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MDXLII

TO CHARLES CARROLL'

Philadelphia, 25 May, 1789. DEAR FRIEND:-I am glad to see, by the papers, that our grand machine has at length begun to work. I pray God to bless and guide its operations. If any form of government is capable of making a nation happy, ours I think bids fair now for producing that effect. But, after all, much depends upon the people who are to be governed. We have been guarding against an evil that old states are most liable to, excess of power in the rulers; but our present danger seems to be defect of obedience in the subjects. There is hope, however, from the enlightened state of this age and country, we may guard effectually against that evil as well as the rest.

My grandson, William Temple Franklin, will have the honor of presenting this line. He accompanied me to France, and remained with me during my mission. I beg leave to recommend him to your notice, and that you would believe me, my dear friend, yours most affectionately,

MDXLIII

TO RICHARD PRICE

B. FRANKLIN.

Philadelphia, 31 May, 1789.

MY VERY DEAR FRIEND:-I received your kind letter, enclosing one from Miss Kitty Shipley, I Mr. Carroll was at this time a Senator in Congress from Maryland. The first Congress under the new Constitution had recently convened

informing me of the good Bishop's decease, which afflicted me greatly. My friends drop off one after another, when my age and infirmities prevent my making new ones; and, if I still retained the necessary activity and ability, I hardly see among the existing generation where I could make them of equal goodness. So that the longer I live I must expect to be the more wretched. As we draw nearer the conclusion of life nature furnishes us with more helps to wean us from it, among which one of the most powerful is the loss of such dear friends.

I send you with this the two volumes of our Transactions, as I forget whether you had the first before. If you had, you will please to give this to the French Ambassador, requesting his conveyance of it to the good Duke de la Rochefoucauld.

My best wishes attend you, being ever, with sincere and great esteem, my dear friend, yours most affectionately,

B. FRANKLIN.

MDXLIV

OBSERVATIONS RELATIVE TO THE INTENTIONS OF THE

ORIGINAL FOUNDERS OF THE ACADEMY IN PHILA

DELPHIA, JUNE, 1789

As the English school in the Academy has been, and still continues to be, a subject of dispute and

in New York. In March, 1776, Dr. Franklin and Mr. Carroll had been joint commissioners, appointed by the Continental Congress with instructions to form a union between the Canadas and the United Colonies.

discussion among the trustees since the restitution of the charter, and it has been proposed that we should have some regard to the original intention of the founders in establishing that school, I beg leave, for your information, to lay before you what I know of that matter originally, and what I find on the minutes relating to it, by which it will appear how far the design of that school has been adhered to or neglected.

Having acquired some little reputation among my fellow-citizens, by projecting the public library in 1732, and obtaining the subscriptions by which it was established, and by proposing and promoting, with success, sundry other schemes of utility in 1749, I was encouraged to hazard another project, that of a public education for our youth. As in the scheme of the library I had provided only for English books, so in this new scheme my ideas went no further than to procure the means of a good English education. A number of my friends, to whom I communicated the proposal, concurred with me in these ideas; but Mr. Allen, Mr. Francis, Mr. Peters, and some other persons of wealth and learning, whose subscriptions and countenance we should need, being of opinion that it ought to include the learned languages, I submitted my judgment to theirs, retaining, however, a strong prepossession in favor of my first plan, and resolving to preserve as much of it as I could, and to nourish the English school by every means in my power.

Before I went about to procure subscriptions, I thought it proper to prepare the minds of the people

by a pamphlet, which I wrote, and printed, and distributed with my newspapers gratis. The title was, Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania. I happen to have preserved one of them; and, by reading a few passages, it will appear how much the English learning was insisted upon in it; and I had good reasons to know that this was a prevailing part of the motives for subscribing with most of the original benefactors. I met with but

I That the rector be a man of good understanding, good morals, diligent and patient, learned in the languages and sciences, and a correct, pure speaker and writer of the English tongue; to have such tutors under him as shall be necessary.

The English language might be taught by grammar; in which some of our best writers, as Tillotson, Addison, Pope, Algernon Sidney, Cato's Letters, etc., should be classics; the styles principally to be cultivated being the clear and the concise. Reading should also be taught, and pronouncing properly, distinctly, and emphatically; not with an even tone, which under-does, nor a theatrical, which over-does nature.

Mr. Locke, speaking of grammar (p. 252) says that "To those, the greatest part of whose business in this world is to be done with their tongue, and with their pens, it is convenient, if not necessary, that they should speak properly and correctly, whereby they may let their thoughts into other men's minds the more easily, and with the greater impression. Upon this account it is that any sort of speaking, so as will make him be understood, is not thought enough for a gentleman. He ought to study grammar, among the other helps of speaking well; but it must be the grammar of his own tongue, of the language he uses, that he may understand his own country speech nicely, and speak it properly, without shocking the ears of those it is addressed to with solecisms and offensive irregularities. And to this purpose grammar is necessary; but it is the grammar only of their own proper tongues, and to those who would take pains in cultivating their language and perfecting their styles. Whether all gentlemen should not do this, I leave to be considered, since the want of propriety and grammatical exactness is thought very misbecoming one of that rank, and usually draws on one guilty of such faults the imputation of having had a lower breeding and worse company than suit with his quality. If this be so (as I suppose it is), it will be matter of wonder why young

few refusals in soliciting the subscriptions; and the sum was the more considerable, as I had put the contribution on this footing, that it was not to be

gentlemen are forced to learn the grammars of foreign and dead languages, and are never once told of the grammar of their own tongues. They do not so much as know there is any such thing, much less is it made their business to be instructed in it. Nor is their own language ever proposed to them as worthy their care and cultivating, though they have daily use of it, and are not seldom in the future course of their lives judged of by their handsome or awkward way of expressing themselves in it. Whereas the languages, whose grammars they have been so much employed in, are such as probably they shall scarce ever speak or write; or, if upon occasion this should happen, they should be excused for the mistakes and faults they make in it. Would not a Chinese, who took notice of this way of breeding, be apt to imagine that all our young gentlemen were designed to be teachers and professors of the dead languages of foreign countries, and not to be men of business in their own?"

The same author adds (p. 255): "That if grammar ought to be taught at any time, it must be to one that can speak the language already; how else can he be taught the grammar of it? This at least is evident from the practice of the wise and learned nations among the ancients. They made it a part of education to cultivate their own, not foreign tongues. The Greeks counted all other nations barbarous, and had a contempt for their languages. And though the Greek learning grew in credit among the Romans towards the end of their commonwealth, yet it was the Roman tongue that was made the study of their youth. Their own language they were to make use of, and therefore it was their own language they were instructed and exercised in." And (p. 281): "There can scarce be a greater defect," says he, "in a gentleman than not to express himself well either in writing or speaking. But yet I think I may ask the reader whether he doth not know a great many who live upon their estates, and so, with the name, should have the qualities of gentlemen, who cannot so much as tell a story as they should, much less speak clearly and persuasively in any business. This I think not to be so much their fault as the fault of their education." Thus far Locke.

Monsieur Rollin reckons the neglect of teaching their own tongue a great fault in the French universities. He spends great part of his first volume of Belles-Lettres on that subject, and lays down some excellent rules or methods of teaching French to Frenchmen grammatically, and making them masters therein, which are very applic

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