Education
Prior first became involved in architectural education during the debate over the professionalisation of architectural practice in the 1890s. The protest against examination and registration was launched by the Art Workers Guild, whose members believed, quite correctly, that RIBA wished to establish itself as the sole arbiter of the profession culminating in the publication of a collection of essays Architecture: A Profession or an Art in 1892, to which Prior contributed a chapter criticising the common use of "hirelings" to do the architect's work. In the same year Prior, amongst others resigned from the RIBA.
As a result of the controversy members of the Guild became very interested in architectural education. The Architectural Association established a School of Handicraft and Design to extend its training scheme. It had been criticised for being to geared to the RIBA’s examination system. Prior was one of the architect-visitors who drew up projects and gave the "crits".
He became increasingly interested in education, giving lectures at various conferences, to the RIBA and schools of design. Moves were instigated to establish a School of Architecture at Cambridge in 1907. The syndicate seeking the establishment of the school included Prior's old headmaster Dr H.M. Butler, who was by then Dean of Trinity College, Dr Charles Waldstein, Slade Professor of Fine Art and William Ridgway the Disney Professor of Archaeology. The establishment of examinations were approved in 1908. Waldstein favoured Prior as his successor. Prior was elected Slade Professor on 20 February 1912 with the role of developing the new School of Architecture. In 1915 the tenure of the Professorship was extended to life.
Prior established the syllabus for the School, oversaw the establishment of the Department and instigated a research programme. The latter included experimental studies into the performance of limes and cements.
Read more about this topic: Edward Schroeder Prior
Famous quotes containing the word education:
“A President must call on many persons—some to man the ramparts and to watch the far away, distant posts; others to lead us in science, medicine, education and social progress here at home.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“The fetish of the great university, of expensive colleges for young women, is too often simply a fetish. It is not based on a genuine desire for learning. Education today need not be sought at any great distance. It is largely compounded of two things, of a certain snobbishness on the part of parents, and of escape from home on the part of youth. And to those who must earn quickly it is often sheer waste of time. Very few colleges prepare their students for any special work.”
—Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876–1958)
“I am not describing a distant utopia, but the kind of education which must be the great urgent work of our time. By the end of this decade, unless the work is well along, our opportunity will have slipped by.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)