IV. Besides, it must not be forgotten that he had all along been
foremost in many a work for the public good. The Franklin Library, of
Philadelphia, owes to him its origin. The University of Pennsylvania
grew out of an educational project in which he was a prime mover. And
his ideas as to the relative importance of ancient and modern _classics_
were more than a hundred years in advance of his times.
Such is a glimpse of Franklin at fifty-two, as preliminary to a single
episode which will occupy the rest of this chapter. But the episode
itself requires a special word.
V. For a quarter of a century Franklin had published an almanac under
the _pseudonym_ of Richard Saunders, into the pages of which he crowded
year by year choice scraps of wit and wisdom, which made the little
hand-book a welcome visitor in almost every home of the New World. Now
in the midst of those philosophical studies which so much delighted him,
when about to cross the Atlantic as a commissioner to the Home
Government, he found time to gather up the maxims and quaint sayings of
twenty-five years and set them in a wonderful mosaic, as the preface of
Poor Richard's world-famous almanac--as unique a piece of writing as any
language affords. Here it is:
POOR RICHARD'S ADDRESS.
Courteous Reader: I have heard that nothing gives an author so great
pleasure as to find his works respectfully quoted by others. Judge,
then, how much I must have been gratified by an incident I am going to
relate to you.
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