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PTP~UTP The Power of Values "Tll'h!- should I care?" "Tll'hat difference does it make?" Some such question may be at the back of !-our mind as !-ou pick up this special edition of the dutobioffr-@IZJ of Benjamin Franklin, published especially for the Penn Reading Project by the University of Pennsylrania Press. YOII~ participation in PRP carries no grade. No one will take roll. After you discuss Franklin's Autobiogrc1pl~~ on Sunday, September 4, 2005 with fello~v first-year students and a Penn facult!- member, ! 0 1 1 may never again pick up the riutobiog-c1pl~j. So TI-hy bother? Because Franklin is very much alive at Penn. His farnous personalit!. and notable charisrna helped to define a uniquely engaged American st!-le and character, exernplified by many people yo11will meet at Penn. Franklin was not just a scientist (one of the world's first). He was not only an educational theorist (breaking ~vith the classical curriculum of his day). Franklin loved learning. But he also applied his theoretical kno~vledge to the practical tasks of invention and civic improvement, founding the school that became the University of Pennsylvania. In his times, he was a rnedia rnogul and business entrepreneur . He created a chain of print shops throughout the Colonies that ~vould be the e n y of any Penn Iharton graduate. In the ideas and the values that he put into practice, Franklin exernplified the life of an engaged and successful public intellectual. Franklin's ideas and values have shaped the t~zodem University of Pennsylvania more profoundly than have the follnders of any major college or university in the United States. The Penn Compact-"From Excellence to Eminence"-is inspired by values that Franklin held dear: increasing access to education, integrating knowledge, and engaging with colnrnunities locally and globally, informed by broad-based kno~vledge . Franklin's ideas are clearly alive here at Penn in ways that really are quite remarkable. Yo117-challenge in the next few months-and throughout the next four !-ears-is to figure out ho~v these values, and all that Penn is and strives to be in fulfilling them, can help !-011 shape your own life to come. There's no better starting place for that journey than Franklin's Al~toOiogmpIzj. Were Franklin to walk into my office in College Hall today, he ~vould understand most of the topics he ~vould hear discussed: the nature of the undergraduate educational experience; the challenge of integrating knowledge from the liberal arts and the professions to understand today's most difficult problems; the need to translate faculty and student research into real applications that will improve human lives; the important civic role of the University as Philadelphia's largest prirate employer and a po~verhouseof urban revitalization; the need to raise nelv funds to ensure that no qualified student is ever deprived of a Penn education merel!- because he or she cannot afford it; and the irnportance of engaging communities here at 110111e and around the world. A 1 1 these and many more issues of our day would be immediately familiar to Franklin. They embody and express the ralues and ideas to ~1-11ich he was committed and ~vhichinspired his Proposnls Relating to the Educc~tion o f I;buth in Ppnnsjlvcrnin(1749),included in this volume, and the founding of what became the University of Pennsylvania. Most important, Franklin ~vouldrecognize the conlnlitnlent to personal exrellenreand to the ambition that drives the excellent to seek e~~zine~zce~vhich is so characteristic of Perm today and of its faculty, students , staff, and alumni. All these are values that guided Franklin throughout his life, and the!- are as relevant to !-our life and your choices as they were to his. The ITalue-DrivenLife Reason lvas Franklin's guide in life, making him an exernplar of the Enlightenment values and spirit that ~vouldcharacterize the young American Republic. But Reason was not Franklin's sole value. Utility, honesty, service, kno~vledge,and creativity-these were also among Franklin's core values. They shaped his life, and the AutoDioffr-+Izj is the story of that shaping. "His Autobiopc~pl~j is in many ~vays,"Michael Zuckerrnarl obsel~es,"an account of the rneans by ~vhichhe cultivated his o~vn benevolence." This formative role that d u e s played in Franklin's life is evident across the spectrum of his activities, but nlost especially in his interpersonal relations. Paul Guyer argues that, in...

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