RefNo | MDA/C/30/1/3 |
Level | Item |
Title | Letter from William Mitchinson Hicks, Dunheyed, Endcliffe Crescent, Sheffield, to Sir William [Huggins] |
Date | 18 October 1904 |
Description | Hicks had seen Sorby that afternoon and discovered that he had sent the Assistant Secretary a copy of his old will relating to a research professorship and a statement which Hicks had drawn up containing Sorby's present views. Hicks describes the main points of maintaining a Research Fellow at Sheffield University and notes that the Royal Society might make other suggestions. He thinks it would be best not to endow a professorship, since the tendency would be to diminish research in favour of teaching. He wants the spirit of research to be cultivatred in all departments and believes that Sorby's idea would encourage this. Hicks suggested that the holder should give a course of advanced lectures, but that the Fellow should not be allowed to do more than a minimum amount of non-research. The university will be guided by local opinion at first, as a teaching and degree-awarding body, but Sorby's gift will gradually correct that view and raise the academic tone. Research is out of the question at the moment, except in metallurgy, but new laboratories are planned on an adequate scale with amply sufficient equipment. This will be true for Physics, Chemistry, Zoology, Botany, Physiology and Pathology, including Bacteriology. If helpful, he could come to the 'Fellows at Home' on 27 October and talk with Huggins and Larmor. |
Extent | 6p. |
Format | Manuscript |
PhysicalDescription | On paper |
AccessStatus | Open |
Fellows associated with this archive
Code | PersonName | Dates |
NA6683 | Hicks; William Mitchinson (1850 - 1934) | 1850 - 1934 |