As he was never tired of helping himself to get upward and onward, so, too, he was never tired of helping others.  He started the first public library in Philadelphia, which was also the first in America.  He set on foot the first fire-engine company and the first military company in that city.  He got the people to pave the muddy streets with stone; he helped to build the first academy,—­now called the University of Pennsylvania,—­and he also helped to build the first hospital.

118.  Franklin’s experiments[16] with electricity; the wonderful bottle; the picture of the king of England.—­While doing these things and publishing his paper besides, Franklin found time to make experiments with electricity.  Very little was then known about this wonderful power, but a Dutchman, living in the city of Leyden[17] in Holland, had discovered a way of bottling it up in what is called a Leyden Jar.  Franklin had one of these jars, and he was never tired of seeing what new and strange thing he could do with it.

He contrived a picture of the king of England with a movable gilt crown on his head.  Then he connected the crown by a long wire with the Leyden Jar.  When he wanted some fun he would dare any one to go up to the picture and take off the king’s crown.  Why that’s easy enough, a man would say, and would walk up and seize the crown.  But no sooner had he touched it than he would get an electric shock which would make his fingers tingle as they never tingled before.  With a loud Oh!  Oh! he would let go of the crown, and start back in utter astonishment, not knowing what had hurt him.

[Illustration:  FRANKLIN PLAYING A JOKE WITH THE KING’S CROWN.]

[Footnote 16:  Experiments:  here an experiment is a trial made to discover something unknown.  Franklin made these experiments or trials with electricity and with thunder clouds in order to find out what he could about them.]

[Footnote 17:  Leyden:  see map in paragraph 62.]

119.  The electrical kite.—­But Franklin’s greatest experiment was made one day in sober earnest with a kite.  He believed that the electricity in the bottle, or Leyden Jar, was the same thing as the lightning we see in a thunder-storm.  He knew well enough how to get an electric spark from the jar, for he had once killed a turkey with it for dinner; but how could he get a spark from a cloud in the sky?

He thought about it for a long time; then he made a kite out of a silk handkerchief, and fastened a sharp iron point to the upright stick of the kite.  One day, when a thunder-storm was seen coming up, Franklin and his son went out to the fields.  The kite was raised; then Franklin tied an iron key to the lower end of the string.  After waiting some time, he saw the little hair-like threads of the string begin to stand up like the bristles of a brush.  He felt certain that the electricity was coming down the string.  He put his knuckle close to the key, and a spark flew out.  Next, he took his Leyden Jar and collected the electricity in that.  He had made two great discoveries, for he had found out that electricity and lightning are the same thing and he had also found how to fill his bottle directly from the clouds:  that was something that no one had ever done before.