IDEA Association

We Keep Learning to Do More Good Work

Jan 06, 2002

The best edition of The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is published by Yale University Press. It was sponsored by The American Philosophical Society, which grew out of Franklin?’s original adult learning group, the Junto.

In the introduction the editors write: Franklin?’s example of self-education is still significant, whether one?’s formal schooling has been as brief as his was or has extended to the highest levels of a modern university curriculum. He reminds us of the satisfactions to be derived from good reading and from continually broadening and deepening our knowledge and our mental skills.

To keep intelligently aware of developments in current thought and of its backgrounds in the past, as Franklin did, has never been more important than it is in the present era of rapid development and change.

Poor Richard pointed out in the almanac for 1755 that ?‘The Doors of Wisdom are never shut,?’ and, as the autobiography makes clear, Franklin placed high on his scale of values the pleasure and the benefits to be derived both from private study and from the exchange of ideas with (others), even during those years when he was most busily engaged in making a living.

Even Franklin needed a little help from his friends to keep learning. Now the same help Franklin got is available here in Denver. (See the article below on the new Ben Franklin Learning Group.)

John S. Wren, MBA is a business consultant and educator. Reach him at JohnSWren@AOL.com or (303)861-1447. Your comments are encouraged.