented was an ingenious application to the warming and ventilating of an apartment of the laws that regulate the movement of hot air.  At the age of forty-one he became interested in the subject of electricity, and with the aid of many friends and acquaintances pursued the subject for four years, with no thought about personal credit for inventing either theories or processes, but simply with delight in experimentation and in efforts to explain the phenomena he observed.  His kite experiment to prove lightning to be an electrical phenomenon very possibly did not really draw lightning from the cloud; but it supplied evidence of electrical energy in the atmosphere which went far to prove that lightning was an electrical discharge.  The sagacity of Franklin’s scientific inquiries is well illustrated by his notes on colds