The new model school of education

The University of Edinburgh and Moray House teachers’ college began to develop a new model of research and teaching, institutionalised in a combined university department and teachers’ college, with a research laboratory and advanced research degree in the 1920s. This new institution was modelled on the innovative and influential Teachers College, within Columbia University, New York, and was driven by a strong Scottish demand for advanced practice in education. It benefited from, and was shaped by, its new head, Godfrey Thomson, and his capability and leadership produced a model of a school of education that would be radical today had it survived the 1950s.Keywords: researchteachingTeachers CollegeColumbiaGodfrey ThomsonEdinburgh Notes1 Marc Depaepe, “Experimental research in education, 1890–1940: historical processes behind the development of a discipline in Western Europe and the United States”, in Maurice Whitehead, ed. Education and Europe: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (Hull: University of Hull, 1992), 5, 67–93; H. J. Butcher and H. B. Pont, eds. Educational Research in Britain, Vol. 3 (London: University of London Press, 1973).John Nisbet, “Education research – the state of the art”, BERA Inaugural Presidential Address, 2004: http://www.bera.ac.uk/files/2008/08/Nisbet,_1974.pdf; Erwin Johanningmeier and Theresa Richardson, eds. Educational Research: The National Agenda, and Educational Reform – A History (Charlotte,NC: Information Age Publishing, 2008); Martin Lawn, Ian Deary, David Bartholomew and Caroline Brett, “Embedding the new science of research: the organized culture of Scottish educational research in the mid-20th century”, Pedagogica Historica 46, no. 3 (2010): 357–381.;Ellen C. Lagemann, An Elusive Science:The Troubling History of Education Research (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2002).2 R. Hofstetter and B. Schneuwly, “Introduction: institutionalisation of educational sciences and the dynamics of their development”, European Educational Research Journal 1, no. 1 (2002): 3–26.3 Economic and Social Research Council, RES-000-23-1246.4 David Livingstone, Putting Science in its Place – Geographies of Scientific Knowledge (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 7.5 Ibid.6 Antony Giddens, “Preface”, in Peter Wagner, Bjorn Wittrock and Richard Whitley eds. Discourses on Society: The Shaping of the Social Science Disciplines (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991).7 The Bell Chair is the senior Scottish Chair in Education: it is a professorship in theory, history and practice of education.8 Godfrey Thomson, Autobiography (handwritten, unpublished), Chapter 12, 2.9 W. Russell, letter to Thomson, 16 December 1925, Teachers College Archive Folder 370 Godfrey Thomson.10 Idem, 26 January 1926.11 Teachers College, Columbia, will sometimes be referred to in the text by the acronym TC.12 EIS Conference Minutes 1919, quoted in Robert Bell, Godfrey Thomson and Scottish Education (Unpublished, 1975), 6.13 Martin Lawn, “The Scottish Council for Research in Education as a local and international phenomenon in the 1930s”, Paedagogica Historica 40, no. 5/6 (2004): 719–732; Caroline Brett, Martin Lawn, David Bartholomew and Ian Deary, “Help will be welcomed from every quarter: The work of William Boyd and the Educational Institute of Scotland’s Research Committee in the 1920s”, History of Education 39, no. 5 (2010): 589–611.14 Alexander Darroch, “The children: Some educational problems”, The Social Problems Series (London : T. C. & E. C. Jack, 1907], Chapter XIII.15 James Drever, cited in A History of Psychology in Autobiography (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1932), 26.16 The Scotsman, Tuesday 19 March 1946.17 Rosemary Wake, “Events antecedent to the founding of SCRE University of Edinburgh” (MEd thesis, 1984), 42.18 Drever, cited in A History of Psychology in Autobiography, 27.19 Robert Bell, “Educational studies in the Scottish universities 1870–1970” (PhD thesis, submitted to the Open University, 1986), 263, quoting Drever.20 Ibid.21 Ibid, 277.22 Minutes of the National Board, 3 July 1925, 692.23 Ibid, 238.24 F. W. Roman, The New Education in Europe (London: Routledge, 1930], 277).25 Interview with Professor John Nisbet, 16 March 2006.26 Godfrey Thomson, The Education of an