Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/354

320 was mentioned in the Junto, an essay was read about it and a discussion followed; the essay, amended after debate, was printed in Franklin's Gazette; the impulse for a public movement was given and in many cases the improvement carried out. Thus Franklin's leathern-apron philosophers became practical reformers and public benefactors in more than one way. They wanted to enlarge their reading, and that was the origin of the great Philadelphia Library. They wanted to systematize inquiry, and out of it grew the American Philosophical Society. The Junto lasted nearly forty years. That same “Leathern Apron Club” became the best school of philosophy, morals and politics then existing in the colonies. It organized that intelligence, inquiry and public spirit which are the making of new countries. Of course, most of its thinking was done by the young man who had at one time threatened to become a pretty bad boy himself. And he did most of the studying too, for at the age of twenty-seven he began learning French, Italian, Spanish and Latin, and he practiced music on the harp, the guitar, the violin, the violoncello and later on a glass-harmonica invented by himself.

At the same time he kept himself virtuous with the aid of bookkeeping, reformed the night watch, organized the first volunteer fire-company in the city (the second in the colonies), wrote pamphlets about finance and currency, about the defense of the colonies against the French, organized a volunteer militia, built a battery and got cannon for it, started street cleaning, introduced the broom corn, the yellow willow for basket-making and the use of plaster of Paris to improve meadows, caused a ship to be sent to the Polar seas for the discovery of the Northwest passage, invented the famous open fireplace called the Franklin stove—a good many things for a young man—and then he made ready to become one of the