DR. JOHNSON TO DR. PETERS,
(from Dr. Johnson's draft.)
Aug. 16.
SIR, I am extremely obliged to you for the honor you have done me in writing so kind and polite a letter to me, who am a perfect stranger to you, a person whose real character I doubt you will find much below what the candor of the openly friendly gentlemen have represented. You will see by my letter to Mr. Franklin what difficulties lie in my way with regard to my residence among you, which otherwise would, doubtless, be vastly agreeable to me. However, as I do think in earnest, if practicable, to make a tour to Philadelphia in acknowledgment of the great kindness you express towards me, I shall most gratefully accept of your kind invitation, and let you know beforehand when to expect me. If I can come at all it will be before the time you mention, but I would first see my brethren here together at our Commencement on the 2d week in Sept., by conversing with whom I shall be the better able to make adjustment whether a remove would be practicable. Meantime,
I remain, Sir, etc.,
S. J.
MR. FRANKLIN TO DR. JOHNSON.
Philadelphia, Aug. 23, 1750.
DEAR SIR, We received your favor of the 16th inst. Mr. Peters will hardly have time to write to you per this post, and I must be short. Mr Francis spent the last evening with me, and we were all glad to hear that you seriously meditate a visit after the middle of next month, and that you will inform us by a line when to expect you. We drank your health and Mrs Johnson's, remembering your kind entertainment of us at Stratford.
I think, with you, that nothing is of more importance for the public weal, than to form and train up youth in wisdom and virtue. Wise and good men are, in my opinion, the strength of a State much more so than riches or arms, which, under the management of ignorance and wickedness, often draw on destruction, instead of providing for the safety of the people. And though the culture bestowed on many should be successful only with a few, yet the influence of those few, and the service in their power, may be very great. Even a single woman, that was wise by her wisdom saved a city.
I think, also, that general virtue is more probably to be expected andi obtained from the education of youth than from the exhortation of adult persons; bad habits and vices of the mind being, like diseases of the body, more easily prevented than cured. I think, moreover, that talents for the education of youth are the gift of God; and that he on whom they are bestowed, whenever a way is opened for the use of them, is as strongly
