IN

N 1902, two sophomores at the University of Pennsylvania remarked the deplorable fact that nothing on the university campus told the historical fact that Benjamin Franklin was the founder of their college. They spread their idea before their classmates, and on graduation the class of 1904 resolved that their tenth anniversary should be celebrated by the dedication of some memorial to Franklin, a gift to their alma mater from the class. The carrying out of this ambitious resolve made possible the statue of heroic size that stands on the terrace in front of the gymnasium and field called by his

name.

Franklin the printer, Franklin the scholar and scientist, Franklin the diplomat, and Franklin the sage are all familiar to us in picture, medal, and statue, but Franklin the youth has never been visualized in plastic form. What could be more inspiring to the thousands of young men leaving home for college, many coming to the city for the first time, than the figure of the seventeen-year-old apprentice striding along on his way to success and distinction, alert, curious, eager, and goodnatured? Disappointed in his hope for work in New York, he set out for Philadelphia; but the weather was so tempestuous that he was unable to land at Perth Amboy, so he slept all night in an open boat with a drunken sailor. Next morning he bravely started forth through rain. and wind on the fifty-mile tramp to Burlington, carrying his few belongings in a bundle.

"It rained very hard all that day," he says; "I was thoroughly soaked and by noon a good deal tired; so I stopped at a poor inn, where I stayed all night, beginning now to wish I had never left home."

He tells of his arrival at the inn kept by the itinerant David Brown, who could give "a particular account of every town in England and country in Europe," of his voyage on the Delaware, his night spent

before the open fire, and his familiar entry into Philadelphia on Sunday morning, a travel-worn and ridiculous figure, as he himself says.

In bringing this idea into form, the artist was neither assisted nor hampered by over-documentation. No authentic portraits of the young Franklin exist. If the Sumner portrait, painted in London at twenty, is authentic, it is entirely out of character. The construction of the face will not tally in any particular with studies taken in later life, and it is most improbable that he would have been silent on the subject of his fine clothes and wig, if he had them. The authentic portraits resolve themselves into about a dozen originals taken from life, while the myriads of copies of these vary from literal transcriptions to the most fantastic inventions. In 1756, Matthew Pratt of Philadelphia painted him at fifty, bewigged, well fed, and prosperous, already showing signs of age and increasing weight, though the picture is of a face still alert and mobile. The Wilson, Chamberlain, and Martin portraits, which followed during the next six years, are not close studies of his head so much as idealized pictures for presentation purposes. Patience Wright modeled a profile in wax when he was in London in 1772, and when he was in Paris five years later he sat for the "fur cap" portrait to Cochin, for two medallions to Nini, to Greuze for a pastel, and to Duplessis for the "fur-collar portrait" and one other. Mme. Filleul painted him with open ruffled shirt, and Carmontelle drew him seated in a chair. Caffieri and Houdon quarreled over their busts of him, and again in 1784 the old man was modeled by the ill-fated Cerrachi, who declaimed against the busts of both the others, especially that of Houdon, until he went to the guillotine in his gilded car. When Franklin came home in 1787, the aged statesman gave sittings to Charles Wilson Peale for a last portrait, if we

except the death-mask in the Lawrence Hutton Collection at Princeton.

From these documents the structure of the head and face was studied. An old head was modeled on young shoulders. Then came the task of bringing it back to youth, of giving it the expression of boyish enthusiasm, without losing the high-arched brow, the prominent eyes, or the quizzical lines of the mouth, which afterward became fixed and characteristic of the old man. The lank, scanty locks of hair were given the luxuriance of youth, the crow's-feet were taken from the eyes, and the deep, heavy lines in the cheek, chin, and neck gave place to the smooth contours of adolescence. The head was raised, and an eager, questioning look was given to the eyes, while the lips were almost parted in a smile. We know from his exploits in walking and swimming that he was of sturdy build, which later ran to corpulency. Even at seventeen his Even at seventeen his frame must have been well-knit and strong. A model from which to study the pose was selected with this in mind. Weeks were spent in having him stride up and down the studio, sometimes nude, sometimes clothed, always with staff and bundle, pausing in various stages of the stride, while lines were studied and the composition was perfected. After this at figure about three feet high was modeled completely in the nude, that the action and movement might be thoroughly expressed.

In determining his probable costume, recourse was had through the good offices of John Bach McMaster to the newspapers of the time, the columns of which teemed with advertisements of such runaway apprentices, with elaborate descriptions of their clothing.

"I cut so miserable a figure," he says, "that I found by the questions asked me I was suspected of being some runaway servant, and in danger of being taken up on that suspicion.'

Much information was obtained from such sources, but far surpassing this, or even the recognized books on costume, was the comprehensive knowledge of colonial dress and the sympathetic interest shown by one whose archæological accuracy was surpassed only by his genius for illustration. Howard Pyle made sketch after sketch, now of the buttoning of a shirtcollar, again showing the fluff of a cuff or the buckle of a shoe. Colonial dress was a subject he had made peculiarly his own, and he generously shared his knowledge. From all these sources the square-toed, buckled shoes, the rough, home-knitted stockings, the long waistcoat, kneebreeches, and flaring coat were gathered, as well as the battered hat crowning the head. An extra shirt serves as a bag for his few belongings, and he uses a dead hickory branch, picked up in the woods, as a staff. The clothes may have been drenched by rain and creased, the shoes may have been wrinkled and muddy, but nothing can have interfered with the buoyant good nature of youth and high resolve.

The figure is mounted with dignity on the simple and beautiful pedestal designed by Paul Cret. It is approached by a flight of steps, and surrounded by a walk and a hedge. The front of the pedestal bears the inscription in raised letters, "Benjamin Franklin in 1723," and beneath the university seal are incised the words, "Presented by the Class of 1904, College." A thunderbolt in low-relief, prophetic of his later discoveries in electricity, is the only decoration. On one side is the dedication from the class, on the other an extract from Franklin's letter to his son, which voices the object of the statue and its setting:

I have been the more particular in this description of my journey that you may compare such unlikely beginnings with the figure I have since made there.