American educator who, though highly critical of progressive education (education, philosophy of), was best known for his work in experimental schools and for his departure from traditional teaching methods.

Meriam was reared on a farm and attended Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio (A.B., 1895); New York State Normal College, Albany (B.Ph., 1898); Harvard University (M.A., 1902); and Columbia University (Ph.D., 1905). While pursuing his graduate education he held various administrative and teaching posts.

From 1904 to 1924 Meriam was professor of education at the University of Missouri, and he was superintendent of university schools there from 1905. In 1924 he moved to the University of California at Los Angeles, where he remained as professor of education until retirement in 1943.

Meriam was highly critical of traditional teaching methods that relied on a system of rewards and punishments, and he was equally opposed to many progressive practices. Instead, Meriam urged that elementary students be taught reading, writing, and arithmetic by tapping their natural interests through instructional activities appropriate to those interests. Children learn the formal disciplines, Meriam was convinced, while engaged in activities of interest to them.

Meriam articulated his views in scores of journal articles and five major books: Normal School Education and Efficiency in Teaching (1905), Child Life and the Curriculum (1920), Catalog—Units of Work, Activities, Projects, etc., to 1932 (1932, compiled with Alice E. Carey and Paul R. Hanna), Activities, Projects, Units of Work Cataloged for 1932–1939 (1943), and The Traditional and the Modern Curriculum, an Emerging Philosophy (1960).