Keith was no longer governor. Miss Read, despairing of Franklin’s return, had yielded to the persuasions of her family and married a potter named Rogers, and Keimer seemed to be prospering. But the young printer was in a business that he liked. He was devoted to Mr. Denham, with whom his prospects were excellent, and he thought himself settled at last. In a few months, however, both he and Mr. Denham were taken with the pleurisy. Mr. Denham died, and Franklin, fully expecting to die, made up his mind to it like a philosopher who believed that there was nothing beyond the grave. He was rather disappointed, he tells us, when he got well, for all the troublesome business of resignation would some day have to be done over again. Finding himself on his recovery without employment, he went back again to work at his old trade with Keimer, and before long was in business for himself with a partner. He had never paid Mr. Vernon the money he had collected for him; but, fortunately, Mr. Vernon was easy with him, and, except for worrying over this very serious debt and the loss of Miss Read, Franklin began to do fairly well, and his self-education was continued in earnest. It was about this time that he founded the club called the Junto, which he has described as “the best school of philosophy, morality, and politics that then existed in the province.” This description was true enough, but was not very high praise, for at that time Pennsylvania had no college, and the schools for children were mostly of an elementary kind. Franklin, in making this very sweeping assertion, may have intended one of his deep, sly jokes. It was the only school of philosophy in the province, and in that sense undoubtedly the best. It was a sort of small debating club, in which the members educated one another by discussion; and Franklin’s biographer, Parton, supposes that it was in part suggested by Cotton Mather’s benefit societies, which were well known in Boston when Franklin was a boy. The first members of the Junto were eleven in number, young workmen like Franklin, four of them being printers. The others were Joseph Brientnal, a copier of deeds; Thomas Godfrey, a self-taught mathematician, inventor of the quadrant now known as Hadley’s; Nicholas Scull; William Parsons, a shoemaker; William Maugridge, a carpenter; William Coleman, a merchant’s clerk; and Robert Grace, a witty, generous young gentleman of some fortune. The Junto was popularly known as the Leather-Apron Club, and Franklin has told us in his Autobiography of its methods and rules: