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THE STORY
OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH

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THE STORY
OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
DURING
ITS FIRST THREE HUNDRED YEARS
BY
SIR ALEXANDER GRANT, BART.,
,
LL.D. (EDINBURGH, GLASGOW, CAMBRIDGE), D.C.L. (OXFORD),
PRINCIPAL AND VICE-CHANCELLOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
FORMERLY FELLOW AND NOW HONORARY FELLOW OF
ORIEL COLLEGE, OXFORD
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
IN TWO VOLS.-VOL. II.
LONDON
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
1884
Alex. Zevet
gt.
.
8-31-1922
Frinted by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh.
CONTENTS OF VOL. II.
CHAPTER VI.
THE RELATIONS OF THE SENATUS ACADEMICUS TO THE TOWN
COUNCIL AS THE GOVERNING BODY OF THE UNIVERSITY
(1703-1858), TERMINATING WITH A THIRTY YEARS' WAR
BETWEEN THE TWO BODIES.
PAGE
I
2
3
4-6
6-7
Anomalous position of the University under Charter
of James VI.
Dispute as to right of the Masters of the College to
elect a Member of General Assembly (1703)
Decision of General Assembly in favour of the Masters
Protest of Bailie Fenton against the Professors acting
as a “Faculty” (1728)
Town Council recognise "the Faculty of the College"
(1772)
Town Council assume the Regulation of Fees for
Diplomas (1809)
Professor Hume's “Opinion” on their powers
"
Town Council regulate Matriculation and Class Fees
Dispute as to the raising of Librarian's Salary (1815)
Town Council concede the right of Senatus to elect
their own Secretary (1824)
Dr. James Hamilton petitions Town Council to make
Midwifery a compulsory subject for Graduation
8-9
9-II
II-13
14-15
16
17
406369
vi
CONTENTS.
PAGE
18-21
21-25
25-29
30
31
32
I
32-35
36-38
38
40
鲁
​40-48
48-52
52
.
*
Senatus claim the sole right to regulate Graduation
Town Council deny this right, and threaten legal pro-
ceedings
Senatus take the opinion of Counsel
Town Council threaten a Visitation of the University
They interfere with Professors' “Small Fees
Senatus petition Government to appoint a Commission
to arbitrate
Visitation of the University by the Town Council (1825)
Appointment of Royal Commission to visit the Uni-
versities of Scotland (1826)
Town Council raise an Action of Declarator
The Commissioners offer a Prize to be competed for
by Students
The Scheme of the Commissioners (1829)
Criticisms of Senatus on the Scheme
Lord Melbourne's Bill (1837)
The Senatus are defeated in the Court of Session
(1829)
Disputes of the Senatus with Dr. Hamilton
Town Council appoint a "General Secretary of the
University”
They open the Natural History Museum to the Public
Sir W. Hamilton writes a protest against the action of
Town Council (1838)
Town Council put a stop to Hamilton's Course on
Metaphysics
Sir W. Hamilton's Controversy with Town Council
Town Council propose to recognise Extra-Mural
Lecturers
Senatus go to Law with Town Council on this point .
Decision of the House of Lords against Senatus (1854)
Free Church majority in the Town Council .
They appoint a Free Churchman Professor of Hebrew
Senatus successfully resist this in the Court of Session
+
53-55
56-57
57-60
60-61
62-63
事
​63-64
64-67
2
68-71
72-73
I
73
74
75
75-76
CONTENTS.
vii
PAGE
.
77
78
A Free Churchman appointed Professor of Moral
Philosophy
He teaches without taking his Seat in Senatus
Town Council introduce Entrance Examinations for
the Arts Faculty
They admit Graduates to the use of the Library
79-82
82-83
APPENDIX N. JOHN BROWN PATTERSON.
J. B. Patterson the favourite pupil of Pillans
He gains the Commissioners' Prize (1827)
His Essay noticed by Leonard Horner and Sir R. Peel
His presentation to the Parish of Falkirk, and early death
83-84
84-85
I
+
85
85
CHAPTER VII.
THE UNIVERSITIES (SCOTLAND) ACT, 1858, AND ITS RESULTS IN
THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH DOWN TO THE PRESENT DAY
(1858–1883).
86-87
88–89
90
91-99
-
Іоо
I0O-IOI
Influence of the Disruption (1843) upon the Uni-
versities of Scotland
The Test Act passed (1853)
Public Opinion in favour of University Reform
Lord Advocate Inglis' Universities (Scotland) Bill
The Bill passed (1858)
Executive Commission appointed under the Act
Town Council's last appointment of a Principal
(1859)
General Council of the University constituted
First election of a Rector of the University
University Court and Curators appointed
Ordinances of Commission for Degrees in Medicine
Ordinances for Degrees in Arts
Success of Edinburgh Arts Students in competing for
the Ferguson Scholarships
.
102-103
103-105
105-106
106-107
108-112
.
II 2-122
I 22-125
viii
CONTENTS.
PAGE
126-129
I 29-131
131-133
134-135
136
Ordinances for Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) Degree
Minor Degree of B.L. introduced (1874)
The Commissioners decline to legislate for Graduation
in Divinity
Ordinances for Finance, Bursaries, Library, etc.
Association for the better Endowment of the Univer-
sity established (1864)
Extraordinary flow of gifts to the University under
its new Constitution : ist. Scholarships founded
2d. New Bursaries founded
3d. New Chairs founded
4th. Subscriptions for Buildings, etc.
