Ben Franklin’s Gift That Keeps On Giving Download the Full-Text PDF (288KB)
EXCERPT:
In the spring of 1789, Benjamin Franklin was in his eighth decade and he knew he did not have long to live. Tormented by gout, eczema, kidney stones, boils and a host of other afflictions, he said, “little remains of me but a skeleton covered with a skin.” As he lay in bed or, on good days, when it was warm, sat under the large mulberry tree in his back garden at 318 Market Street in Philadelphia, he conceived of a way to reach out beyond the grave to promote civic virtue. “I have considered that among artisans, good apprentices are most likely to make good citizens, and, having myself been bred to a manual art, printing…I wish to be useful even after my Death, if possible, in forming and advancing other young men that they may be serviceable to their Country,” he wrote.
Franklin had drafted a will dated July 17, 1788, making generous disposition for family and others, including even his son William, who he thought had betrayed both him and America by remaining loyal to the British crown. Now he amended the will with a codicil, executed on June 3, 1789, which was a final expression of his belief that culture was formed on the development of personal character. In one of the grandest expressions of benevolence in American history, Franklin combined his goal of promoting civic virtue and his fascination with the power of compounding interest to make even small sums of money grow by creating two carefully structured philanthropic trusts designed to last exactly 200 years. He made separate bequests of 1,000 pounds—the equivalent of roughly $100,000 in 2008 dollars—to the cities of Boston and Philadelphia and instructed that the money be used to make small loans, at 5 percent interest per annum, to married men under 25 who had completed apprenticeships and wanted to start their own businesses.
Publication History: American History, February 2009
