Returning in 1727, he, first of all, laid the foundations of a printing business large and profitable for the time. In 1729, then only twenty-three years old, he started a newspaper for himself, which speedily made him a force in the community. Once launched as a publisher, Franklin extended his ventures more and more widely; and in 1740 he founded a _General Magazine_, and was one of the first Americans to discover how much money can be sunk in a literary periodical and in how short a time. [Illustration: MRS. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN Born Deborah Reed. From a portrait painted by Matthew Pratt, and now owned by the Rev. F. B. Hodge, Wilkesbarre, Pa.] In 1732, he began the most popular and the most effective of all his publications--_Poor Richard’s Almanac_, an annual which sold the incredible number of ten thousand a year, and which applied the sagacity and humor of the writer to setting forth a standard of morals, which, however utilitarian and self-seeking, had a powerful influence upon a crude and growing people. Indeed, it is almost the only bit of American literature that circulated throughout the Colonies and infused a national spirit into the half century preceding the Revolution. Once established as a man of property and influence, Franklin bent his energies to setting up a new standard of education. In 1743, he issued proposals for an academy of learning, and in 1744 founded the American Philosophical Society. In 1749, he raised the great sum of five thousand pounds for the new school, and secured an excellent building for it. This far-reaching plan also included a “Free School--for the Instruction of Poor Children in Reading, Writing and Arithmetic”--apparently the first suggestion of a free school in his commonwealth. In 1755, his school developed into a college which subsequently became the University of Pennsylvania. No man in America had such solid and thorough-going views as to the value of education. [Illustration: FRANKLIN GIVING PART OF HIS BREAD TO A POOR WOMAN Philadelphia, 1723] As has been the case with many journalists, his calling speedily brought him into political relations, for he was chosen to be the official printer of the Colonial legislature; and thereafter for fifty-nine years was seldom out of some form of public employment. Thus established as a kind of public character, Franklin set himself to improve both city and Colonial governments. In 1737, he was made postmaster of Philadelphia, and caused great surprise by his prompt and accurate financial accounts. [Illustration: DR. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN From a painting by Duplessis in 1778. The original, in the Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, is believed to be the best likeness of Franklin]