University Local Examinations introduced (1860)
Higher Education of Women undertaken (1867)
Women permitted to receive Medical Instruction from
Professors (1869)
Medical Graduation of Women found to be incom-
petent
Degree of Bachelor of Divinity instituted
Also Degrees in Science
Lecturerships instituted
Royal Commission of 1876
Enfranchisement of the University
137-145
145-148
148-154
155-156
156-158
158-159
4
159-160
.
161-163
163-164
164-165
165
166
167
I
I
APPENDIX O. THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH.
168
Foundation and early growth of the Town's Library
(1580).
Gift of Books by Drummond of Hawthornden
169-170
Buildings for the College Library
•
171
Librarians from 1635 to 1854
172-175
Growth of the University Library and Library Fund. 176-179
Removal of the Library to the present Building
(1827)
179-180
Present Contents of the Library
181-184
CONTENTS.
ix
APPENDIX P. THE HISTORY OF THE BUILDINGS OF THE
UNIVERSITY.
PAGE
I. The Old College Buildings (1583-1615)
184,186
Additions made during the Seventeenth Century 186-190
How the College Chambers were used in 1733 · 191–193
Principal Robertson's Appeal for New Buildings 193–196
South Bridge Street built on University Ground 196
Foundation-Stone of New University laid (1789) 197-201
II. New University, designed by Adam, commenced 201-202
Works arrested for twenty-three years, owing to
want of Funds
202-204
Completion of the Building by Playfair (1816-
1834)
204-208
III. Want of New Medical School felt
208
Munificent Subscriptions for this purpose (1874-
1883), and erection of the New Medical School 209–215
1
APPENDIX Q. THE HISTORY OF THE FINANCES OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH.
215-217
218
219-221
.
2 2 1
222
Original Sources of Income for the College
Addition thereto of “Mortcloth dues
Private Benefactions to the College during the
Seventeenth Century
These invested in City Bonds
Income and Expenses of the University in the
Eighteenth Century
Bankruptcy of the City (1833)
Remarks on the Financial Administration of the
University by the Town Council .
The Library Fund .
The Reid Fund
The Income of the University in 1858 and in
1883
223-225
225--229
229-230
230-234
•
235
X
CONTENTS.
APPENDIX R. TRAITS, PERSONAL, SCIENTIFIC, OR LITERARY,
OF BYGONE WORTHIES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH.
PAGE
2
1
-
I. Chancellors
235-236
II. Rectors
237
III. Principals
238-278
IV. Regents of Philosophy
278-280
V. Professors of Divinity .
280-288
VI. Professors of Hebrew and Oriental Languages 288-292
VII. Professors of Mathematics
292-305
VIII. Regius Professors of Divinity and Church
History
306-313
IX. Regius Professors of Public Law and the
Law of Nature and Nations
313-317
X. Professors of Humanity
317-322
XI. Professors of Greek .
322-327
XII. Professors of Logic and Metaphysics
328-335
XIII. Professors of Moral Philosophy
335-348
XIV. Professors of Natural Philosophy
348-357
XV. Regius Professors of Rhetoric and Belles
Lettres
357-361
XVI. Regius Professors of Practical Astronomy 361 - 364
XVII. Professors of Civil Law
364-366
XVIII. Professors of Universal Civil History and
Greek and Roman Antiquities
367-371
XIX. Professors of Scots Law
371-376
XX. Professors of Conveyancing
376-378
XXI. Professors of Botany
378-385
XXII. Professors of Anatomy
385-392
XXIII. Professors of Medicine and Chemistry
392-399
XXIV. Professors of the Institutes of Medicine
400-410
XXV. Professors of the Practice of Physic .
411-414
XXVI. Professors of Midwifery and the Diseases of
Women and Children
414-423
.
.
CONTENTS.
xi
PAGE
423-431
431-437
437-441
441-445
XXVII. Professors of Materia Medica
XXVIII. Regius Professors of Natural History
XXIX. Regius Professors of Clinical Surgery
XXX. Regius Professors of Military Surgery
XXXI. Regius Professors of Medical Jurispru-
dence and Police
XXXII. Professors of General Pathology
XXXIII. Professors of Surgery
XXXIV. Professors of Agriculture
XXXV. Professors of the Theory of Music
XXXVI. Regius Professors of Biblical Criticism
and Biblical Antiquities
XXXVII. The Regius Professor of Technology
XXXVIII. Professors of Commercial and Political
Economy and Mercantile Law
445-450
450-452
452-456
456-457
457-461
461-464
464-466
466-469
APPENDIX S.
NOTICES OF STUDENT-LIFE IN THE COLLEGE
OR UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH IN BYGONE TIMES.
469-473
I
.
.
0
Town Council's regulations for the government of
Students
The Students generally Covenanters
The Students burn the Pope (1680)
Their disorderly conduct under Principal Monro
Their reformation under Principal Rule
Cases of discipline (1733-1801)
The great Snow-riot of 1838
The “Students' Prize” (1831-1849)
Students' Societies and Clubs
Instances of frugality among Students
Their friendships and hard work
Students' literature
Numbers of the Students at different periods
Illustrious names among the bygone Students
H.R.H. The Duke of Edinburgh a Student of the
University
473
473-478
478-479
479-480
480-481
482-483
483-484
484-487
488
489
489-492
492
492-494
494-495
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
VOL. II.
1. THE NEW MEDICAL SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF
EDINBURGH
Frontispiece
2. Sir W. HAMILTON, BART.
To face page 63
>
171
3. Two VIEWS OF THE OLD LIBRARY, LEFT
STANDING 1825
4. THE COLLEGE, IN EDGAR'S PLAN OF EDIN-
BURGH, 1742 (Photolithograph)
5. OLD CARICATURE OF THE LAYING THE FOUN-
DATION-STONE OF THE NEW UNIVERSITY
BUILDINGS, 1789 (Photolithograph)
184
09
198
6. PRINCIPAL ROBERTSON
266
7. SIR DAVID BREWSTER
274
8. DR. CHALMERS
284
9. JOHN PLAYFAIR
302
10. DUGALD STEWART
340
+
.
