Background
Alexander Thomas “Alec” Meiklejohn was born on 3 February 1872 in Rochdale, England. He was the son of James Meiklejohn, a textile worker, and Elizabeth France. In 1880 the family immigrated to Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
(Reprint of sole edition. Originally published: New York: ...)
Reprint of sole edition. Originally published: New York: Harper Brothers Publishers, 1948. "Dr. Meiklejohn, in a book which greatly needed writing, has thought through anew the foundations and structure of our theory of free speech . . . he rejects all compromise. He reexamines the fundamental principles of Justice Holmes' theory of free speech and finds it wanting because, as he views it, under the Holmes doctrine speech is not free enough. In these few pages, Holmes meets an adversary worthy of him . . . Meiklejohn in his own way writes a prose as piercing as Holmes, and as a foremost American philosopher, the reach of his culture is as great . . . this is the most dangerous assault which the Holmes position has ever borne." --JOHN P. FRANK, Texas Law Review 27:405-412. ALEXANDER MEIKLEJOHN 1872-1964 was dean of Brown University from 1901-1913, when he became president of Amherst College. In 1923 Meiklejohn moved to the University of Wisconsin- Madison, where he set up an experimental college. He was a longtime member of the National Committee of the American Civil Liberties Union. In 1945 he was a United States delegate to the charter meeting of UNESCO in London. Lectureships have been named for him at Brown University and at the University of Wisconsin. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963.
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( First published in 1932, The Experimental College is th...)
First published in 1932, 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, intensive, 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 find a new curriculum that moved away from training students in crafts, trades, professions, and traditional scholarship. Meiklejohn and his colleagues attempted instead to broadly connect the democratic ideals and thinking of classical Athens with the dilemmas of daily life in modern industrial America. The experiment became increasingly controversial within the university, perhaps for reasons related less to pedagogy than to personalities, money, and the bureaucratic realities of a large state university. 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, supplemented with a new introduction by Roland L. Guyotte. In an age of increasing fragmentation and specialization of academic studies, The Experimental College remains a useful tool in any examination of the purposes of higher education. "Alexander Meiklejohn’s significance in the history of American education stems largely from his willingness to put ideas into action. He tested abstract philosophical theories in concrete institutional practice. The Experimental College reveals the dreams as well as the defeats of a deeply idealistic reformer. 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 o A reprint of the unabridged, original 1932 edition o Published in partnership with the University of Wisconsin–Madison Libraries
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( Written in the midst of World War II, this book makes a...)
Written in the midst of World War II, this book makes a strong argument for the crucial importance of education as the solution to the dilemmas with which our Anglo-Saxon culture was nurtured, with particular emphasis on the work of John Dewey and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. "The schools with which this argument is concerned are those of the Anglo-Saxon democracies of the last three centuries. In the life of England and America as we now know them, three hundred years of cultural change have moved on to a culminating and desperate crisis. That culture, in its religious and moral aspects, we have called Protestantism. On the economic and political side it has appeared as Capitalism. And these two together have established and maintained a way of life which we describe as Democratic. This book is devoted to an attempt to understand the education which is given by Anglo-Saxon democracies, to study the learning and teaching which have been done by a Protestant-capitalist civilization." ûfrom the Preface. As the original foreword by Reginald Archambault indicates, "Fundamentally this is a book about education written by an educator who was anything but conservative and never merely theoretical. He is interested not only in educational theory but also in educational policy, and indeed, in pedagogy. The volume is invaluable, then, for the student of education, for it sheds critical light on the classic conceptions of education for the poor, and provides a heuristic statement of direction for the future." Stringfellow Barr, writing for the New Republic, indicates that this is "A wise and courageous book. I do not know how anybody concerned with education can ignore it." Mark van Doren in the Nation said, "As many readers as are interested in human happiness should go through this bookàfor it is concerned with as important a theme as any I can imagine."
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(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
This book was originally published prior to 1923, and represents a reproduction of an important historical work, maintaining the same format as the original work. While some publishers have opted to apply OCR (optical character recognition) technology to the process, we believe this leads to sub-optimal results (frequent typographical errors, strange characters and confusing formatting) and does not adequately preserve the historical character of the original artifact. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as blurred or missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work or the scanning process itself. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy seeing the book in a format as close as possible to that intended by the original publisher.
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( Many casebooks are constructed by academics who have sp...)
Many casebooks are constructed by academics who have spent a good portion of their careers in teaching environments. This casebook is different. While some of the contributors are full-time faculty members who have taught franchising in law schools, most are private practitioners. These practitioners have worked with clients in the real world and have examined in-depth questions that the book explores. Their experience brings a blend of theoretical and practical perspectives on the legal and policy issues raised by franchising as a business model. The book is designed for use in a franchise law course, but contains practical materials for all attorneys.
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( A distinguished social philosopher offers a searching a...)
A distinguished social philosopher offers a searching argument on freedom and national purpose. Written at the depth of the Depression, in a time of deep national concern over America’s future, What Does America Mean? was addressed to students, to the young who have been alienated and embittered by our betrayal of our own deepest commitments. It is the quality of the spirit that Meiklejohn seeks to define: “Our questions is not, “Do Americans get justice?’ but rather, ‘Do Americans give justice?’” Today, more than a generation later, the book still demands of us, not “What’s going to become of America?” but “What do we mean America to become?” America’s passion for “liberty,” writes Alexander Meiklejohn, has blinded her to the real meaning of “freedom.” It is freedom, not liberty, that lies at the heart of democracy, and we may be in danger of losing both. Our fetish of independence has permitted us to condone slavery, the betrayal of Indians and Blacks, and “the humiliation of the spirit of women . . . the crowning insult which a society has offered to the personalities of its own members.” In this challenging essay, sensitively and scrupulously argued, one of America’s most original social philosophers sums up the fallacies that have confused our purpose and recalls us to the methods of inquiry that led Socrates and Jesus to their supreme insights, “Know yourself” and “Love your neighbor.”
