Fatal Mutilations: Educationism and the British Background to the 1931 International Congress for the History of Science and Technology

Hessen B. , “The social and economic roots of Newton's ‘Principia’”, Science at the crossroads: Papers presented to the International Congress of the History of Science and Technology (London, 1931), 147–212; Needham J. , A history of embryology (Cambridge, 1934); Clark G. N. , Science and social welfare in the age of Newton (Oxford, 1937); Merton R. K. , “Science, technology and society in seventeenth-century England”, Osiris, iv (1938), 360–632.

Werskey G. , The visible college: A collective biography of British scientists and socialists of the 1930s (London, 1978). Werskey's reading seems to originate in a contemporary account by Bernal J. D. , “Science and society”, The spectator , 11 July 1931, 43–44. See also Dennis M. A. , “Historiography of science: An American perspective”, in Krige J. Pestre D. (eds), Science in the twentieth century (Amsterdam, 1997), 1–26; Needham J. , “Foreword”, in Science at the cross roads: Papers presented to the International Congress of the History of Science and Technology , 2nd edn (London, 1971), pp. vii–x; Porter R. , “The scientific revolution: A spoke in the wheel?”, in Porter R. Teich M. (eds), Revolution in history (Cambridge, 1986), 290–316; Ravetz J. , “Bernal's Marxist vision of history”, Isis, lxxii (1981), 393–402; Schaffer S. , “Newton at the crossroads”, Radical philosophy, xxxvii (1984), 23–28; Shapin S. , “Discipline and bounding: The history and sociology of science as seen through the externalism–internalism debate”, History of science, xxx (1992), 335–69; Thackray A. , “The pre-history of an academic discipline: The study of the history of science in the United States, 1891–1941”, Minerva, xviii (1980), 448–73; idem, “History of science”, in Durbin P. T. (ed.), A guide to the culture of science, technology, and medicine (New York, 1980), 3–69; Toulmin S. , “From form to function: Philosophy and history of science in the 1950s and now”, Daedalus, cvi (1977), 143–62; Werskey G. , “On the reception of Science at the crossroads in England”, in Science at the crossroads, 2nd edn, pp. xi–xxix.

For a notable exception and a challenging re-interpretation of Hessen's intentions, see Graham L. , “The socio-political roots of Boris Hessen: Soviet Marxism and the history of science”, Social studies of science, xv (1985), 705–22.

Whereas standard readings suggest by implication that Sarton's educational commitments do not merit attention, Michael Dennis, in an insightful recent publication, has explicitly contrasted Sarton's promotion of the field in the university economy with the educationism of the authors of the Harvard report on General education in a free society (1945). See e.g. Frängsmyr T. , “Science or history: George Sarton and the positivist tradition in the history of science”, Lychnos, xxvi (1973–4), 104–44; Pyenson L. , “Inventory as a route to understanding: Sarton, Neugebauer, and sources”, History of science, xxxiii (1995), 253–82; Thackray A. Merton R. K. , “On discipline building: The paradoxes of George Sarton”, Isis, lxiii (1972), 473–95; Dennis , op. cit. (ref. 2), 11.

Sarton G. , “War and civilization”, Isis, ii (1914–19), 314–20; idem, “The teaching of the history of science”, Scientific monthly, vii (1918), 193–211, pp. 196, 201; idem, “An institute for the history of science and civilization”, published successively in Science, xlv (1917), 284–6; Science, xlvi (1917), 399–402; Isis, xxviii (1938), 7–14; see also Isis, vi (1924), 542–3; xxiv (1935–6), 167.

Hayward was a member of the Moral Instruction League (founded 1898). On this body see Mazumdar P. , Eugenics, human genetics and human failings: The Eugenics Society, its sources and its critics in Britain (London and New York, 1992); MacKillop I. , The British ethical societies (Cambridge, 1986).

On the differences in status between the London County Council and HMI inspectorate, see MacKillop I. , “Women in love, class war and school inspectors”, in Heywood C. (ed.), D. H. Lawrence: New studies (Basingstoke, 1987), 46–58. On the Historical Association, see Samuel R. , Theatres of memory, i: Past and present in contemporary culture (London and New York, 1994), 38; The Historical Association, 1906–1956 (London, 1957).

