Franklin's Vision.

In 1743 Benjamin Franklin considered America's prospects for the pursuit of science: "The first drudgery of settling new colonies which confines the attention of people to mere necessaries is now pretty well over; and there are many in every province in circumstances that set them at ease, and afford leisure to cultivate the finer arts and improve the common stock of knowledge." Franklin could have been writing about his own life: a successful Philadelphia printer after years of disciplined work, he was preparing an early retirement, hoping to devote the rest of his life to the "finer arts." Particularly, he wanted to see cooperative, intercolonial promotion of "natural science," the study of the physical world, the universe, and the forces in it.

American Backwardness.

To most other Americans Franklin may have seemed overly optimistic. How could America support the kind of activity Franklin proposed? Europe was enjoying...