"Pro" 3: "Projector"

       "Projector" sounds modern, as in "film projector," but the excitement in this very word may have been at its pinnacle in the late 17th, early 18th, century.

       "Projectors” caught my ear in college lectures on Daniel Dafoe.  One of Dafoe's earliest writings, was An Essay Upon Projects (1697).  Dafoe called his time the “Projecting Age.”  And he envisioned what was necessary for the public good of England.

       Dafoe was looking for “projectors” who could take on these projects:  organizing the banking system; setting up an insurance and pension system; founding institutions for the mentally ill; establishing national academies; undertaking the education of women.

       Dafoe was a tradesman and “projector” himself, a practical man as well as novelist and writer, and he sought others who could "lay" plans and “throw" themselves "forward” into the betterment of their country!