345
9
395
.
403
11. JOHN WILSON (Photolithograph)
12. JOSEPH BLACK (Photolithograph).
13. WILLIAM CULLEN
14. SIR JAMES YOUNG SIMPSON, BART.
15. SIR ROBERT CHRISTISON, BART.
16. H.R.H. THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH
419
425
37
495
The Engravings by George Pearson.
CHAPTER VI.
THE RELATIONS OF THE SENATUS ACADEMICUS TO THE
TOWN COUNCIL AS THE GOVERNING BODY OF THE
UNIVERSITY (1703—1858), TERMINATING WITH A
THIRTY YEARS' WAR BETWEEN THE TWO BODIES.
“Your blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheath'd their swords for lack of argument.”
The last chapter has been devoted to the develop-
ment of the University of Edinburgh on its educa-
tional side, and has recounted the remarkable increase
of its Chairs, which were often filled by men of high
distinction. But while the Professorial body grew
strong both in numbers and ability the University
became placed, more and more, in an anomalous
position, owing to the peculiarities inherent in its
foundation, and to the terms of what was called its
Charter. We have now to relate events which were
the natural results of that anomalous position. It
is not pleasant to do so; in fact, it is somewhat
saddening to recall contentions which might have
been greatly obviated by a “sweet reasonableness”
on both sides. But after all the conflict which will
form the subject of this chapter is an essential part
VOL. II.
B
2
[1703.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
of the history of the University of Edinburgh ; it
grew out of the antecedents of that University, and
in turn it produced the Royal Commission of 1826-30,
the Act of 1858, and the present order of things.
The tomahawk has long since been buried, and we
can now regard the burning contests of the past with
calmness and not without instruction.
As above mentioned (Vol. I.p.247), the eighteenth
century was, on the whole, a period of great harmony
in the relations between the Town Council and the
University Professors. But there were one or two
exceptions to this. In 1703, when what may be
called the mutiny of the Regents was suppressed,
there was a point on which the College authorities
were forced for the time to give way, but which they
afterwards returned to, namely, the right of the
College to elect a Member of the General Assembly.
It would appear? that from the first establish-
ment of the Presbyterian Church, Universities, to-
gether with Presbyteries and Burghs, had the right
of sending “Commissioners,” that is to say, repre-
sentatives, to the General Assembly, but when the
College of Edinburgh came to reckon as a University
and to exercise this privilege is not so clear. We
find, however, that in 1639, 1645, and 1653 the
Magistrates, Ministers, and Masters of the College
jointly elected a Commissioner. Later in the cen-
tury the Town Council apparently dispensed with the
votes of the Ministers, and adopted the plan of
summoning the Principal, Regents, and Professors
? See Act of General Assembly of 20th December 1638.
1
1723.]
3
DECISION IN FAVOUR OF SENATUS.
a
to meet with themselves and jointly elect a Member
of Assembly. This mode of procedure was reluc-
tantly acquiesced in by the College; a réservation of
powers was repeatedly put in by Principals Rule and
Carstares; and in 1702 a protest had been signed
by the Regents which, however, they were compelled
to withdraw (see Vol. I. p. 241). In 1719 the Town
Council appear to have determined to go a step
farther and, instead of merely insisting on a share in
the election of the College representative, to take
the election entirely into their own hands. The
Principal and Professors got information that they
were not to be summoned that year to attend the
Council. On this they promptly took action ; they
held a meeting among themselves, elected Hamilton,
the Professor of Divinity, as their representative in
the General Assembly, and gave
him a Commission
as such. They made conciliatory overtures, how-
ever, to the Town Council, and offered to cancel
what they had done, provided that a joint meeting
for election were held as usual. This, however, was
refused, and the Lord Provost protested in the
General Assembly against the Commission of Mr.
Hamilton as invalid because he had been elected
without the concurrence of the Town Council. The
Assembly, however, put aside the protest, and
accepted Professor Hamilton as a Member. Four
years later, in 1723, they passed an Act declaring
the right of election to be "only in the Professors,
Principal, Regents, Masters, and others bearing
office in the University ; that is to say, the Chancellor,
4
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
[1728.
Rector, and Dean of Faculty, if any such there be,
exclusive of all others.” This clearly established
the position of the University with regard to this
matter for all time coming. It was the one victory
obtained by the University in all its constitutional
struggles with the Town Council.
In 1728 another collision between the two bodies
occurred, and this also concerned in another way the
relations of the University to the General Assembly.
It arose out of a famous case of heresy-hunting,
namely, the process instituted by Mr. James
Webster, Minister of the Tolbooth Church, Edin-
burgh, against John Simson, Professor of Divinity
in the University of Glasgow, on
a charge of
unorthodox-apparently Arian-modes of thought.
Wishart, Principal in the University of Edinburgh,
was then Moderator of the Assembly, a post which
he is said to have filled with good sense and temper
during very stormy debates. The Senatus Academ-
icus do not appear to have at all espoused Pro-
fessor Simson's case on its merits, but they regarded
with apprehension the assertion by the General
Assembly of authority over the Universities of
Scotland. As it appeared certain that Simson was
going to be deposed by the Assembly, the Senatus
“drew up and signed a protest, to be given in to the
venerable Assembly, in the process depending before
them, in order to save the rights and privileges of the
college from encroachments, from any precedent that
might be drawn from the venerable Assembly's deci-
1 Bower, Hist., ii. 264.
1
1728.]