Various versions of the congress programme can be found in the Charles Singer Papers, Archives and Manuscripts, Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine, London, ref. PP/CJS/A.60, and in Archeion, xiii (1931), 76. A final version is in the Needham Papers, Cambridge University Library, H140. Here, I discuss the first and second sessions only. A complete list of contributions to the latter is in Archeion, xiv (1932), 106. Both sessions took place consecutively on the morning of 30 June. For eye-witness accounts see Singer as reported in Observer, 5 July 1931, 13, and the diary of the chairman of the second session, William H. Welch, a transcript of which can be found in the Needham Papers, Cambridge University Library, H141.

The journals in question were Annals of science (1936–) and Ambix (1937–). On the UCL department, see Armitage A. , “The teaching of the history of science in the University of London”, Lychnos, i (1936), 302–7; Smeaton W. , “History of science at University College, London: 1919–1947”, The British journal for the history of science, xxx (1997), 25–46. Many of the interviews in the oral history project of the British Society for the History of Science exemplify how the memory of the discipline works in the recollections of its practitioners. For a brief report see Mayer A. K. , ‘“I have been very fortunate’: Brief report on the BSHS oral history project, ‘The history of science in Britain, 1945–65”’, The British journal for the history of science, xxxii (1999), 223–35.

Brock W. H. , “Past, present, and future”, in Shortland M. Warwick A. (eds), Teaching the history of science (Oxford, 1989), 30–41; Sherratt W. , “History of science in education: An investigation into the role and use of historical ideas and material in education with particular reference to science education in the English secondary school since the 19th century”, Ph.D. thesis, University of Leicester, 1980; Webster C. , “Medicine a social history: Changing ideas on doctors and patients in the age of Shakespeare”, in Stevenson L. G. (ed.), A celebration of medical history: The fiftieth anniversary of the Johns Hopkins Institute of the History of Medicine and the Welch Medical Library (Baltimore and London, 1982), 103–26. For another notable exception see Nick Jardine's observations on the close relationships between historiography and scientists' efforts to reform teaching: N. Jardine, “The mantle of Müller and the ghost of Goethe: Interactions between the sciences and their histories”, in Kelley D. R. (ed.), History and its disciplines (Rochester, 1997), 297–317.

For an analysis of students at UCL, see Sherratt , op. cit. (ref. 10). For Singer's work at Oxford (1913–22) and London (1920–), see Morrell J. , Science at Oxford, 1914–1939: Transforming an arts university (Oxford, 1997), 262–3; Underwood A. E. , “Charles Singer: A biographical note”, in idem (ed.), Science, medicine and history: Essays on the evolution of scientific thought and medical practice, written in honour of Charles Singer (London, New York, Toronto, 1953), pp. v–ix. The rationale of the UCL department is discussed in chap. 2 of my forthcoming Ph.D. thesis. For contemporary efforts to document its activities, see Wolf A. , “The teaching of the history of science in the University of London: An address at the Congress of the History of Science”, Science progress , xxvi/1 (1931), 275–9; idem, “The teaching of the history of science at the University of London”, Archeion, xiv (1932), 94–95; Armitage , op. cit. (ref. 9).

On the popularizing activities of radical scientists, see Werskey , op. cit. (ref. 2), 158–75; McGucken W. , Scientists, society, and state: The social relations of science movement in Great Britain 1931–1947 (Columbus, 1984); also Mendelsohn E. , “Robert K. Merton: The celebration and defense of science”, Science in context, iii (1989), 269–89. On the neglect-of-science debate and contemporary two-culture tensions, see Armytage W. H. G. , Sir Richard Gregory: His life and work (London, 1957); Turner F. , “Public science in Britain, 1880–1919”, Isis , Ixxi (1980), 589–608; Collini S. , “‘On highest authority’: The literary critic and other aviators in early twentieth-century Britain”, in Ross D. (ed.), Modernist impulses in the human sciences 1870–1930 (Baltimore and London, 1994), 152–70; also chap. 1 of my forthcoming Ph.D. thesis.

