Abstract
NOW that Parliament in its wisdom has once more made the University of Cambridge responsible for the teaching of its students, the wheel has come round full circle and we may fairly indulge in a retrospect about the teaching of science. The story may begin with 1851, when reforms were introduced largely at the instance of the Prince Consort, who had been elected Chancellor in 1847. There is an early pencilling in Punch, by John Leech, representing the election day with a placard of the opposition “Boats no Botany.” It is astonishing how placidly an undergraduate can go through his course unconscious of living in a time of momentous change. The final statutes for the University of the 1851 Commission are dated 1858; but for the first time, in 1851, the class lists record the results of a Moral Sciences Tripos and a Natural Sciences Tripos, both quite new. Previously, dating back to 1824, there had been a Classical Tripos; but before 1851 it was limited to candidates who had already obtained honours in the Mathematical Tripos. The published class lists of that educational instrument go back to 1747–48 and form the connecting link between the triposes of to-day and the academic system of the Middle Ages when the University was paramount.
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SHAW, N. The Cavendish Laboratory as a Factor in a Counter-Revolution. Nature 118, 885–887 (1926). https://doi.org/10.1038/118885b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/118885b0