We live in an age of revolt. All things good are bad; and things bad are not bad enough. Institutions are corrupt, men are stupid, football is overemphasized, life is a long rope with a noose at the end. This is perhaps a sound enough criticism of modern life, but unfortunately we are not content to belittle ourselves, we must go back and belittle our fathers. Washington was a cursing drunkard, Hamilton gadded about with far too many women, Jefferson was a pompous hypocrite. This is a bad business. The Vagabond likes to feel that there were giants upon the earth in the old days, and that, as like as not, there will be giants again. He is willing to accept great men for the service they rendered the country; it matters as little how much Washington drank as what the real story is behind all that cherry tree discussion.

All this was brought on by the fact that Professor Mathiessen is lecturing today on Benjamin Franklin. Franklin may have had feet of plaster, but it was the plaster of Paris. A man once wrote a book about Franklin and called him "The First Civilized American." There are some who will sneer cynically and say that, granting this was true, he was also the last.

Almost everyone knows the early life of the man. How he went to Philadelphia to work as a printer. How he dropped into a bakery one night and bought great sticks of French bread. How his future wife laughed at him loafing up the street. This is all old stuff. His political and diplomatic career is also well enough known in the casual way. Everyone knows, that he foresaw the United States at Albany. There are countless stories of his graceful mots when he bowed low in the court of France. School boys are raised on the story of the kite and key.

All these aspects of Franklin are common knowledge, but; there is another which few know. In the realm of literature there is his Autobiography, and Poor Richard. There is also the Saturday Evening Post if you want it, but you don't. Franklin, however, made other contributions to American letters, contributions which the Vagabond is frank to admit he sees only through a glass darkly. So, that this fog may be dispelled, he goes tomorrow at 10 o'clock to Harvard 26.

TODAY

9 o'clock

"Military Reform in the Roman Army" Professor Ferguson, Sever 18.

10 o'clock

"Reconstruction in Germany after the Thirty Years War". Professor Fay, Harvard 1.