Kinsman J. , “The contribution of Eric John Holmyard (1891–1959) to science education in England and Wales”, M.Sc. thesis, CNAA (Council for National Academic Awards [in the U.K.]), 1985. On Holmyard's sales figures, see also Bassey M. , “A field review of O-level chemistry textbooks”, Technical education , ii/12 (1960), 13–17. On the role Holmyard attributed to history in science teaching, see Holmyard E. J. , “The historical method in the teaching of chemistry”, School science review, v (1923–4), 227–33.

Among the rara in the science library at Clifton were first editions of Newton's Opticks and Darwin's Origin of species; the college also acquired one of the lots at the famous 1936 Sotheby Sale of Newtoniana, as Westfall notes (see Williams T. I. , “Clifton and science”, in Hammond N. G. L. (ed.), Centenary essays on Clifton College (Bristol, 1962), 195–212; Westfall R. S. , Never at rest: A biography of Isaac Newton (Cambridge, 1980), 876; also Holmyard in The Cliftonian, June 1927). This library was not old and the material had not accumulated over time. Rather, it would appear that the school acquired rare books for the scholarly and didactic objectives of its science masters.

Osler W. , “The old humanities and the new science”, British medical journal , 5 July 1919, 1–7; Gunther A. E. , Early science in Oxford, xv: Robert T. Gunther: A pioneer in the history of science, 1869–1940 (London, 1967), 154–95.

Bunney A. , ‘“It's not just a “children's playground’”: The influence of children on the development of the Science Museum, 1857–1973”, M.Sc. thesis, London Centre for the History of Science, Medicine and Technology, 1999; Mazda X. , “The changing role of history in the policy and collections of the Science Museum, 1857–1973”, M.Sc. thesis, London Centre for the History of Science, Medicine and Technology, 1996.

Follett D. , The rise of the Science Museum under Henry Lyons (London, 1978), 60. On the role of the historic mode of display in the museum, see Lyons H. , “The aim and scope of the Science Museum”, Museums journal, xxiv (1924), 114–18; Mazda , op. cit. (ref. 16); Bunney , op. cit. (ref. 16).

Sarton G. to Gregory R. , 28 February 1944, Sarton Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard University, bMS Am 1803.1(261); Singer C. , Greek science and modern science: A comparison & a contrast (London, 1920), 5. For their respective mission statements, see also Sarton G. , “Le nouvel humanisme”, Scientia, xxiii (1918), 161–75; idem, op. cit. (ref. 5, 1918); idem, “The faith of a humanist”, Isis, iii (1920–21), 3–6; idem, “The teaching of the history of science”, Isis, iv (1921–22), 225–49; idem, The history of science and the new humanism (Bloomington, 1937); Singer C. , “Scientific humanism”, The realist, i (1929), 12–18; idem, “The dark age of science”, The realist, ii (1929), 281–95.

Hayward F. H. , “The teaching of the history of science”, Archeion, xiv (1932), 100–1.

Heath A. E. , “The teaching of the history of science”, Archeion, xiv (1932), 89 (my emphases).

Ibid.

Wells H. G. , The outline of history, being a plain history of life and mankind (London, 1920). Some editions (introduction, p. 2) refer to Gould's “excellent pamphlet”, History, the supreme subject in the instruction of the young (London, 1917). Wells described the task of the Outline as a restoration of universal history: “We say ‘restore’ because all the great cultures of the world hitherto … have used some sort of cosmogony and world history as basis. It may indeed be argued that without such a basis any binding culture of men is inconceivable. Without it we are chaos.”.

Freeman A. Hayward F. H. , The spiritual foundations of reconstruction: A plea for new educational methods (London, 1919), 11.

Briggs A. , The history of broadcasting in the United Kingdom, ii: The golden age of wireless (Oxford, 1995), 172ff; Hayward F. H. , An educational failure (London, 1938), 144–50.

Hayward F. H. , “Instruction or inspiration?”, Times educational supplement, 14 December 1935, 428.