5
PROTEST OF BAILIE FENTON.
”
sion in the said process.
This course seems a very
proper one to have been adopted, but it excited the
wrath of Mr. Thomas Fenton, who was College Bailie
at the time, and also one of Mr. Webster's elders in
the Tolbooth Church.1 He immediately brought the
matter before the Town Council, and persuaded them
to commission himself and another Bailie to make a
protest against the protest of the Senatus Academicus.
Bailie Fenton's zealous desire was to prevent
anything from interfering with the condemnation
and deposition of Professor Simson. The document
.
put in by the Senatus did not interfere with any
decision which the Assembly might come to in
Simson's case; it only deprecated any such decision
being used as a precedent. Bailie Fenton, in the
name of the Town Council, reverted to the attitude
which had been taken towards the College in 1703,
and denied the right of the Principal and Professors
to constitute themselves into “a Faculty,” or to act
in a corporate capacity. By their so doing he
declared the rights and powers of the Magistrates
and Council to be openly encroached upon and
invaded. “And therefore I Thomas Fenton, one
of the Bailies of Edinburgh, &c., do protest that the
aforesaid protestation taken before this venerable
Assembly, by the Professors, Regents, and Teachers
2
? Bower, Hist., ii. 265. We have heard before of this Bailie Fenton
as the "old friend” of George Drummond (see above, Vol. I., p. 368).
Probably George Drummond's zeal for religious orthodoxy led him to
join in the course taken by the Town Council.
2 We may remark that by this time there were no longer any
Regents in the University of Edinburgh. But that was an Academical
6
[1772.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
a
in the College of Edinburgh, in relation to the pro-
ceedings in the aforesaid process against the said
Professor, or in any other case wherein they may
presume to take upon themselves to act as a Faculty,
--is most illegal and unwarrantable ; and that the
same ought to be disregarded and dismissed, and
the promoters thereof and every person thereto
accessory may be liable in such censure and punish-
ment as such illegal and unwarrantable proceeding
by law deserves.” This strong denunciation of the
procedure of the Senatus was, so far as the General
Assembly was concerned, a mere letting off of steam;
no notice was taken of it, and no practical result
ensued.
In fact, matters went on thenceforth so quietly
between the University and the Town Council that
the latter body ere long forgot that they had ever
denied the existence of “a Faculty” in the College or
University. In 1772 a question came up from the
High School for decision by the Town Council as
to whether Adam's Latin Grammar was to be substi-
tuted for Ruddiman's Rudiments, which had been
exclusively used before. Not satisfied with the
report of a Committee of their own body on the
question they sent down to the University a copy
of the following Act :-"14th October 1772. The
Council having heard read what is within represented
by the Committee relative to Mr. Adam's Grammar,
consider
any
alteration in the method of teaching to
)
I
detail which the College Bailie appears to have forgotten. He cer-
tainly was not conscious of the great importance of the fact.
1772.] “FACULTY” OF THE COLLEGE RECOGNISED. 7
]
be a matter of great importance, and therefore super-
sede giving any immediate deliverance, and remit to
the Principal and Faculty of the College to consider
what is represented by the Committee, and recom-
mend to the Principal and Faculty to report their
opinion and judgment in that matter to the Council
with their first conveniency, and the Principal to
preside at and convene the said Faculty meeting.
(Signed) GILBERT LAURIE, Provost.'
Thus the Town Council at last officially acknow-
ledged the “Faculty,” or Senatus, of the University.
But what the powers of that “Faculty” might be
remained an unsettled question, the potential source
of strife and litigation.
But actually from 1728 onward, for more than
eighty years, there was no misunderstanding or
unpleasantness. The action of the Town Council
.
in regard to the University limited itself to the
appointment of Professors and Principals. On the
1 It must be observed that the Town Council, though they asked
the opinion of the Principal and Professors, did not ultimately adopt
it. Principal Robertson and the Professors of Greek and Humanity
gave a temporising verdict, recommending that Ruddiman's Grammar
should be continued in the High School, being the Grammar gener-
ally used in the schools throughout Scotland, but that the Rector, Dr.
Adam, should be at liberty to supplement Ruddiman's rules with any
other rules or grammatical observations which he might find in his
own Grammar. The four Under-Masters of the High School refused
to accept this compromise. They made a violent protest that Ruddi-
man's Grammar was the best, and that pupils deteriorated in their Latin
by departing from it. In 1786 the Town Council made an order that
the Rector and Masters of the High School should teach their pupils
by means of Ruddiman's Rudiments and Institutes, and prohibited any
other Grammar to be used in the school. Chalmers' Life of Ruddi-
man, PP. 91-95.
8
[1809.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
occasion of each appointment the College Bailie,
generally accompanied by the Lord Provost and
some other Magistrates, would present the new
Professor to the assembled Senatus, by whom he
would be received and inducted. Beyond this the
Town Council contented themselves with the
regulation of finances and the promoting of New
University Buildings, and of the Observatory and
Botanic Garden. And they occasionally made cour-
teous references to the Senatus, consulting them
on points connected with science. The Senatus
were left to make their own regulations for the
studies and degrees of the University; and they
built up from its foundation the whole system of
Medical graduation. In 1763, on their own authority,
they established a “ Library Fund,” available for
general University purposes, by levying a matricula-
tion fee of two shillings and sixpence a head on the
Students. And in 1806 they raised this fee to five
shillings. Their powers were for the first time
questioned in 1809, when, on their resolving to raise
the fee for each diploma in Medicine from thirteen
guineas to £ 25,' the Students petitioned the Town
а.
