Benjamin Franklin's Junto Club: 24 Questions from the Original Mastermind

What Benjamin Franklin's Junto Club was, why he created it, how the Leather Apron Club worked, and how the 24 Junto questions still translate into a modern mastermind agenda.

February 2, 2022 · Famous Mastermind Groups

Jeff Hopp · 10 min read · updated May 25, 2026

Short answer

Benjamin Franklin’s Junto Club was a small mutual-improvement group he organized in Philadelphia in 1727. Members met on Friday evenings to discuss reading, business, civic problems, ethics, and practical ways to help one another. It was also called the Leather Apron Club because it centered working tradesmen rather than social elites.

The Junto matters because Franklin wrote down a repeatable meeting format. Its 24 questions still work as a practical agenda for a modern mastermind group.

Ben Franklin Junto quick facts

Benjamin Franklin organized the Junto in the fall of 1727. He was twenty-one. The group met Friday evenings in Philadelphia and kept meeting for decades. Over that span, the Junto helped seed projects associated with Franklin’s civic life, including library, fire-company, hospital, philosophical-society, and education efforts. It also produced the political and commercial network that put Franklin at the center of the American founding.

Two centuries before Napoleon Hill named the principle, Franklin had already worked out the format. Read what he wrote down and you’ll see the bones of every working mastermind that came after.

Why Franklin created the Junto

Franklin was young, ambitious, and not born into the social class that automatically opened doors. The Junto was his way of manufacturing a better room: one where working people could read, debate, trade information, develop character, spot opportunities, and help each other become more useful citizens.

That is why the Junto is more than a historical curiosity. It solved the same problem modern founders, creators, and operators still have: how do you place yourself in a room that reliably raises the quality of your thinking?

What Franklin set up in the Junto Club

The membership stayed small. Tradesmen, mostly: printers, surveyors, joiners, a glazier, a shoemaker, and other people with practical work in the world. Franklin called it the Leather Apron Club because many of the original members were craftsmen, not gentry. That was deliberate. He wanted working people who were trying to get better at their work and at being citizens, not a society of gentlemen performing for each other.

The cadence was weekly, Friday evenings, with a defined agenda. The format had three jobs: each member presented a question or short essay on a topic; the group discussed; and every quarter, each member submitted a longer written piece. Drinking and side-talk were allowed but the work came first.

Membership was protected. To add a member, every existing member had to agree. To stay, you had to actually do the work — show up, contribute, write the quarterly essay. The group quietly let people fade out when they stopped contributing.

Three rules made the room run. Members were forbidden from making absolute or arrogant claims; they had to phrase opinions provisionally, “it seems to me” rather than “obviously.” Members were forbidden from contradicting each other directly; they were taught to ask questions instead. And nothing said in the room left the room. Three rules. They produced a discussion culture that lasted forty years.

The 24 questions

Franklin wrote a standing list of questions to open each meeting. Members answered the ones that applied to them. The full list is the cleanest working agenda document that has survived from the 18th century, and most of it still works without modification.

1. Have you met with any thing in the author you last read, remarkable, or suitable to be communicated to the Junto? particularly in history, morality, poetry, physic, travels, mechanic arts, or other parts of knowledge?
2. What new story have you lately heard, agreeable for telling in conversation?
3. Hath any citizen in your knowledge failed in his business lately, and what have you heard of the cause?
4. Have you lately heard of any citizen’s thriving well, and by what means?
5. Have you lately heard how any present rich man, here or elsewhere, got his estate?
6. Do you know of a fellow citizen who has lately done a worthy action, deserving praise and imitation? or who has lately committed an error, proper for us to be warned against and avoid?
7. What unhappy effects of intemperance have you lately observed or heard? of imprudence? of passion? or of any other vice or folly?
8. What happy effects of temperance? of prudence? of moderation? or of any other virtue?
9. Have you or any of your acquaintance been lately sick or wounded? If so, what remedies were used, and what were their effects?
10. Whom do you know that are shortly going voyages or journeys, if one should have occasion to send by them?
11. Do you think of any thing at present, in which the Junto may be serviceable to mankind? to their country, to their friends, or to themselves?
12. Hath any deserving stranger arrived in town since last meeting, that you heard of? and what have you heard or observed of his character or merits? and whether, think you, it lies in the power of the Junto to oblige him, or encourage him as he deserves?
13. Do you know of any deserving young beginner lately set up, whom it lies in the power of the Junto any way to encourage?
14. Have you lately observed any defect in the laws of your country, of which it would be proper to move the legislature for an amendment? Or do you know of any beneficial law that is wanting?
15. Have you lately observed any encroachment on the just liberties of the people?
16. Hath any body attacked your reputation lately? and what can the Junto do towards securing it?
17. Is there any man whose friendship you want, and which the Junto, or any of them, can procure for you?
18. Have you lately heard any member’s character attacked, and how have you defended it?
19. Hath any man injured you, from whom it is in the power of the Junto to procure redress?
20. In what manner can the Junto, or any of them, assist you in any of your honourable designs?
21. Have you any weighty affair in hand, in which you think the advice of the Junto may be of service?
22. What benefits have you lately received from any man not present?
23. Is there any difficulty in matters of opinion, of justice, and injustice, which you would gladly have discussed at this time?
24. Do you see any thing amiss in the present customs or proceedings of the Junto, which might be amended?