Arthur Burroughs, Bishop of Ripon, as reported in New York times, 5 September 1927, 3; Wood A. , Joule and the study of energy (London, 1925), 84. One topical source for the metaphor of a moral lag was a lecture in which Henri Bergson reflected on the outbreak of the Great War (La signification de la guerre (Paris, 1915)). This image became a preoccupation of the era. See Mayer A. K. , ‘“A combative sense of duty’: Englishness and the scientists”, in idem and Lawrence C. (eds), Regenerating England: Science, medicine and culture in inter-war Britain (Amsterdam, 2000), 67–106.

Pursell C. , ‘“A savage struck by lightning’: The idea of a research moratorium, 1927–37”, Lex et scientia, x (1974), 146–61; Mayer , op. cit. (ref. 26).

Hayward F. H. , A first book of school celebrations (London, 1920); idem, A second book of school celebrations (London, 1920); idem, A new book of celebrations (London, 1928); idem, “Science number: Issued on the occasion of the Second International Congress of the History of Science and Technology, June 29-July 3, 1931”, The celebration bulletin, xv (1931); idem, A fourth book of celebrations (London, 1932).

Thomson J. A. , “The history of science”, New statesman, 1 January 1921, 387–8, p. 388.

Singer C. , “The place of history of science in education”, Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science , 1926, 420–1, p. 421; idem, “The prehistory of science”, review of Partington J. R. , Origins and development of applied chemistry (London, 1935), Science progress , xxxi/l (1936), 344–8; Sarton G. , op. cit. (ref. 18, 1920–21); idem, op. cit. (ref. 18, 1937).

Marvin F. S. , “Science and the unity of mankind”, in Singer C. (ed.), Studies in the history and method of science, ii (Oxford, 1921), 344–58, pp. 348–9.

For their respective papers, see Archeion, xiv (1932), 89, 90, 572–3; for Clark's statement, ibid., 272. As a scholar, Heath excelled more in philosophy than in history. See his discussions of scientific method and his contribution to the 1927 Newton celebrations (“The scope of the scientific method”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, xix (1918–19), 179–207; “Newton's influence on method in physical science”, in Greenstreet W. J. (ed.), Isaac Newton, 1642–1727: A memorial volume edited for the Mathematical Association (London, 1927), 130–3).

Dampier W. , “The sciences as an integral part of general historical study”, Archeion, xiv (1932), 573–4; Hill A. V. to Singer C. , 29 April 1931, and Singer C. to Hill A. V. , 30 April 1931, both Charles Singer Papers, Archives and Manuscripts, Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine, London, ref. PP/CJS/A.60.

Hayward , op. cit. (ref. 24), 17, 255.

Freeman Hayward , op. cit. (ref. 23), p. xlv.

Wells's comment on Hayward is cited in Hayward, op. cit. (ref. 24), 7 (my emphasis). On Wells's recognition of Hayward see Vogeler M. , “Wells and positivism”, in Parrinder P. Rolfe C. (eds), H. G. Wells under revision: Proceedings of the International H. G. Wells Symposium, London, July 1986 (Selinsgrove, London and Toronto, 1990), 181–91, p. 188.

See e.g. Westaway's F. W. influential Science teaching: What it was — What it is — What it might be (London and Glasgow, 1929), 32; Gregory R. , Discovery, or the spirit and service of science (London, 1916). On Gregory and Discovery, see Hollinger D. , “Justification by verification: The scientific challenge to the moral authority of Christianity in modern America”, in Lacey M. J. (ed.), Religion and twentieth-century American intellectual life (Cambridge, 1989), 116–35.

Marvin F. S. , “Marvin, Francis Sydney”, in Kunitz S. Haycraft H. (eds), Twentieth-century authors: A biographical dictionary of modern literature (New York, 1942), 923–4.

Wells gallantly credited Marvin with such an impact on the occasion of Marvin's seventieth birthday in 1933. He acknowledged Marvin's work in the introduction of the Outline and Marvin probably read sections of the work before it went into print. See Desch C. , “Francis Sidney Marvin, 1863–1943”, Isis, xxxvi (1945–46), 7–9, p. 9; Vogeler , op. cit. (ref. 36), 188.

