Robert Maynard Hutchins(1899-1977)
- Writer
Robert Maynard Hutchins was one of the most noted educators of the
twentieth century. The son of a New England clergyman and university
president, Hutchins became the Yale Law School's youngest dean ever at
age 28. At 31 he was named president of the University of Chicago,
where his ideas about education were both lauded and condemned, but
never ignored. While still at the University he became chairman of the
board of editors of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica and also editor
of the Great Books series, his brainchild. After leaving U of C he
became an associate director of the Ford Foundation, and later the
president of an offshoot of the Foundation, the Fund for the Republic.
Hutchins' beliefs concerning civil liberties and the rights of man drew
attacks from Sen. Joseph McCarthy and Congressional investigating committees,
but the Fund was one of the few institutions to squarely confront
McCarthyism on moral ground during the 1950s. In 1959 he founded the
Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, the mission of which
was "to identify and clarify the basic issues of our time and widen the
circles of discussion about them."