The twentieth century shows an awakened sense of civic responsibility, and
yet it would be difficult to name a man who has done more for his
commonwealth than Franklin. He started the first subscription library,
organized the first fire department, improved the postal service, helped to
pave and clean the streets, invented the Franklin stove, for which he
refused to take out a patent, took decided steps toward improving education
and founding the University of Pennsylvania, and helped establish a needed
public hospital. The _Autobiography_ shows his pleasure at being told that
there was no such thing as carrying through a public-spirited project
unless he was concerned in it.

His electrical discoveries, especially his identification of lightning with
electricity, gained him world-wide fame. Harvard and Yale gave him honorary
degrees. England made him a Fellow of the Royal Society and awarded him the
Copley Medal. The foremost scientists in France gave him enthusiastic
praise.

The _Autobiography_, ending with 1757, does not tell how he won his fame as
a statesman. In 1764 he went to England as colonial agent to protest
against the passage of the Stamp Act. All but two and one half of the next
twenty years he spent abroad, in England and France. The report of his
examination in the English House of Commons, relative to the repeal of the
Stamp Act, impressed both Europe and America with his wonderful capacity.
Never before had an American given Europe such an exhibition of knowledge,
powers of argument, and shrewdness, tempered with tact and good humor. In
1773 he increased his reputation as a writer and threw more light on
English colonial affairs by publishing, in London, _Rules for Reducing a
Great Empire to a Small One_, and _An Edict by the King of Prussia_.