Although there is a vast amount of documentary evidence to prove that the American Philosophical Society was the direct outcome of Franklin’s proposal of 1743, and that before the breaking out of the war with Great Britain it was an active and useful organization, having a large native and foreign membership, two of Dr. Franklin’s biographers have done but scant justice to his work in this direction. Professor McMaster, in his recent interesting life of Franklin as a man of letters, dismisses his proposal to establish such a society as a failure;[19] while Mr. Parton, after mentioning the fact of Franklin having founded the Philosophical Society, in accordance with his proposal of 1743, adds, “The society was formed, and continued in existence for some years. Nevertheless, its success was neither great nor permanent, for at that day the circle of men capable of taking much interest in science was too limited for the proper support of such an organization.”[20] As both of these historians mention the Philosophical Society later, and Mr. Parton at some length in his Life of Jefferson, it is probable that they did not consider that this early society was identical with that which in 1767 took a fresh start, elected a number of influential members, and made for itself an enviable reputation in Europe and America, in the latter years of the century. Sparks and Bigelow, however, take what is, according to the historian of the society, Dr. Robert M. Patterson, a true view of the case, tracing it back, a continuous organization, to the proposal of Dr. Franklin issued in 1743. Indeed, they carry it back even further than this period, deriving it primarily from the old Junto of 1727. After describing the workings of the Junto, or Leather Apron Society, formed from among Franklin’s “ingenious acquaintance,” a sort of debating club of clever young men, Jared Sparks says, “Forty years after its establishment, it became the basis of the American Philosophical Society, of which Franklin was the first president, and the published Transactions of which have contributed to the advancement of science and the diffusion of valuable knowledge in the United States.”[21] As most of Franklin’s projects were discussed in the congenial circle that composed the Junto, this statement does not conflict with that of Dr. Patterson.