The Experimental College
Published on 30. August 2001
Book
Paperback/Softback
454 pages
978-0-299-17244-2 (ISBN)
Description
A classic in the history of American higher education The Experimental College is the record of a radical experiment in university education. Established at the University of Wisconsin in Madison in 1927 by innovative educational theorist Alexander Meiklejohn, the ""Experimental College"" itself was to be a small, residence-based program within the larger university that provided a core curriculum of liberal education for the first two years of college. Aimed at finding a method of teaching whereby students would gain ""intelligence in the conduct of their own lives,"" the Experimental College gave students unprecedented freedom. Discarding major requirements, exams, lectures, and mandatory attendance, the program reshaped the student-professor relationship, abolished conventional subject divisions, and attempted to broadly connect the democratic ideals and thinking of classical Athens with the dilemmas of daily life in modern industrial America. Meiklejohn's program closed its doors after only five years, but this book, his final report on the experiment, examines both its failures and its triumphs. This edition brings back into print Meiklejohn's original, unabridged text.
Reviews / Votes
Alexander Meiklejohn's significance in the history of American education stems largely from his willingness to put ideas into action. By asking sharp questions about enduring purposes of liberal democratic education, Meiklejohn presents a message that is meaningful and useful in any age. - Adam Nelson, author of Education and Democracy: The Meaning of Alexander Meiklejohn, 1872-1964 ""The normal young American expects on his twenty-first birthday not a new sense of responsibility but a new automobile. The Experimental College rests upon the assertion that, against the specialized teaching of men for banking, for scholarship, for industry, for art, for medicine, and the like, there is the general liberal teaching of men for intelligence in the conduct of their own lives."" - Alexander Meiklejohn, 1932More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Wisconsin
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
1 b&w photograph
Dimensions
Height: 209 mm
Width: 136 mm
Thickness: 30 mm
Weight
640 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-299-17244-2 (9780299172442)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Alexander Meiklejohn (1872-1964) authored many books, including Free Speech and Its Relation to Self-Government. A dean at Brown University and then president of Amherst College, he founded the Experimental College at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and the San Francisco School of Social Studies. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963 for his activities in defense of First Amendment freedoms of speech, press, and assembly during the McCarthy era.