Junto questions as a modern mastermind agenda

If you want to use the Junto questions in a modern mastermind group, do not read all 24 every meeting. Treat the full list as a question bank and rotate the prompts that fit the room’s current work.

For a modern 90-minute structure, pair Franklin’s questions with the mastermind group agenda template. Use one Junto prompt in the opening block, one in the hot seat, and Question 24 in the close.

What’s still working three centuries later

Read the list and notice what it isn’t. There are no goal-setting questions, no five-year-vision exercises, no SMART framework. The questions are about what’s actually happening — in the member’s reading, in their work, in the town, in their relationships, in the room itself.

A modern mastermind group could open every meeting with five of these and find that the agenda writes itself. Questions 1, 11, 20, 21, and 24 alone would carry a working room for a year.

Three of Franklin’s design choices are worth borrowing directly:

• The standing question list itself. Most contemporary groups improvise the agenda each week. The Junto’s choice — a stable list members can think about between meetings — is structurally stronger. It removes the cold-start problem.
• Question 24, the meta-question. Every meeting included an explicit invitation to critique the group’s own format. Most rooms never make this explicit, and they slowly drift without anyone noticing. The standing question is a maintenance contract.
• The rule against contradiction. Members were trained to ask, not assert. That’s not politeness; it’s a discipline that keeps the room generative instead of competitive. Modern facilitators reach for the same idea under names like “active listening” or “nonviolent communication.” Franklin had the cleaner version.

How to run a modern Junto

A modern Junto does not need costumes, colonial language, or a historical reenactment. It needs the structure Franklin understood:

1. Keep the room small enough that everyone can speak.
2. Meet on a recurring cadence, not “whenever everyone is free.”
3. Use a standing question list so members think between meetings.
4. Bring real matters from work, reading, relationships, and civic life.
5. Protect the room from arrogant certainty by asking before asserting.
6. Include a meta-question so the group keeps improving its own format.

If you want to start with five questions, use 1, 11, 20, 21, and 24. They cover learning, service, mutual assistance, advice, and process improvement. That is enough to run a serious first year.

Where this fits in the method

The Junto is the historical case the Mastery Method takes most directly. Mindset (Pillar 1) is Franklin’s rule against arrogant claims. Planning (Pillar 2) is the standing list. Action (Pillar 3) is the quarterly essay. Alliances (Pillar 4) is the whole format. The pillars are not a new system. They are a restatement of the things working groups have been doing for at least three hundred years.

If you want a starting template for your own room, the answer is on this page. Pick five of Franklin’s questions, decide who’s in the room, and book Friday night.

FAQ

What was Ben Franklin’s Junto?

Ben Franklin’s Junto was a weekly mutual-improvement club he formed in Philadelphia in 1727. It brought together working tradesmen to discuss books, business, ethics, civic problems, and ways the members could help one another.

Why was the Junto called the Leather Apron Club?

The Junto was also called the Leather Apron Club because many early members were craftsmen and tradesmen. The nickname points to the working-class character of the group, not a formal separate organization.

How many questions did Franklin use in the Junto?

Franklin preserved a list of 24 Junto questions. They covered reading, local business, civic service, character, reputation, friendship, advice, and whether the group itself needed to change.

Is the Junto the same as a mastermind group?

The Junto was not called a mastermind group in Franklin’s time, but it used many of the same operating principles: small group, recurring cadence, structured questions, mutual help, accountability, and a shared desire to improve.

Which Junto questions should a modern mastermind use first?

Start with questions 1, 11, 20, 21, and 24. They cover learning, usefulness, mutual assistance, advice, and process improvement, which is enough structure for a strong first meeting.

Source notes

• Library of Congress, Junto: The Spirit of Organization.
• Benjamin Franklin, The Junto questions, public-domain transcription of the questions from Franklin’s papers.

See also: How to run a mastermind group · How a mastermind meeting actually runs · Famous masterminds throughout history · What is a mastermind?