ton and Providence Railroad and the Boston and Albany, was a vast skating ground, well known to all the youth of the city. Within a generation of this time, on this line of Boylston street, west of Charles street, has sprung into being that splendid assemblage of hotels, boulevards, parks, churches, and educational structures, the Natural History Building, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, sending out its first class in 1868, the. Art Museum, the temporary edifice of the Peace Jubilee to Grant in 1869, with Ole Bull as a performer, the Young Men's Christian Association Building, that of the Harvard Medical School, of the Massachusetts Normal Art School near it, and the new Public Library Building, now partially raised - which have made this an ornamental portion of the city, and which have tended to develop in and around Copley square with its two thousand students, that great educational center which farther to the east on this same Boylston street, was commenced January first, 1858, when the dedication of the present library building took place. "Electricity," says Arago, "is Franklin's." This region in 1889 witnessed one of Franklin's greatest triumphs, for over it was established the first line of street cars in Boston propelled by the silent influence of electricity. It was a great occasion. The procession was the largest ever seen in Boston - nine divisions. Eight of them formed on Tremont street, between Park and Boylston. The ninth division, composed of pupils of both sexes, of the grammar and primary schools, did not parade, but witnessed the procession from Beacon street, the girls on one side, the boys on the other, from whence all vehicles and persons not children or teachers were rigorously excluded. After the procession, the children until sunset had games, music, and a repast on the Public Garden. The fifth division was made up of Franklin medal scholars from 1792 to 1856 inclusive, the oldest in carriages. A few nights before, they had had a pleasant reunion. On this morning they met together again. The medal scholars did more than parade. On this very day they formed an association of the Franklin Medal Scholars. Edward Everett was the president, and James T. Austin and Hon. Robert C. Winthrop vice-presidents. This association was in existence for a long time, Mr. Everett frequently making short addresses. But on January 17, 1859, the one hundred and fifty third anniversary of Franklin's birthday, there was a great demonstration in Music Hall, the exercises being conducted by Franklin medal scholars. The great attraction was in the evening, when that memorable oration of Everett's was delivered, which he repeated in Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, Richmond, New Haven, and various other places, during the years 1859, '60 and '61, the conclusion of which was: "Go forth, then, Benjamin Franklin, printer, to thy great calling. Boston sends thee forth a penniless fugitive. Philadelphia receives thee a homeless adventurer; but ere thou shalt taste of death, America, Europe shall be too narrow for thy fame; and in time to come, the friendly strife of the city of thy birth and the city of thy adoption shall be, which best, which most shall do honor to thy memory." .. Another feature of the procession was the express," which a few years ago was unknown in this vicinity. It was most liberally provided with noble teams and well-laden wagons." The trades were also well represented, especially that of the printers. The route was five miles in length. The procession passed the Old Granary Burial Ground, where Franklin had erected the stone to the memory of his father and mother "who never knew of any sickness but that of which they died," the former at eightyseven, and the latter at eighty-five, and where "the scarlet maple, the grim and sea-green pencils of the larch, the ruddy clusters of the mountain ash, the basswood, the pensive willow now mingle their shadows lovingly over the great and good of other times "; Franklin's birth-place on Milk street; the Old South Church; the place on Union street where he is said to have dipped the wicks for the tallow candles, now, alas! undistinguishable by any sign, and unrecognized as an abode of Franklin by those doing business on the spot; and the place on Court street, or Queen street, as it was then styled, where, at sixteen years of age, he printed, February 11, 1723, the New England Courant, with a Latin motto, and announced that "advertisements are taken in." And you may see the old printing press which Franklin used, and you may get copies of his little paper, at the rooms of the Bostonian Society in the Old State House building. The entire route was elaborately adorned with decorations and with the maxims and quaint sayings culled from the writings of Franklin. The great attraction of the day, of course, was in front of City Hall, where "the first open air bronze statue erected in Boston" was to be unveiled to the memory of Franklin, on the very spot where he used to play when he went to school "in an humble wooden dwelling on the north side of School street," under Rev. Nathaniel Williams. Here "the venerable master, Cheever, the patriarch of the New England schoolmasters, who followed that honorable but rather thankless occupation seventy years, had just whipped his last boy and gone to his rest at the age of ninety-four," "leaving off teaching," as Cotton Mather has said, "only when mortality took him off." The history of the statue is briefly this: In 1853, in a lecture on Archimedes and Franklin, Mr. Winthrop urged the propriety of perpetuating with a statue the memory of the great Bostonian. To carry his views into effect, a committee of fifty was appointed, and ten thousand dollars were