Gladly Learn and Gladly Teach: Franklin and His Heirs at the University of Pennsylvania, 1740-1976

By Martin Meyerson

Since the days of Benjamin Franklin, the University of Pennsylvania has been distinguished as a pioneer in American letters and science and was the precedent for later developments in today's great teaching and research institutions. The interests of a progressive faculty ensured that Philadelphia's college would start out with a scientific leaning. Franklin pressed for English to replace the classics as the most important language, and foreign languages were introduced sooner than elsewhere. With this evidence of American pragmatism, it is hardly surprising that programs for professional and applied education were introduced early on or that the oldest medical school, teaching hospital, and school of business in North American should all have been established at the University of Pennsylvania. Another difference is that Penn was founded as a secular institution. All the other colonial colleges were established for the purpose of educating young men for the ministry. In Gladly Learn and Gladly Teach , through a series of portraits of the scholars and educators who have left their mark on the University and whose influence has been felt beyond its walls, the history of the University comes to life. The achievements of these individuals in medicine, law, mathematics, astronomy, biology, economics, and architecture reveal the multifarious personality of a modern research university.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 081227735X
• ISBN13: 9780812277357
• Release Date: January 1978
• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
• Length: 270 Pages
• Weight: 2.40 lbs.