On Marvin's background and activities as a propagandist for historical education, see Marvin , op. cit. (ref. 38); Desch , op. cit. (ref. 39); The Historical Association (ref. 7), 28f, 144. For Sarton on Marvin see e.g. Sarton G. , op. cit. (ref. 5, 1918), 211; Isis, ii (1914–19), 425–7; iii (1920–21), 419; vi (1924), 89, 119–21, 452; also his reminiscences in Isis, xxvi (1936), 477; Merton R. K. , “George Sarton: Episodic recollections by an unruly apprentice”, Isis, lxxvi (1985), 470–86, p. 480. For Osler see Osler W. , “Introduction”, in Singer C. (ed.), Studies in the history and method of science, i (Oxford, 1917), pp. v–viii, p. vi. For Marvin's manifesto see Marvin , op. cit. (ref. 31); also Singer C. in Studies in the history and method of science, ii (ref. 31), p. viii.

On the characteristic repetitiveness by which Sarton's own message replicated itself over time, see Frängsmyr , op. cit. (ref. 4), 106–7.

Marvin F. S. , The living past: A sketch of Western progress (Oxford, 1913), e.g. pp. 21f, 38, 62f, 90, 117, 169.

Ibid., 169 (my emphases).

Marvin F. S. , “Newton's place in science”, Nature (Supplement), 26 March 1927, 24–28, p. 24.

Ibid., 26.

Ibid.

Marvin , op. cit. (ref. 31), 344 (my emphasis).

Ibid., 357 (my emphases).

For Marvin's influence at the Board of Education, see e.g. The teaching of history: Board of Education pamphlet, iii (London, 1923). Marvin was chairman of the Propaganda Committee of the Historical Association for over twenty years. During the first five years of his work in this capacity, membership tripled to just over 4,700 in 1922–23, while the number of branches shot up from 19 in 1918–19 to to 92 in 1926–27. On this and the Unity History Schools, see Desch , op. cit. (ref. 39); The Historical Association (ref. 7), 28f; Marvin F. S. (ed.), Science and civilization (Oxford, 1923); idem, op. cit. (ref. 38); Mayer A. K. , “Moralizing science: The uses of science's past in national education in the 1920s”, The British journal for the history of science, xxx (1997), 51–70. See also Isis, xxx (1939), 97–99.

This is most explicit in cases when Marvin refused to give a book full marks, as e.g. in his reviews of A. N. Whitehead's Gifford lectures, Process and reality, or Gerald Heard's The ascent of man (both 1929). See Nature, 9 August 1930, 196–7; 15 November 1930, 754–5.

Singer , Greek science (ref. 18); “The dark age” (ref. 18), 281, 283.

Thomson J. A. , “The drama of life”, rev. of C. Singer, A short history of biology (Oxford, 1931), in The listener, 29 April 1931, 719 (my emphasis).

Sarton G. in Isis, vi (1924), 119–21, p. 120f.

Thomson , op. cit. (ref. 29). On Thomson's programme of cooperative idealism, see Vogeler , op. cit. (ref. 36); Kitchen P. , A most unsettling person: An introduction to the ideas and life of Patrick Geddes (London, 1975), 151f.

Thomson , op. cit. (ref. 29), 388; idem, review of Hayward and Freeman, op. cit. (ref. 23). Nature, 24 April 1919, 143.

On Thomson's place in eugenics and the social hygiene movement, see Jones G. , Social hygiene in twentieth-century Britain (London, Sydney and Wolfeboro, 1986). Thomson was a member of the Eugenics Society and the Social Hygiene Council (founded in 1926). He contextualized his review of Hayward's scheme with the work of the science correspondent of the New statesman, the doctor, eugenicist and temperance activist Caleb Saleeby (pseudonym: “Lens”) (Thomson, op. cit. (ref. 29), 387).

On Hayward's mentors, see Hayward , op. cit. (ref. 24), 151–2.

Mazumdar , op. cit. (ref. 6), 34; Jones , op. cit. (ref. 56), 46.

For Nunn's support see Wolf , op. cit. (ref. 11, 1931), 276. On Nunn's eugenic élitism, see Gordon P. White J. , Philosophers as educational reformers: The influence of idealism on British educational thought and practice (London, 1979), 207–14. Further on this, Mazumdar, op. cit. (ref. 6). Concerning Cyril Burt, see e.g. Nunn T. P. , Education: Its data and first principles (London, 1920).

