Henri Fehr (1904) concluded that the college was not a professional school in the sense of preparing teachers as rapidly as possible to teach “the ABCs of mathematics" (p. 316), but rather that it gave future mathematics teachers, along with practical directions for their career, an excellent general culture in mathematics, the opportunity to pursue specialized studies, and an introduction to the historical development of their science . in time. and somewhat differently in different countries, mathematics education came to be recognized as a university
subject The expectation that people engaged in the education of mathematics teachers in a university ought to be doing research in mathematics education.