Colin Alexander Scott

Background

Colin Alexander was born on February 11, 1861 in Ottawa, Canada, the son of Isabel Laird (Scott) and the Reverend Robert Scott. The family later moved to New York City, where the father's work brought them into happy association with Henry Ward Beecher.

Education

Colin Alexander Scott attended the preparatory department of the College of the City of New York in 1876-77 and later Queen's University, Kingston, where he took the degree of Bachelor of arts in 1885.

Although he won honors in chemistry at Queen's University, he was much interested in philosophy and psychology; his graduate study at Clark University (Doctor of philosophy, 1896) was in psychology, his doctoral thesis, "Old Age and Death, " being published in the American Journal of Psychology for October 1896.

For a time, 1885-87, he studied in the Ontario Art School.

Career

Scott taught psychology at the Chicago Normal School, 1897-1901; at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, 1901-02; at Tufts College, 1910-11; at the Boston Normal School, 1902-10, 1911-15. From 1915 to 1925 he was professor of education at Mount Holyoke College.

He had opportunities to carry out his theories in Brookline and in Springfield, Massachussets, where he was head of the department of records and results in the public schools. But his distaste for the political means necessary to effect important changes in American institutions militated against the practical success of his ideas.

Perhaps his main idea was plans by which self-organized groups voluntarily pursue their own interests during a portion of the school day. Objective tests of progress were employed, such as machines (in some cases of Scott's invention) by which pupils could themselves measure their progress from week to week.

His ideas gained impetus through a social education club organized by faculty members of Harvard University, of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and of Tufts College, together with numerous secondary school teachers, and by the publication (March 1907 - January 1908) of the Social Education Quarterly.

All his life he painted for pleasure. He exhibited widely in the East, winning high praise for the dramatic vitality, vivid intuition, and joyous quality of his work. At the time of his death he was working on a book on sex and art.

He died in Boston.

Achievements

• Colin Alexander Scott's central idea was that later elaborated by others into the "project-method", the "Dalton Plan, " and similar widely advertised plans by which self-organized groups voluntarily pursue their own interests during a portion of the school day. His teaching, which was of a radically new kind, found expression in his famous work Social Education (1908).

Works

More photos

• book

  • Social Education

    (Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)

Views

Scott endeavored to foster his conception of socialized teaching in primary and secondary schools as well as in collegiate work. His purpose was not only to link the classroom with spontaneous outside interests, with the homes of the pupils, with arts and industries, but also to establish conditions in the classroom that should freely elicit leadership, cooperative undertakings, means of self-government, and sympathetic understanding.

Membership

Scott was a member of the American Psychology Association.

Personality

As a cultivated scholar rich in kindling ideas Colin Alexander Scott had detestation of power as such, self-effacing generosity, and disinterested liberality.

Connections

In 1881 Colin Alexander married Helen McColl of Kingston, daughter of the noted Gaelic scholar, by whom he had two daughters and three sons.

Father:

Rev. Robert Scott

Mother:

Isabel Laird (Scott)

Spouse:

Helen McColl

References

• Who's Who in America, 1924-1925, Vol. 13: A Biographical Dictionary of Notable Living Men and Women in the United States