1
£18 18
0
1 The proceeds were to have been distributed as follows:
Each Professor of the Faculty of Medicine (i.e. Botany, Institutes of
Medicine, Practice of Physic, Anatomy, Chemistry, and Materia
Medica) was to get £3:3
The Principal
The Library
The Secretary
I 5 0
The Upper Janitor
7 6
The Under Janitor
0 7 6
76
2
2
2
0
0
.
0
£25 Oo
1810.]
9
PROFESSOR HUME'S OPINION.
It
a
Council to prevent this from being carried out.
was then agreed in the most amicable way that a
joint Committee of Members of the Town Council
and of the Senatus should meet, and, as a prelimi-
nary step, shall inquire fully into the respective
powers of the two bodies as to the regulation of
graduation fees.
In order to furnish materials for the inquiry the
Town Council had copious “Excerpts” made from
the City Records, tracing out the usage with regard
to the government of the College from its founda-
tion, and they sent a MS. volume containing these
“Excerpts,” together with a copy of the Act of 162 1
(see Vol. I., pp. 204-5), for the consideration of the
Senatus. On the 8th February 1810, as requested
by his colleagues, Professor Hume? presented a
very ample and luminous opinion on the Act of
Ratification of 1621." 2 This document, as being
written by a Member of the Senatus, was a remark-
It went through the whole history of the
University, examining the charters of 1582 and of
1621, the proceedings of 1703, and many significant
1
able one.
1 David Hume, not, of course, to be confounded with the philo-
sopher of that name, was Professor of Scots Law from 1786 till 1822.
He was an exceedingly able man, and became one of the Barons of
Exchequer.
? So say the Minutes of Senatus, but yet the text of Professor
Hume's opinion was not engrossed in them. For a long time the
writer of these pages sought in vain for a copy; but at last he found
one among the documents printed for the Record in the action of the
Senatus against the Town Council in 1850. It was furnished on that
occasion by the Town Council, and the wonder is that it should not
have been produced by them in the previous lawsuits which we shall
have to narrate.
IO
[1810
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
acts of the Town Council, and it was not only
ample and luminous,” but absolutely crushing to
all pretensions on the part of the Senatus to the
right of augmenting fees or making any regulations
without the concurrence of the Town Council. And
Professor Hume concluded his opinion with a warn-
ing which was prophetic in its language, and every
word of which was lamentably fulfilled. “ I cannot
give it as my opinion,” he said, “that it is by any
means advisable for the College to enter into a
litigation on the subject ---a long and expensive
,
litigation, of which the charges must come out of the
pockets of the individual professors, which would
interrupt the good understanding between the Town
and the College, so necessary to the welfare of the
latter, especially at present, when we hope for the
completing of our buildings by their aid-a litigation
to which I cannot anticipate a prosperous issue even
on the particular point at issue, and (which is much
worse) one that may lead to the revival of many
troublesome and vexatious pretensions on the part
of the Magistrates, of which we have heard little for
a good many years, but against which, nevertheless,
it
may
be doubtful at least whether we have a lawful
defence. If we keep out of Court, matters will
probably go on again much as they had done for a
good many years.
The conclusions which Professor Hume (one of
their own body) had dispassionately and with resist-
less logic arrived at, induced the Senatus in 1810 to
drop all further attempt to increase the fees for
a
1810.]
II
PROFESSOR HUME'S OPINION.
Medical diplomas; but the curious thing is that the
Senatus, after this concession, seemed determined to
shut their ears to the unpalatable truths. They
treated Hume as a Cassandra, they did not engross
his opinion in their Minutes, and they apparently re-
solved to forget all about it. Fourteen years later
they acted as if no such an opinion had ever been
given, and though reminded of it by the Town
Council they paid no heed.
The Town Council having by the circumstances
just related been drawn into the question of the
internal finance of the University, proceeded at the
same time (February 1810) to pass an Act regulating
the matriculation fee. This was no doubt an interfer-
ence with the management of the “ Library Fund”
as hitherto conducted by the Senatus, but it was a
wise and timely interposition. The Town Council
ordered--what ought to have been done long before,
and would have been but for the nervous dread of
the Professors to do anything which might dis-
courage Students from joining the University
namely, that the payment of a matriculation fee
should be made compulsory and not merely optional.
From 1763, when Principal Robertson initiated the
Library Fund, till 1810, the system had been that
Students got no use of the Library till the middle of
December; then, if they chose to matriculate, they
had their names entered in the album on the pay-
ment, at first of two shillings and sixpence, after-
wards of five shillings. They had also to pay two
shillings and sixpence each to the Janitor, but this
I2
[1812.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
payment was evaded by many, who thus paid no tax
whatever either to the support of the Library or to
University police. Under this system about half
the Students declined to matriculate, while those who
matriculated and also paid the Janitor contributed
seven shillings and sixpence each towards Univer-
sity expenses.
The Town Council were quite right to inter-
pose and put a stop to this loose and unsatis-
factory arrangement. They prescribed, very sen-
sibly, that each Student should pay a matriculation
fee on joining the University, so as to have the
use of the Library at once; that no one should be
allowed to join any class till he could show a
matriculation ticket; and that the fee should be
increased so as to cover the due demanded by
the Janitor.
The details of this arrangement
were adjusted after amicable conferences with the
Senatus, and the matriculation fee was fixed at
seven shillings.
