For Young Artificers

"Good apprentices," wrote Benjamin Franklin shortly before his death in 1790, make good citizens." With these words, Franklin set up in Boston one of the earliest of U.S. foundations--a -L-1.000 fund approximately $5,000) to provide loans : 5% interest to "young married artifiers." It was all very worthy, but there was one hitch. With the gradual disappearance of apprentices, the Franklin Foundation ran out of young artificers to sponsor.

Since Ben Franklin stipulated that a portion of the money could be spent on Public works" after 100 years, the trusses in 1891 turned over three-fourths of le snowballing fund (then $424,945) to Boston, which eventually used the money to endow the Franklin Technical Institute. But Franklin had also stipulated that whatever capital might be left should accumulate interest for another 100 years till 1991, when it would be divided between Boston and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Last week, weary of sitting on a fortune that was doing nobody any good, the foundation's trustees filed a brief with the legislature, asked that they be allowed to use the money to extend the institute and thus help the modern version of the young artificer that Franklin originally had in mind. The amount involved: $1,400,000.

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