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part two

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

Meantime Franklin was concerning himself more and more with
public affairs.  He set forth a scheme for an Academy, which was taken up later and finally developed into the University of Pennsylvania and he founded an "American Philosophical Society" for the purpose of enabling scientific  men to communicate their discoveries to one another

 He himself had already begun his electrical researches which, with other scientific inquiries, he called on in the intervals
of money-making and politics to the end of his life.  In 1748 he sold his business in order to get leisure for study, having now acquired comparative wealth; and in a few years he had made discoveries that gave him a reputation with the learned throughout Europe

 In politics he proved very able both as an administrator and as a controversialist; but his record as an office-holder is stained by the use he made of his position to advance his relatives.  His most notable service in home politics was his reform of the postal system but his fame as a statesman rests chiefly on his services in connection with the relations of the Colonies with Great Britain, and later with France

 In 1757 he was sent to England to protest against the
influence of the Penns in the government of the colony, and for five years he remained there, striving to enlighten the people and the ministry of England as to Colonial conditions

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