Published Resources Details
Book Section
- Title
- Mitchell, Sir William (1861-1962), scholar, educationist and administrator
- In
- Australian dictionary of biography, volume 10: 1891 - 1939 Lat-Ner
- Imprint
- Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1986, pp. 535-537
- Url
- https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/mitchell-sir-william-7610
- Format
- Description
Published online in 2006
- Abstract
Quote: "Threatened tuberculosis led Mitchell to seek in 1894 the Hughes professorship of English language and literature and mental and moral philosophy in the University of Adelaide, and on taking up duty in March 1895 he rapidly established himself as an intellectual and educational leader among his colleagues and the wider community. In his first public address in 1895 he emphasized the importance of analysis and criticism; the contribution to appreciation and mastery of English that study of foreign languages could make; and the development, through philosophy, of understanding and interest in one's daily work. Next year he was elected to the university council on which he sat for fifty-two years. By 1900 he had achieved a fundamental restructuring of the curriculum for the arts degree which remained operative for over twenty years; and, in collaboration with (Sir) William Bragg, had laid the foundation for significant development in the education of teachers, in accordance with principles that he had first expounded in 1895."