Page:History of the University of Pennsylvania - Montgomery (1900).djvu/79

Rh it all the more necessary for those to study who claim it as their Alma Mater.

He had entitled himself among his fellow trustees bearing honored titles of rank or profession or of courtesy, simply as ; this he claimed as his proper designation and of equal honor to his last days, his will reciting "I Benjamin Franklin, Printer," in precedence of his further titles, "late Minister Plenipotentiary from the United States of America to the Court of France, now President of the State of Pennsylvania," when he wrote it on 17 July, 1788. Having a competency by his success in business, he had retired from the active work of his calling in September 1748, disposing of his printing establishment to David Hall, his foreman, on favorable terms to both, which were to be met by Hall within the term of eighteen years during which it was to be carried on in the names of Franklin and Hall, the former assisting in the editing of the Gazette and his Poor Richard's Almanac. But through all his changes and diversities of labors, he clung with tenacity and in honor to his cognomen of.

The leisure he gained by this made no contribution to any personal idleness; he simply turned his activities into more congenial channels of science or education or philanthropy, or indeed politics. His electrical pursuits, begun in 1747, continued unremittingly over a series of years; his Academy and Charitable School of 1749 opened up still further opportunities for