Englishman: An Autobiography (Edinburgh: MH Publications, 1969].27 Interview with Nisbet, 16 March 2006.28 Thomson, The Education of an Englishman, 112.29 Geraldine Clifford, Edward L. Thorndike: The Sane Positivist (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University, 1984), 78.30 Lagemann, An Elusive Science, 56.31 Lawrence Cremin, The Transformation of the School (New York: Knopf 1962], 172.32 James Russell, Founding Teachers College (New York: Bureau of Publications TC Columbia University, 1937], 33.33 Cremin, The Transformation of the School, 173–174.34 Clifford, Edward L. Thorndike, 69–70.35 Ibid, 68.36 Cremin, The Transformation of the School, 174.37 Lagemann, An Elusive Science, 48.38 Ibid, 16.39 Ibid, 62.40 Ibid.41 Clifford, Edward L. Thorndike, 81.42 Marjorie Cruickshank, A History of the Training of Teachers in Scotland (London: University of London Press, 1970), 183.43 Ibid, 190 (quoting Russell).44 This grant, one of the first individual research grants in education research in the UK, enabled Thomson to produce his major work: The Factorial Analysis of Human Ability (London: University of London Press, 1939).45 Edinburgh Provincial Committee for Training of Teachers, Minutes of Meetings 1934, 46.46 Philip Vernon, The Contribution of Studies of Secondary School Selection to the Science of Mental Testing, fourth Godfrey Thomson Lecture (Edinburgh: Moray House, 1960), 5.47 Thomson, cited in E. G. Boring, H. S. Langfeld, H. Werner and R. M. Yerkes, eds. History of Psychology in Autobiography, Vol. IV (Worcester, MA: Clark University Press, 1952), 286.48 Gillian Sutherland, Ability, Merit and Measurement: Mental Testing and English Education 1880–1940 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984).49 William Inglis, “Edinburgh and Moray House”, in Thomson, The Education of an Englishman, 120.50 Godfrey Thomson, What are Moray House Tests? (London: University of London Press, 1941).51 Ibid, 2.52 Ibid, 3.53 Ibid, 4.54 Inglis, “Edinburgh and Moray House”, 120.55 Agreement and Deed of Trust, June 1940.56 Edinburgh Provincial Committee Minutes, 1935.57 Scottish Council for Research in Education, The Intelligence of Scottish Children (London: University of London Press, 1933), vii.58 SCRE, Annual Report, 1948, 73.59 Cruickshank, A History of the Training of Teachers in Scotland, 181.60 Stephen Wiseman, “Higher degrees in education in British education”, British Journal of Educational Studies 2, no. 1 (1953): 55, 59.61 Interview with Elsie Taylor, 4 October 2007.62 Interview with Professor John Nisbet, 1 December, 2008.63 Ibid.64 Lawn et al., “Embedding the new science of research”.65 Ibid, 357–381.66 Wiseman, “Higher degrees in education in British education”, 54.67 Lagemann, An Elusive Science, 113.68 Ibid, 116.69 Russell Founding Teachers College, 59.70 Frederick Bonser, “Cooperative research work in school practice”, Teachers College Record xii, no. 1 (1911): http://www.archive.org/stream/teacherscolleger12newyuoft/teacherscolleger12newyuoft_djvu.txt.71 C. A. Malcolm and J. N. Hunter, Moray House – A Brief Sketch of its History, with a foreword by Godfrey Thomson (Edinburgh: Moray House, 1948), 29.72 Interview with Professor John Nisbet, 1 December 2008.73 Interview with Marion Cooke, Secretary to Thomson, 3 July 2006.74 Malcolm and Hunter, Moray House, 29.75 Interview with Marion Cooke.76 Inglis, “Edinburgh and Moray House”, 120.77 Ibid, 117.78 Martin Lawn, Ian Deary, Caroline Brett and David Bartholomew, “Godfrey Thomson and the rise of university pedagogical study: a recorded lecture”, History of Education 38, no. 4 (2009): 565–585.79 Inglis, “Edinburgh and Moray House”.80 Ibid, 116.81 Bell, “Educational studies in the Scottish universities 1870–1970”, 314.82 Thomson in The Scotsman, 8 July 1950.83 Alex Robertson, “Between the Devil and the deep sea’: ambiguities in the development of professors of education 1899–1932”, British Journal of Educational Studies 38, no. 2 (1990): 152.84 Ibid, 154.85 Advisory Council in Education Report, Training of Teachers [McClelland Report] (Edinburgh: Scottish Education Department/HMSO, 1946).86 Ibid, Para 215.87 Moray House College of Education Handbook, undated

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  Open Access•Graham Mcculloch, Gary Mcculloch•British Educational Research…•2018

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