Whetham W. C. Dampier Whetham C. D. , The family and the nation: A study in natural inheritance and social responsibility (London, 1909); idem, Heredity and society (London, 1912); idem, “Three English men of science”, Isis, i (1913–14), 215–18; Sarton G. in Isis, xiv (1930), 264. Note also Sarton on Galton and his influence on the founder of Isis (Isis, xxii (1934–5), 255).

Hill A. V. , “The sciences as an integral part of general historical study”, Archeion, xiv (1932), 274–7, p. 275.

On how the trope that science was cooperative and international yet simultaneously peculiarly English (and vice versa) was worked on the Cambridge history of science scene, see Mayer A. K. , “Setting up a discipline: Conflicting agendas of the Cambridge History of Science Committee, 1936–1950”, Studies in history and philosophy of science, xxxi (2000), 665–89; for an earlier example, see Iliffe R. , “Foreign bodies: Travel, empire and the early Royal Society of London. Part 2: The land of experimental knowledge”, Canadian journal of history, xxxiv (1999), 23–50. Hayward apologized to the 1931 congress for his “over-emphasis … on celebrations on English science and English poetry” (Hayward, op. cit. (ref. 19), 101). Another striking example is Westaway, op. cit. (ref. 37), 378–9 (my emphasis): “The names of the great pioneers and discoverers, the things they have done, of what races they were, and how though separated by nationality each has built on the work of the rest: These are the things that history should teach.“.

Barnes B. Shapin S. , “Head and hand: Rhetorical resources in British pedagogical writing, 1770–1850”, Oxford review of education, ii (1976), 231–54; Hayward F. H. , “The dogma of formal or faculty training, and its downfall”, The school world , November 1908, 417–19. On the enduring legacy of the formal training model, see Selleck R. J. , The new education 1870–1914 (London, 1968); Brock W. H. , H. E. Armstrong and the teaching of science, 1880–1930 (London, 1973); idem, “Science for all”, in idem. Science for all: Studies in the history of Victorian science and education (Aldershot and Brookfield, Vermont, 1996), chap. XIX.

At this time, the American pedagogue John Dewey argued with compelling logic about the educational evils that spring from dualisms such as that between the intellect and the emotions (Democracy and education (New York, 1916), e.g. pp. 390–1). Dewey convinced some British educationists “that the primitive pursuits of the human race should constitute the keel and backbone of the school curriculum” (quoted in Selleck, op. cit. (ref. 63), 261). Both Hayward and Nunn were familiar with Dewey's work (Nunn, op. cit. (ref. 59); Hayward F. H. , Mental training and efficiency (London, 1921)).

Samuel , op. cit. (ref. 7), 37f; Needham J. to Roberts [at CUP], 12 May 1928, Cambridge University Press Archive, Cambridge University Library, Pr.C/N.25–7; Dickinson H. W. to Needham J. , 19 September 1931, Needham Papers, Cambridge University Library, H136; Needham J. (writing under the pseudonym Henry Holorenshaw), “The making of an honorary Taoist”, in Teich M. Young R. (eds), Changing perspectives in the history of science: Essays in honour of Joseph Needham (London, 1973), 1–20, p. 3; Montalenti G. , rev. of Needham J. , Chemical embryology (Cambridge, 1931), Archeion, xiv (1932), 152–4.

Sanderson R. W. in “Science in secondary schools”, Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science , 1917, 123–207, pp. 157f. For Wells's experiences in London, see Wells H. G. , Experiment in autobiography (London, 1934), i, 199–289. On Oundle, see Wells H. G. , The story of a great schoolmaster (London, 1924), 137, 180 et passim.

Sanderson R. W. , “Science and educational reconstruction”, in Lankester E. R. (ed.), Natural science and the classical system in education: Essays old and new (London, 1918), 207–49, pp. 213f (my emphases).

Ibid., 212. Sanderson's aversions to discipline should be read also in the context of war-time rhetoric, in which Germany, previously hailed as an ideal of scientific education and research, became an example of plodding mediocrity and the potential damage inflicted on creativity by excessive method. See Badash L. , “British and American views of the German menace in World War I”, Notes and records of the Royal Society of London, xxxiv (1979–80), 91–121; Alter P. , The reluctant patron: Science and the state in Britain, 1850–1920, transl. by Davies A. (Oxford, Hamburg and New York, 1987).

