John Milton Gregory
John Milton Gregory (1822 - 1898) was the first regent of Illinois Industrial University from 1867 - 1880. Gregory insisted on the incorporation of a classically-based liberal arts curriculum in addition to the agricultural and industrial curriculum which was the focus of the legislature, echoing a debate that continues today. He is buried behind Altgeld Hall under a memorial plaque that reads, If you seek his monument, look about you.
In 1886, after leaving UofI, Milton authored The Seven Laws of Teaching:
- Know thoroughly and familiarly the lesson you wish to teach; or, in other words, teach from a full mind and a clear understanding.
- Gain and keep the attention and interest of the pupils upon the lesson. Refuse to teach without attention.
- Use words understood by both teacher and pupil in the same sense—language clear and vivid alike to both.
- Begin with what is already well known to the pupil in the lesson or upon the subject, and proceed to the unknown by single, easy, and natural steps, letting the known explain the unknown.
- Use the pupil's own mind, exciting his self-activities. Keep his thoughts as much as possible ahead of your expression, making him a discoverer of truth.
- Require the pupil to reproduce in thought the lesson he is learning—thinking it out in its parts, proofs, connections, and applications til he can express it in his own language.
- Review, review, REVIEW, reproducing correctly the old, deepening its impression with new thought, correcting false views, and completing the true.
Dr. Gregory
Dr. Gregory
Dr. Gregory