raised. Ames and Company, of Springfield, cast the statue,—after a model by Greenough, a native of Boston. The base, of verd antique, is from Vermont. The statue itself is eight feet high. On one of the bronze tablets picturing some of the principal events in the life of Franklin, is Turgot's famous saying: "Eripuit coelo fulmen septrumque tyrannis." At the statue, the pupils of the public schools of Boston sang the words of a poem written for the occasion by James T. Fields, the beginning of which is: "Give welcome to his sculptured form Art's splendid triumph here is won; I make no attempt to quote from the great oration of Winthrop, in which he vividly portrayed the doings of Franklin in his career of printer, philosopher, statesman and patriot, diplomatist, philanthropist. He arose, wearing the Franklin medal and the medal of the Mechanics' Association, and delivered his scholarly address without notes. In behalf of the committee of fifty he delivered the statue to the Mechanics' Association, whose president was F. W. Lincoln, Jr., "a direct and worthy descendant of that patriot mechanic of the Revolution, Paul Revere." Mr. Lincoln, in his turn, addressed Hon. A. H. Rice, the mayor of Boston, who had been authorized by the city government to attend the preliminary meetings of the committee of fifty, his Honor making a fitting response. The salute of the artillery announced that the exercises at the statue were at an end. Such was the day, and such the occasion. While these events were still fresh in the public mind, the idea was conceived of bringing together some of the young people in a friendly contest for a prize, a book of the value of five dollars to that boy or girl who, in the space of four or five weeks should collect and recite the greatest number of the maxims found in the writings of Franklin. The contest was an earnest one. The competitors were depressed or spurred on by the various rumors as to the number of maxims which some person was reputed to have collected. But could any one recite the list of maxims collected? There was the rub. Among the contestants was one who, at thirteen, had just received a Franklin medal. In his preparation for the trial, some of Poor Richard's Almanacs, original or reprints, had fallen into his hands. The works of Franklin were carefully studied for other choice sayings. The day of trial came. The place selected for the contest was crowded. One after another of the competitors arose, and without much system recited a few maxims, no one more than a hundred, and a great many of them less, and sat down. To make the matter as easy as possible, the last one to rise to the effort (I knew him well,) had arranged his collection in alphabetical order. At home he had recited them, and he felt confident he could do the task again in the presence of the witnesses assembled. In this way he went through his list, three hundred and fifty or so, failing, as he remembers, in a baker's dozen only. And thus the prize was won. Of late, many of the maxims above referred to have been verified and others have been added to the original list. The Poor Richard Almanacs, it may be said, were about twothirds the size of Thomas' Old Farmers' Almanac, and were started by Franklin in Philadelphia, for the year 1733, and with various imprints were continued for some time after Franklin's death, in 1790, the characteristics being essentially the same throughout. The top of every page was given to poetry, original or selected, and the maxims were scattered among "the vacancies" not filled by the astronomical characters. The maxims were on the left hand page. Historical matters, pithy addresses, problems, and a variety of other things were usually found on the right hand page. The almanac of 1758, besides the regular maxims, had what is usually styled Father Abraham's Address, or the Way to Wealth, (Science de bon homme Richard; A Sciencia da bon homo Ricardo; De Weybot geluk, etc., etc.), translated into many of the languages of Europe, in which many, though not all, of the maxims in previous almanacs were brought together. Original almanacs of 1758, like nearly all the Poor Richard Almanacs, are very scarce, though Father Abraham's Address has been extensively published and put into a cheap form for the use of schools. In 1850-2, Daggett, of New York, after a study of four years among various libraries, published a reprint of the almanacs of 1733–41 inclusive, stating that he thought he had found all that there were. Parton, in his life of Franklin, 1864, says that twenty dollars have been paid for a single copy. Sparks says it is doubtful if there is a complete set in existence. In response to inquiries sent lately to various libraries in the United States, concerning this matter, I learn that there are three libraries which have very large collections of original almanacs, though no one reports a complete set. The Boston Public Library has made a specialty of Franklin's own. This collection was begun in 1869. In 1881 Dr. S. A. Green presented to the library his Franklin books, pamphlets, engravings, portraits, etc. In 1883 the total number of volumes in this library, then known, written by, printed, or relating to Franklin, was 547, and the trustees then asked for information concerning any additions besides those announced in their bulletins. At present the number is about 800. No claim is made here that these maxims, or the ideas contained in them, all originated with Franklin. Indeed, Dr. Green has shown (Historical Magazine of America, January, 1860,) that some of the maxims found in Poor Richard's Almanacs, or something akin to them, are also in Ray's English collection in 1678. He gives twenty-six, some of which are exactly the same, whereas others differ, as : |