Under date 21st October 1812, the Town Council
passed an Act authorising the increase of Professors'
fees, and allowing those Professors who had hitherto
received fees of two guineas to exact three guineas
from each Student, and those whose fees had been
three guineas to raise it to four. This arose out of
a communication which the Senatus had received
from the University of Dublin, asking if it were true,
as reported, that the fees for admission to Medical
classes in Edinburgh were about to be raised, as
they in Dublin thought of charging five guineas for
1812.]
13
INCREASE OF PROFESSORS' FEES.
each Medical class. The Senatus, thus set to con-
sider the subject, came to the conclusion that “as
every other description of Education has kept pace in
its price with the depreciation of money, it is not to
be expected that University instruction alone should
remain without a corresponding increase.” After
hesitating between various proposals on the subject,
they resolved to petition the Town Council (being
apparently convinced by former correspondence with
regard to the increase of the diploma fee that they
had not the power to regulate fees for themselves)
to sanction an augmentation of their class fees on
the scale above mentioned.
Their memorial was very submissive : in it they
pointed out that “for a great series of years the
classes of Languages and of Philosophy have con-
tinued stationary at a fee of two guineas, and the
Medical classes ever since their institution, near a
century ago, at three guineas.” They reminded the
Town Council that the fees of the Masters in the
High School had been lately raised “to more than
double of their former amount." And they added
that they had reason to believe that the Students
would not regard the proposed increase as unfair or
oppressive. The memorial was cordially received
by the Town Council ; and thus the class fees for the
University of Edinburgh were fixed, in 1812, at the
rate at which they have continued to stand ever since.
Up to this date, then, the relations between the
Senatus and the Town Council remained fair and
smiling
14
[1816.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
But all of a sudden the harmony was disturbed
by the Town Council, in 1815, passing an Act by
which, without consulting the Senatus, they inter-
fered with the distribution of the Matriculation Fund.
They resolved that the Librarian (Dr. Duncan
junior, who had long done very good service on a
salary of only £30 a year) should have an augment-
ation out of the Matriculation Fund of £70 a year.
This was probably in itself a reasonable proposition,
but the manner in which it was made was, to say the
least, unceremonious. The Senatus, accordingly,
became recalcitrant; they represented that the
Matriculation Fund ought to go for books (as if a
good Librarian were not essential to the Library);
and they added—as a sort of counter-attack-a
pressing demand for a statement of the interest on
and application of University trust funds in the hands
of the Town Council.
On the 29th January 1816 the Town Council
calmly replied that they adhered to their former
resolution as to the Librarian's salary; and, as to
accounts of the College revenues,—that the Senatus
might come and inspect them, if they wished, in the
Chamberlain's office.
The Senatus, very angry,
applied to the Law Faculty for an opinion whether
they had not a right to demand an annual statement
of accounts. But the lawyers reported that the
Town Council's bond for interest on mortifications
was given not to the Senatus, but to the College
1
1 Explanations of this will be given in Appendix R. HISTORY OF
UNIVERSITY FINANCES.
1816.)
15
BEGINNINGS OF WARFARE.
1
Treasurer, who was a member of the Town Council.
The Senatus then sent some of their body to inspect
the accounts, who reported certain small irregu-
larities, -Mortcloth dues in some cases applied to
non-University purposes, sales of Feu-duties not
brought to capital, etc., but, on the whole, nothing to
take hold of. And then Dr. Duncan, the Librarian,
brought the main question of dispute to a settlement
by writing to say that, as the Patrons and Senatus,
while both acknowledging the inadequacy of his pay,
found a difficulty in the means of increasing it, he
withdrew his claim till times should be more favour-
able. The Senatus then, on reconsidering, resolved,
without binding themselves to a fixed salary for the
Librarian, to present Dr. Duncan with £ 100 out of
the Matriculation Fund. Thus, through the esprit
de corps of Dr. Duncan, the Senatus were enabled
to belie their own arguments, and to pay at their
own option money out of the Matriculation Fund,
which, when ordered to pay it by the Town Council,
they had said ought not to be paid. Had Dr.
Duncan, like Dr. Hamilton afterwards, taken side
with the Town Council against the Senatus, the
quarrel might have been embittered, and the war
which subsequently ensued begun in 1816.
Five years after this, in April 1821, Dr. Duncan
junior, who was both Librarian and Secretary to the
Senatus, wishing to be relieved in the duties of the
former office, applied to the Town Council on the
1 Explanations of this will be given in Appendix R. HISTORY OF
UNIVERSITY FINANCES.
16
(1824.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
subject, and they at once appointed Dr. Brunton,
the Professor of Hebrew, to be " Joint Librarian
and Secretary” with Dr. Duncan. . On this the
Senatus remonstrated, maintaining that the Sec-
retaryship was in their own gift. The Town
Council, after examining the records of the Uni-
versity as to this point, conceded the matter, recalled
their former Commission to Dr. Brunton, and issued
a new one for “ Joint Librarians ” alone. This was
an equitable and conciliatory procedure on the part
of the Town Council, and it was a recognition of
the status of the Senatus Academicus very different
from the attitude taken by the Town Council in the
former century, when they denied the existence of a
"Faculty” in the College. Peace and concord were
re-established, but perhaps the Senatus were encour-
aged by this concession to entertain delusive ideas
as to their actual position from a legal point of view.
In 1824 an ex-Janitor, who drew a pension of
£110 from the Matriculation Fund, having died,
the Town Council, not unreasonably, began to con-
sider whether the matriculation fee might not be
reduced. But instead of inviting a conference with
the Senatus on the subject, they requested the
Senatus to furnish them with a statement of the
expenditure of the Matriculation Fund, to enable
them to decide whether or not the fee should be
reduced. The Senatus no doubt resented the
manner of this proceeding; they replied that the fee
had been fixed by a joint Committee of members of
their own body and of the Town Council, to which
1824.]
