Biography of Franklin Essay

This means that the most affluent families were the ones who had access to libraries as well as reading materials. In 173s Franklin lived in Philadelphia and together with a group of members which was collectively known as Junto teamed up in order to form a library for the benefit of the people who had no access to reading materials. Junto had various ideas which could be applied to solve social, economic and political problems. As a result of their collective purchasing power, Junto was able to purchase a large number of books. After teaming up Franklin came up with a number of rules which required each member of the group to bring in at least one question concerning the morals natural philosophy or a question dealing with political matters.

The impact was substantial enough for them to be compared to other intelligent men from other countries and the changing intellectual landscape also attributed to their stand on the privileges entitled to them, which shaped the civil society of the future generations. SECTION 2 One of the most beloved founding fathers of America, Benjamin Franklin is an American icon remembered for many things due to his diverse interests. A polymath, Benjamin Franklin excelled in many fields but to the average American, he is known to be an influential politician in American history. Part of his success in carving out a prominent place for himself regardless of his modest background can be attributed to his ongoing quest for moral perfection with the knowledge that there is no such thing as absolute moral perfection.

Armed with that knowledge and his disinterest in the Presbyterian denomination that he was religiously educated in, which he found to be dry and unappealing with no real qualitative significance in the moral upgrading of its congregants, Franklin embarked upon the bold project of achieving moral perfection. Furthermore, he also created a special prayer that would give him divine inspiration in propelling this exercise forward. Upon putting this plan into action, Franklin realized that he had more faults than he had realized and his success can be gauged by the fact that he saw the faults diminishing over time. As time passed the frequency of his course reduced to only one a year and thereafter to one every few years with a long hiatus that was attributed to his business travels.

However, a testament to his commitment to always live a virtuous life and to promote these qualities to other people was depicted by his desire and willingness to carry his book all the times. Although, he had paid special attention to this virtue by allotting a time for all his daily activities and distributing the day into four sections cataloguing exactly what activity will take place in each section, even then he struggled with order on many different levels and attributed the struggle to the fact that a busy social life and networking required meeting other people in their time which made his daily schedule at times irrelevant. Franklin's discontent with the puritanical version of Christianity which did not emphasize the inculcation of moral principles and by design developing its adherents into good citizens but rather merely Presbyterians led him to his daunting task of achieving moral perfection.

Franklin's beliefs were very simple and he did not want to get himself embroiled in the haze of Christian doctrine but rather believed in attaining a virtuous and moral character, which were the basis of the teachings of Jesus. Franklin believed that a virtuous society was more humane than a religious society. In context of the traditional definition of a religious man who follows dogmatic teachings, Franklin would not be classified as a religious man but if the essence of religion is to follow the teachings of Jesus then in that context, Franklin was very religious since he believed in a virtuous society and was a big believer in being of service to his fellow human beings. As a testament to this belief, not only did Franklin embark on the tedious task of inculcating the thirteen virtues within himself that he had broadly defined as being beneficial in attaining moral perfection but he also proceeded to create a United Party for Virtue which would be governed by wise rules and wise men.