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Show The Junto Lives Again TF THE spirit of Benjamin Frank- lin had been strolling along the streets of Philadelphia on a recent night, it is not unlikely that a passerby pass-erby might have heard the ghostly presence of the immortal Ben chuckling to himself. For that day had witnessed the spectacle of 2,000 of his fellow-Philadelphians crowding crowd-ing into the Academy of Music to revive an organization which he started 214 years ago, and, according accord-ing to Time magazine, "at week's end fresh hordes were still coming. It was the biggest cultural revival in many a Philadelphia year; the cozy little study club he founded in a tavern with 11 convivial companions compan-ions in 1727 has a mammoth reincarnation." re-incarnation." This "cozy little club" was the famous Junto or "council," a mutual mutu-al self-improvement society, formed by Franklin and several of his "ingenious "in-genious acquaintances." It was a democratic organization, too, for among its members, besides 21-year-old Ben Franklin, were a surveyor, sur-veyor, a glazier, an Oxford scholar and a "young gentleman of some fortune." Although the proceedings of the club were secret and no minutes of its meetings were kept, Franklin, in his writings, has revealed some of the topics which the members of the Junto discussed. Among them were these: "Whence comes the dew that stands on the outside of a tankard?" i - f, f V . ! I 1 I ' I i H Earliest known portrait of Franklin, Frank-lin, painted probably about 1748. now owned by Harvard university. "What unhappy effects of intem perance have you lately observed?" But the Junto is important in American history if for no other reason than this. It was this club which helped launch Franklin upon the career as a scientist which brought him world-wide fame, especially es-pecially in the field of experiments in electricity. Franklin first became interested in electricity in 1746 when he attended a lecture by a Dr. Spence of Boston. This led eventually eventu-ally to correspondence with Peter Collinson of London who sent him an electrical tube and with it Franklin Frank-lin performed various experiments for the edification of the members of the Junto. Writing to Collinson later, Franklin said: "I never was before engaged in any study that so totally engrossed my attention and my time as this has lately done, for, what with making mak-ing experiments when I can be alone, and repeating them to my friends and acquaintances, who from the novelty of the tiling, come continually to see them, I have, during dur-ing some months past, had little leisure for anything else." Undoubtedly the encouragement which he received from his fellow members of the Junto had a great deal to do with his continuing the studies in electricity and branching out into other scientific fields. "Franklin seems to have carried on his studies in physical science, natural natu-ral philosophy, wholly during the period 1747 to 1756, and then to have been driven off from his work, hich he described as the most absorbing ab-sorbing of his life, by the increasing demands of public life and civic ob- j ligations." Thus writes Howard McClenahan in the chapter, "Franklin, the Philosopher and Scientist," in the book. "The Amazing Benjamin Franklin." In it he lists all of the "striking phenomena observed for the first time by this fundamental physicist." The Junto lasted for 40-odd years and out of it grew the American Philosophical society, the oldest scientific sci-entific society on the American continent. During its existence of four decades it was the oi.ginator of many important institutions in all of which Benjamin Franklin played a leading part. Among these were: 1731, the Library Li-brary Company of Philadelphia, the first circulating library in America; 1736, the Union Fire company, the first volunteer fire department in Philadelphia; 1749, "Proposals relating re-lating io the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania." which led to the formation for-mation of the College (afterwards the University) of Pennsylvania 1751. the Pennsylvania hospital, the 1 first of its kind in America, and 1752, i the "Philadelphia Cuntrtbutionship 1 for the Insurance of Houses From ! Loss by Fire," the first chartered fire insurance company in America. |
