Research and Teaching in Universities

Abstract

I CANNOT pass unchallenged the remark quoted from Dr. R. Coulborn's article in the Nineteenth Century of July in NATURE of August 22 (p. 304), namely, ” the numbing influence of research upon character”. This is surely not only untrue but also dangerous. In my experience, the contact with a research problem has proved to be a fine training for a young man, as it provides just the stimulus needed to convert his mind from the text-book outlook upon life to the realities. If it be numbing to teach him proper humility and the scope of his actual knowledge, then let us have more of such refrigeration. Of course, he is not so likely to deal comfortably in future with the vague and foggy generalities which so often pass for a wide humanistic outlook. Any professionalism is narrowing in the wrong hands.