17
DR. JAMES HAMILTON.
Committee the matter might be referred, but that it
would be peculiarly inexpedient to reduce the fee at
that moment, as there would soon be great expense
in moving the books out of the old Library into the
new one.
a
Contemporaneously with this minor source of
irritation, Dr. James Hamilton, Professor of Mid-
wifery, who was a "Helen of Troy” to the Uni-
“
versity, and the causa belli for nearly ten years, came
forward prominently with his claims. He petitioned
the Town Council to have him recognised as a
member of the Medical Faculty, by making his
subject necessary for graduation. The Senatus
reported unfavourably to this petition ; the Town
Council, however, on the 3d May 1824, intimated that
they considered that a full course of lectures in Mid-
wifery should be made necessary for the degree of
M.D., but that they would take no further steps in
the matter till the 22d June, by which time they hoped
that the Senatus would have adopted their opinion.
And there can be no doubt that the Town Council
were substantially right in their resolution, and that
they really were adopting an enlightened measure
for the improvement of the Medical curriculum of
the University.
But the Senatus could not view the matter dis-
passionately. They met on the 3d June 1824,
under the sense of a double provocation, for the
Town Council had again demanded accounts of the
Matriculation Fund. So the Senatus might reflect :
"Here are these people going to take out of our
1
VOL. II.
C
18
[1824
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
a
hands both the management of our College Fund,
and also the regulation of our degrees!” With
regard to the latter point they fancied themselves
on strong ground. So they passed a hasty and fatal
resolution to the effect that, while they were anxious
to comply as far as possible with any wishes of the
Town Council, it was “their own exclusive right both
to originate and carry into execution” all arrange-
ments for the graduation system.
In thus resolving, the Senatus were strangely
oblivious of several facts in the history of the
University : they forgot that at the outset of the
College a Committee of the Town Council had
drawn up the regulations for degrees in Arts, and
that in 1708 the Town Council had remodelled the
Arts degree system; they forgot that in 1703 high
legal authority had pronounced the Town Council to
be absolute Masters of the College in all things; and
still more strangely, they ignored the opinion of Pro-
fessor Hume. On the other hand, there was much
to foster in the Senatus an idea of their powers with
regard to graduation. It must be remembered that
long before this time the University had been
repeatedly recognised in Acts of Parliament; it had
grown into a great and famous school ; it drew its
Students, over two thousand in number, from all
parts of the world, and had been attended by the
scions of many noble English families; it had been
provided with stately Academical buildings, and
possessed a Natural History Collection--one of
the finest in Europe. The Senatus Academicus
1824.]
19
THE CHALLENGE OF THE SENATUS.
had been acknowledged by the reigning Sovereign,
and frequently received at Court; their honorary
degrees were valued by men of great eminence at
home and abroad; they had received gifts for their
Museum from India and the Colonies; they had
been made the legatees of a fine collection of pic-
tures, and of a very large estate. With all this
external prestige, the Senatus had always been
recognised in Edinburgh as the sole fountain of
Academical honours; they had been asked from
time to time by the Town Council to confer degrees;
and for one hundred and sixteen years they had
made all the regulations which were made for
graduation in all the Faculties. They forgot that
they had done so on sufferance merely, and not of
legal right, and that what they had above all things
to avoid was a definition of their own rights and
powers.
On the 3d June 1824 they attempted, as we
have seen, such a definition; and this at once
brought the matter to an issue. The Town Council
replied that “the whole history of the University
showed that every right with regard to it rested in
the Lord Provost, Magistrates, and Council," and
that “they must intimate in the most respectful, but
in the most decided terms to the Principal and Pro-
fessors, that they will resist the exercise of any
such
exclusive right as that claimed by them.” It must
be observed that the Town Council, in thus accepting
the challenge of the Senatus, used at first language
which was in itself moderate ; they merely said that
20
[1824.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
they would resist the "exclusive right” claimed by
the Senatus.
On the 18th June the Senatus received a report
from the Medical Faculty, that “their opinion was
favourable to the introduction, under certain con-
ditions, of the class of Midwifery into the curriculum
for Medical candidates.” The whole contention,
then, was not about the matter of the Town Council's
proposal, for this was admitted to be in the right
direction; and had the Senatus pleasantly accepted
what had been proposed they might probably have
had such conditions as might be thought necessary
introduced. But the question was one of form, and
the Medical Faculty added to their report a recom-
mendation that, if the Senatus adopted the view now
common to themselves and to the Town Council,
they should do so, “acknowledging no right of
authoritative interference by the Patrons in such
matters.” And this advice would have been per-
fectly good had the Senatus really possessed in law
the powers which they supposed themselves to
possess. At this point, however, it would have been
expedient to take the opinion of counsel. This the
Senatus unfortunately did not do.
They at once adopted a resolution to be sent to
the Town Council, asserting that they, as a Senatus,
had rights "arising from the essential and indefeas-
ible character of a University,” among which rights
was that of regulating the course of study to be
followed by candidates for Medical degrees, and
they reminded the Town Council of cases in which
1824.]
21
THE CHALLENGE OF THE SENATUS.
the title of the Senatus to certain powers and privi-
leges had not been successfully resisted : namely, in
the matters of the election of a Representative of
the University in the General Assembly (see above,
p. 3), and of the nomination of their own Secretary
by the Senatus Academicus (p. 16).
