Abstract
THE development of higher education in the direction of research was the keynote of the address delivered by Prof. J. G. Macgregor, F.R.S., at the University of Edinburgh on October 15, in opening the Natural Philosophy Class as the late Prof. Tait's successor. Research methods should be used in education from the Kindergarten to the University; because the spirit of self-help, of inquiry and of inventiveness which they encourage is at the foundation of all progress in science and industry. When science began to be studied in our schools and colleges about forty years ago, the schoolmen of the day followed, with few exceptions, the methods which they used in teaching the humanities. Lectures and books provided the material and examinations the test of retentivity. The system was fundamentally wrong when applied to science though sound for studies of literature. Investigation is necessary in both cases if progress is to be made, but, as Prof. Macgregor remarks, “while in science the outfit of the laboratory consists of apparatus and tools, in language it consists of the text and the lexicon.”
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Research in University Education . Nature 65, 69–70 (1901). https://doi.org/10.1038/065069a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/065069a0