Nunn T. P. , “Science”, in Adams John Sir (ed.), The new teaching (London, 1918), 154–98, pp. 160, 161, 168 (my emphases).

Ibid., 166, 164 (my emphasis).

Holmyard , ‘The historical method’ (ref. 13), 230, 231; Williams , op. cit. (ref. 14), 204.

Lankester in Freeman Hayward , op. cit. (ref. 23), pp. xlvi–xlvii.

Quoted on the cover of Hayward, op. cit. (ref. 28, 1931).

Heath A. E. , “Science and education”, in Marvin , op. cit. (ref. 49, 1923), 221–46, p. 243.

Thomson , op. cit. (ref. 29).

Thomson J. A. , The culture value of natural history (London, 1928), 12f.

See e.g. Sanderson F. W. , “Introduction”, in Gould F. J. , History the teacher (London, 1921), pp. vii–x. Also Heath A. E. , “Sanderson of Oundle and the ideal of science as service”, Friends' quarterly examiner, lvi (1922), 321–7; idem, op. cit. (ref. 74), 245. For a discussion of Nunn, see Gordon White , op. cit. (ref. 59).

For Nunn's support of the UCL department, see Wolf , op. cit. (ref. 11, 1931). Whitehead chaired the special board (instituted in 1922) as a result of whose efforts the history, methods and principles of science could be taken for the M.Sc. degree from 1924 (Wolf, op. cit. (ref. 11, 1932)).

Nunn T. P. , Education: Its data and first principles (London, 1945), 268–72; Whitehead A. N. , “The rhythm of education”, Journal of experimental pedagogy and training college record, vi (1922), 191–9. Nunn claimed he first worked out the formula in 1905. He acknowledged Whitehead's independently proposed model (op. cit., 270 fn, 271). In view of the ontological and ideological indistinctness of contemporary rhetoric about “wonder” and “romance”, it makes little difference for the argument here whether or not the models of Whitehead and Nunn derived from vastly different intellectual traditions. For a discussion of their relationships with idealist philosophy, see Gordon White , op. cit. (ref. 59), 176–7, 208–14.

On inert knowledge see Whitehead's presidential address to the Mathematical Association of England, 1916 ( Whitehead A. N. , The aims of education (London, 1929), 1–23) and Dewey, op. cit. (ref. 64), 258–9. Nunn contrasted mere ideas with the concept of an “idea-in-action”, viz “a vehicle of the energies that are the prima materia of the self. This is … the rock upon which most ‘systems’ of education have eventually foundered” ( Nunn , op. cit. (ref. 79), 185f).

Whithead , op. cit. (ref. 79), 193.

Nunn , op. cit. (ref. 79), 269f.

Nunn , op. cit. (ref. 79), 268f; compare Nunn, op. cit. (ref. 59), 215f; Heath , op. cit. (ref. 74), 243. Nunn appeared to justify his formula as the blueprint for an ideal education both on the grounds that it represented a natural mechanism of cultivation and that it helped produce future creativity. There are obvious parallels between this evolutionist model and that of American sociology of invention of the period, whose argument that invention was determined by culture similarly raised questions about how to account for innovative change. See McGee D. , “Making up mind: The early sociology of invention”, Technology and culture, xxxvi (1995), 773–801.

Nunn , op. cit. (ref. 59), 216; partially rephrased in Nunn, op. cit. (ref. 79), 268.

Nunn , op. cit. (ref. 69), 164 (my emphasis).

Hendley B. P. , Dewey, Russell, Whitehead: Philosophers as educators (Carbondale and Edwardsville, 1986), 81.

Shapin S. , “Pump and circumstance: Robert Boyle's literary technology”, Social studies of science, xiv (1984), 481–520; idem and Schaffer S. , Leviathan and the air pump: Hobbes, Boyle and the experimental life (Princeton, 1985); Ginzburg C. , “Montrer et cier: La verité de l'histoire”, Le débat, lvi (1989), 43–45; Wintroub M. , “The looking glass of facts: Collecting, rhetoric and citing the self in the experimental natural philosophy of Robert Boyle”, History of science, xxxv (1997), 189–217.

