It has always been the feeling, a more or less indefinite one it is true, of the Student Vagabond, that Benjamin Franklin is one of our over-rated historical characters. Perhaps this feeling is due more than anything else to the shock which he experienced when he realized that the story of Franklin entering Philadelphia eating a roll and with another under his arm,--a story told him when a small child and constituting his only knowledge of the statesman--was, as Mark Twain points out, not such a wonderful thing after all. Anyone could have done it.

"Franklin", says Balzae, "invented the lightning rod, the hoax, and the republic". Yet in all fairness it must be admitted that he did more. In fact, not only did he show himself a statesman during his stay at the French Court as well as in his political work at home, but also he was perhaps the foremost writer of America at the time, as well as something of an inventor and man of science.

The life of this man who certainly was versatile whatever else we may say of him, will be the subject of a lecture by Professor Murdock in Harvard 2 at 10 o'clock this morning.

Tomorrow at 3.30 o'clock, Tito Schipa, of wide fame as a concert tenor as well as a leading operatic singer, will give a recital at Symphony Hall. Mr. Schipa is possessed of a voice of beautiful warm quality, and this combined with the program he has chosen should make the concert very enjoyable.