1743-1756.
THE failure of the magazine did not dishearten him, and he was soon casting about for something else to set agoing. He found it in the "Academy and Charitable School of the Province of Pennsylvania." There was in almost every large town in the province a school of some sort where the rudiments of education were taught. But nowhere did an academy, or anything approaching to a college, exist. That none existed was, to Franklin, a good and sufficient reason why he should seek to found one. It was not long, therefore, before he had a plan drawn and a rector chosen. The rector was to be the Reverend Richard Peters. But Mr. Peters had a better-paying place in view, would not think of such a position; and Franklin, knowing of no other fit for the trust, laid his scheme aside for six years.
Hard upon the abandonment of the plan for an academy came his "Proposal for Promoting Useful Knowledge among the British Planta-
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