Dictionary of scientific biography, xiv, 301–10, p. 304.

Singer C. , The discovery of the circulation of the blood (London, 1922). The series editor argued that this genre was designed to help “the layman” know more about science (ibid., p. vi). Sarton G. in Isis, v (1923), 194–6, p. 195; also Cole M. I. , “Some notes on science and adult classes”, Journal of adult education, vi (1930), 206–9.

Singer C. , A short history of medicine: Introducing medical principles to students and non-medical readers (Oxford, 1928); idem, A short history of biology: A general introduction to the study of living things (Oxford, 1931); Wolf A. , A History of science, technology, and medicine in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (London, 1935). For the review see Sarton G. in Isis, xxiv (1935–36), 164–7, p. 167.

Whitehead A. N. , An introduction to mathematics (London, 1911), 8–9 (my emphases).

Ibid., 217ff.

Ibid., 217–18 (my emphasis).

Ibid., 218 (my emphasis).

Ibid., 10.

Singer , op. cit. (ref. 30, 1926) (my emphasis); idem, “Introduction”, in Turner D. M. , Makers of science: Electricity and magnetism (Oxford and London, 1927), pp. ixf; idem, “Foreword”, in Turner D. M. , The book of scientific discovery: How science has aided human welfare (London, 1933), 3. Singer borrowed this phrase from a manifesto for a reinvented classical humanism, namely, Gilbert Murray's “Religio grammatici”, a seminal lecture Murray had given to the Classical Association in 1918.

Macleod R. , “Retrospect: The British Association and its historians”, in MacLeod R. Collins P. (eds), The parliament of science: The BAAS 1831–1981 (Northwood, 1981), 1–16.

Down House: Here Darwin thought and worked for forty years and died, 1882 (London, 1929); Keith A. , “Should science take a holiday?”, New York times magazine , 7 September 1930, 1–2, 19–20; Bower F. O. , “Size and form in plants”, Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1930 , Mayer , op. cit. (ref. 26); Fara P. , “Isaac Newton lived here: Sites of memory and scientific heritage”, The British journal for the history of science, xxxiii (2000), 407–26.

Whitehead A. N. , “The first physical synthesis”, in Marvin , op. cit. (ref. 49, 1923), 161–78, p. 170 (my emphasis).

For a discussion of these issues during the course of the conference, see the contributions by Bukharin N. Colman E. Greenwood T. Hessen B. Rubinstein M. Woodger J. H. Yoffee A. Zavadovski B. in Archeion, xiv (1932), 277–88, 512–14, 521–6.

MacLeod C. , “Concepts of invention and the Patent Controversy in Victorian Britain”, in Fox R. (ed.), Technological change: Methods and themes in the history of technology (Amsterdam, 1996), 137–53.

Hessen , op. cit. (ref. 1), 147; Marvin F. S. , “The significance of the seventeenth century”, review of Clark G. N. , The seventeenth century (Oxford, 1929), Nature , 7 February 1931, 191–2; Whitehead , op. cit. (ref. 99).

Thomson , op. cit. (ref. 52) (my emphasis).

Toulmin S. , “History and philosophy of science”, Universities quarterly, x (1955–6), 346–58, p. 357.

See e.g. the reports in New York times , 30 June 1931, 8; Times educational supplement , 4 July 1931, 266; Andrade E. N. da C. to Singer C. , 1 July 1931, Charles Singer Papers, Archives and Manuscripts, Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine, London, ref. PP/CJS/A.60.

Observer, 28 June 1931, 11.

The form in which these communications appeared in Archeion, xiv (1932) suggests that most of them were not rewritten. A comparison of extant manuscript copies of the papers delivered in the third session with the relevant accounts published in Archeion confirms this impression (Needham Papers, Cambridge University Library, H137).

For a noteworthy recent attempt to reverse this trend of diminishing pedagogic goals of the history of science, see Shortland Warwick , op. cit. (ref. 10).

Toulmin , op. cit. (ref. 104), 357.