Robert Maynard Hutchins

His father and his grandfather both preached in Presbyterian pulpits, and the household in Oberlin, Ohio ran on evangelical discipline and hard work. At 18 Robert Maynard Hutchins left college for the Army ambulance service, served in an all-Oberlin section, and came back from Italy in 1919 with a Croce al Merito di Guerra. Yale followed — a bachelor's degree in 1921, menial jobs six hours a day to pay for it, then the law school, where he finished first in his class. Yale made him acting dean of its law school in 1927, at 28, and full dean the year after. In April 1929 the University of Chicago made him its president. He was 30, the youngest at any major American university.

What he built at Chicago became the Hutchins Plan: general education taught from original texts rather than textbooks, a degree awarded on comprehensive examinations instead of accumulated course credits, and admission open to students who had finished only the sophomore year of high school. With Mortimer Adler he ran the Great Books seminars alongside it. In December 1939 he abolished varsity football at a school that had helped invent the college game under Amos Alonzo Stagg, a national figure Hutchins had already pushed out. It was a bet that a university exists for the intellect and nothing else.

He lost. Most of the plan was taken apart after he left in 1951, undergraduate enrolment fell badly, donations from the school's Chicago benefactors dried up, and many alumni never forgave the football. What he did not lose was his nerve about academic freedom. When Charles Walgreen accused the university of indoctrinating his niece and the Illinois legislature came to investigate in 1935, Hutchins fired nobody and defended the faculty's right to teach what they believed. He did it again in 1949, testifying before the Broyles Commission that communism could not survive open scrutiny and did not need suppressing. And on December 2, 1942, in a rackets court under the west stands of Stagg Field, Enrico Fermi's team produced the first controlled nuclear chain reaction — beneath the grandstand of the football team Hutchins had abolished.

The commission he assembled to ask what the press was for reported in 1947 and gave American journalism the idea of social responsibility, and its findings are still argued over in newsrooms and law schools. He chaired the board of editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica from 1943 to 1974 and edited the 54-volume Great Books of the Western World. He ran the Fund for the Republic through the McCarthy years and founded the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions in Santa Barbara in 1959, where he worked until a heart attack killed him on May 14, 1977, at 78. Chicago brought back the football. It also still requires a Core that descends directly from his.

Robert Maynard Hutchins's life against the full span of the corpus.

• The New Plan for the College of the University of Chicago other
  Comprehensive examinations in place of course credits 1931
• The Higher Learning in America book
  His case against the vocational university 1936
• A Free and Responsible Press book
  Report of the Hutchins Commission on freedom of the press 1947
• Great Books of the Western World book
  Editor in chief of the 54-volume set for Encyclopaedia Britannica 1952
• The Great Conversation: The Substance of a Liberal Education book
  Volume one of the set, and his manifesto for liberal education 1952
• Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions other
  Founded in Santa Barbara after the Fund for the Republic 1959

• 1917 aged ~18 Leaves Oberlin College at 18 for the Army ambulance service He served in an all-Oberlin section and was decorated in Italy.
• 1927 aged ~28 Made acting dean of Yale Law School at 28 Full dean the following year, and a national figure before 30.
• April 25, 1929 aged 30 Named president of the University of Chicago He took office on July 1, the youngest president of any major American university.
• 1931 aged ~32 The New Plan rebuilds the College around comprehensive examinations Original texts replaced textbooks, and credits stopped counting.
• 1935 aged ~36 Refuses to dismiss faculty during the Illinois inquiry into subversion Charles Walgreen had accused the university of indoctrinating his niece.
• December 21, 1939 aged 40 Abolishes varsity football at Chicago The trustees backed him against students and alumni who called it a betrayal.
• December 2, 1942 aged 43 The first controlled nuclear chain reaction, under the stands of Stagg Field Enrico Fermi and his team went critical in a rackets court beneath the west viewing stand.
• 1949 aged ~50 Testifies before the Broyles Commission in defence of his faculty The Illinois seditious activities inquiry had turned on the University of Chicago.
• May 14, 1977 aged 78 Dies of a heart attack in Santa Barbara at 78

• Enrico Fermi 1901–1954
  Italian-American physicist who built the first nuclear reactor and won the Nobel Prize in Physics. sheltered
• John Dewey 1859–1952
  Philosopher and educational reformer whose progressive ideas shaped modern American pedagogy. opposed
• Milton Friedman 1912–2006
  Nobel Prize-winning economist whose free-market ideas profoundly influenced American economic policy. hired
• Clark Kerr 1911–2003
  Architect of California's 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education answered by
• Charles W. Eliot 1834–1926
  Rebuilt Harvard into the first modern American research university and gave undergraduates the elective system. successor movement to