Experimental College

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.

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, 1932