Explore "Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin" by Benjamin Franklin on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Peace being concluded, and the association business therefore at an end, I turn'd my thoughts again to the affair of establishing an academy. The first step I took was to associate in the design a number of active friends, of whom the Junto furnished a good part; the next was to write and publish a pamphlet, entitled _Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania_. This I distributed among the principal inhabitants gratis; and as soon as I could suppose their minds a little prepared by the perusal of it, I set on foot a subscription for opening and supporting an academy; it was to be paid in quotas yearly for five years; by so dividing it, I judg'd the subscription might be larger, and I believe it was so, amounting to no less, if I remember right, than five thousand pounds.
In the introduction to these proposals, I stated their publication, not as an act of mine, but of some _publick-spirited gentlemen_, avoiding as much as I could, according to my usual rule, the presenting myself to the publick as the author of any scheme for their benefit.