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educator philosopher polemicist
Alexander Thomas “Alec” Meiklejohn was born on 3 February 1872 in Rochdale, England. He was the son of James Meiklejohn, a textile worker, and Elizabeth France. In 1880 the family immigrated to Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
Meiklejohn obtained an A. B. from Brown University in 1893, and an M. A. two years later. In 1897 he received a Ph. D. in philosophy from Cornell University.
Returning to Brown as an instructor in philosophy in 1897, Meiklejohn swiftly demonstrated a talent for Socratic teaching and a fondness for a contest that inclined him to logical disputation and to sports. Skill in both arenas gained him popularity with undergraduates and enabled him to serve effectively. He became dean of students in 1901 and a full professor in 1905. In 1912 Meiklejohn was named the president of Amherst College, then perhaps at its nadir. In chapel and classroom, he was highly appealing to able students. Distrustful of democratic procedures, Meiklejohn once said to a trustee that if made dictator, he would remake Amherst, and the somnolence of the board enabled him to achieve a measure of autocracy enjoyed by no other president of a New England college. He managed to stop direct communication from individual professors to trustees, but he was unable to prevent faculty participation in personnel or tenure decisions. Never at pains to conceal his contempt for a large part of the faculty, he failed to gain support for his proposal in 1918 to establish a uniform program for the first two years of college, success in which would be the condition for advancement to the junior year. Until 1921 the trustees fended off the hostility of many professors and alumni. But in that year it was discovered that Meiklejohn had taken college funds for personal use. Restitution of almost nine thousand dollars was required, and he was notified that the board's "confidence was shaken. " When it was established in 1922 that he had made deceptive statements to the board about faculty appointments, trust was further eroded. A formal inquiry into the practices of appointment and advancement of teachers at Amherst was instituted by the trustees.
In May 1923 their committee reported that reliance on the president had "failed in important respects. " A subsequent trustee poll showed that two-thirds of the faculty believed that Meiklejohn should cease to be president. He was advised to resign, which he did on June 19, 1923. Meiklejohn declined the invitation to remain as a professor of logic but accepted a leave of absence, with full salary, for the following year. There is no evidence to support the assertion that Meiklejohn's dismissal rested on disagreement with his theory of education or with his views on issues of public policy. The action of the board constituted, rather, a triumph for faculty participation in governance. But by withholding publication of its findings, the board facilitated acceptance of the legend that academic freedom had been sacrificed. A mass of documents indicates that the trustees wanted no more than a trustworthy president who could inspire the confidence of his faculty. In 1926 Meiklejohn got a chance to create and staff his own program. The Century Magazine had published some of his articles on higher education; and when the editor, Glenn Frank, was made the president of the University of Wisconsin, he asked Meiklejohn to organize an "experimental college. " This program was for students in the first two years of the College of Letters and Science. Traditional classes, lectures, and examinations were dispensed with, but the high ratio of teachers to students made abundant association feasible. Demand for admittance to the college was so limited that it was never necessary to select students. After the second year, enrollment dwindled, and in the fourth year, the costly program was terminated. Simultaneously, the foundation that had provided Meiklejohn's large salary withdrew its grant to the university. Moving to Berkeley, California, in late 1932, Meiklejohn engaged in a short-lived project in adult education. He and a few others founded and ran the San Francisco School of Social Studies. Meiklejohn taught philosophy at the University of Wisconsin one semester in each of the two years 1935-1937. Something of a national celebrity, his skill in the classroom and on the platform brought him occasional appointments as a visiting lecturer or as a speaker whose name would draw an audience. In the years after World War II Meiklejohn crusaded for the thesis that the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech and press should be read literally as an absolute privilege. He died in Berkeley, California.
( Written in the midst of World War II, this book makes a...)
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
( Many casebooks are constructed by academics who have sp...)
( First published in 1932, The Experimental College is th...)
( A distinguished social philosopher offers a searching a...)
(Reprint of sole edition. Originally published: New York: ...)
Meiklejohn condemned the emphasis on intercollegiate sports, the equation of education with a tally of course credits, the fragmentation of learning into autonomous departments, and the absence of any unifying sense of purpose. He conceived of college not as a place wherein to acquire substantive knowledge, a concept which he despised, but as a four-year dialogue that would teach the student to think logically. Not curious about the methods and findings of modern science and the social studies, he remained captive to his narrow training as an idealist in the Kantian tradition.
Quotations:
"There is, I think, nothing in the world more futile than the attempt to find out how a task should be done when one has not yet decided what the task is. "
"Whatever may be the immediate gains and losses, the dangers to our safety arising from political suppression are always greater than the dangers to that safety arising from political freedom. Suppression is always foolish. Freedom is always wise. That is the faith, the experimental faith, by which we Americans have undertaken to live. "
"Freedom is always wise. "
"Civilization is not a burden. It is an opportunity. "
On June 14, 1902, Meiklejohn married Nannine A. LaVilla; they had four children. His wife died in 1925, and on June 9, 1926, he married Helen Everett. They had no children.