Franklin was an industrious, ambitious young man who had thoroughly mastered the trade of printer before leaving Boston. In Philadelphia, he set up his own printing business and prospered so much that he was able to retire at the age of 42. The rest of his life he devoted to public enterprises and to scientific investigation. He was instrumental in founding a hospital, the academy that became the University of Pennsylvania, and the American Philosophical Society. He initiated projects for providing police protection, street lighting, cleaning, and paving in Philadelphia. He served as postmaster-general for the colonies, and later represented them in England as events moved toward the Revolution. One of his many public-spirited projects was the establishment of a lending library, and in the selection that follows he tells just how he got the library started. At the time I established myself in Pennsylvania, there was not a good bookseller’s shop in any of the colonies to the southward of Boston. In New York and Philadelphia the printers were indeed stationers; they sold only paper, etc., almanacs, ballads, and a few common school-books. Those who loved reading were obliged to send for their books from England; the members of the Junto [_Franklin’s club_] had each a few. We had left the alehouse, where we first met, and hired a room to hold our club in. I proposed that we should all of us bring our books to that room, where they would not only be ready to consult in our conferences, but become a common benefit, each of us being at liberty to borrow such as he wished to read at home. This was accordingly done, and for some time contented us.