Abstract
THE foundation of Research Fellowships by the Commissioners of the Exhibition of 1851 was in this country of the nature of an experiment. Many people more or less enamoured of the system in vogue at the universities, whereby a man is carried on from one examination grind to another, until his freshness and originality of mind are in great measure lost, looked at the scheme for Research Fellowships with distrust, and an inclination to foretell their failure. There might, it was said, be an able man here and there who is benefited by holding a Research Fellowship and who does good work while holding it, but, in general, maturity of mind and knowledge, and an accumulated fund of experience are necessary for the success of a scientific or literary investigator. There is truth in this, of course, but the scholastic training of the best men is frequently carried so far that all enthusiasm is killed out by examinations, or the mind has become too critical and fastidious for the work of original production or continuous investigation.
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GRAY, A. Fellowships for Research. Nature 58, 600–602 (1898). https://doi.org/10.1038/058600a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/058600a0