These instances, however, while likely to irritate
the Town Council, were irrelevant; for, in the first
case, the General Assembly, by preferring to receive
a representative directly elected by the Senatus,
decided nothing as to the legal rights of the Univer-
sity in other matters; and the second case ought
certainly not to have been thrown in the teeth of
the Town Council, who had graciously not pressed
their claim to appoint the Secretary of the Senatus,
when it is probable that they might have proved a
legal right to do so.
To this the rejoinder of the Town Council was
that the Senatus had no rights "arising from the
essential character of a University,” because "in
the College of Edinburgh, as in all other Colleges,
the constitution depends upon the will of the original
founder, and by it the government was vested
entirely in the Lord Provost, Magistrates, and
Council, as Patrons and Guardians.” In thus ex-
pressing themselves, the Town Council went back
to the sixteenth century, and to the erection of the
“Town's College;" they took the view,—which
proved to be the legally correct one, though the
Senatus of those days may be pardoned for not
apprehending it—that no length of usage, or univer-
22
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
[1825.
а.
sality of external recognition, can raise a College or
University to any rights beyond what its original
charter contains.
The Town Council concluded with the intimation
that they would now give Dr. Hamilton a new Com-
mission, constituting him a Member of the Medical
Faculty, but giving him no share in the emoluments
to be derived from graduation fees, so that the
Medical Professors were to be spared any pecuniary
loss from the admission of Dr. Hamilton to their
Faculty. The Senatus, on reception of this com-
munication did what they should have done at
an earlier stage of the proceedings, they resolved
to take the opinion of counsel. . Pending the
arrival of an opinion they continued their defiant
course. They set to work to draw up their own
Statuta Solennia, or regulations for Medical degrees,
in which they laid it down that Midwifery was to be
made a necessary subject, but that this change was
not to take effect for three years. And in spite of
Dr. Hamilton's protest they published these Statuta,
as if they had full authority to do so. This was at
1
1 At this stage of the quarrel a ridiculous movement of petty war-
fare occurred. Dr. Hamilton's new Commission bore that he was
“Professor of Medicine, Midwifery, and the Diseases of Women and
Children." The Senatus in their new regulations entered the subject
as “Midwifery and the Diseases peculiar to Women and Children,"
and the Town Council then wrote to request that the words “peculiar
to" should be left out, as being inconsistent with the terms of their
Commission. The Senatus in reply pointed out that they did not
interfere with Hamilton's title; they only specified accurately one of
the subjects of Examination, whereas the terms used by the Town
Council would include all the diseases of the human race, with the
exception of some few peculiar to the male sex.
1825.] DR. HAMILTON THE CAUSE OF WARFARE.
23
the beginning of 1825. After the Senatus had resolved
on publication, but before the regulations had been
actually issued the Town Council wrote to ask for
a copy of them, but the Senatus declined to furnish
one till the Statuta should be completely printed.
Then on the same day (19th February 1825) they
promulgated the Statuta and sent a copy to the
Town Council for information. That body acknow-
ledged receipt, but told the Senatus that they “could
not sanction" them till the matter under discussion
was settled. To which the Senatus replied that they
had sent the copy as a mark of courtesy, and not
with a view to the Statuta being sanctioned, which
they did not require to be. We may notice here
that the only ostensible “matter under discussion "
was whether the study of Midwifery should be made
compulsory on Medical Students immediately, as the
Town Council wished, or whether the operation of
this very proper rule should be delayed for three
years, as the Senatus, somewhat perversely, insisted.
But the real question in the background was which
of the two bodies had the power of making regula-
tions for degrees. The Senatus, determined to
press this to an issue, had assumed a position of
undoubted authority, and this without waiting for
the advice of counsel.
Dr. Hamilton, in the meantime, by fighting
within the Senatus on the side of the Town Council,
had drawn upon himself some severe resolutions,
and he now complained of these to the Town
Council, who, on 20th April 1825, sent a despatch,
24
[1825.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
“r
probably meant to be conciliatory, in which they
regretted that angry differences should exist in the
Senatus,” but had thought it better not to interfere.
They now “recommended” that all recent proceed-
ings relative to Dr. Hamilton should be cancelled,
and that the Senatus should issue their Statuta in a
form making Midwifery compulsory for all gradua-
tions after the current year. On these conditions
they offered to sanction the Statuta. But, alas! this
was asking the Senatus to eat their own words. And
to be patronised by the " Patrons” would be gall and
wormwood to the Senatus in their then frame of mind.
On May 1825 the Senatus replied that, for
reasons which they need not detail, they could not
comply with the Town Council's suggestions, and
that the only mode of restoring harmony between
themselves and the Patrons would be that they
should both “concur in a united, cordial, and earnest
application to the Crown, that fountain from which
the powers of both had been derived, praying that
His Majesty may be pleased to issue a Royal Visita-
tion for the express purpose of defining the rights,
powers, and privileges belonging to each body.”
The Town Council, setting aside the notion of
an arbitration to be conducted by Royal Visitors,
wrote to say that they had been advised by counsel
to try the question of their right to originate and
sanction all regulations as to education and degrees
in the University-by bringing an Action of Declara-
tor against the Senatus. But they thought that this
might be unnecessary, as the Senatus agreed with
a
1825.] THE SENATUS PROPOSE ROYAL ARBITRATION. 25
them as to the expediency of adding Midwifery to
the Medical curriculum. If the Senatus would have
this done immediately, at the same time making any
protest they might think advisable, in order to pro-
tect their rights, the Town Council would abandon
the idea of legal proceedings.
This was surely a good loophole for the Senatus,
and it appears to have been suggested by the then
Solicitor-General for Scotland (John Hope); they
might have altered their recent rules, and at the
same time stated to the public that they had done
so at the urgent request of the Town Council; that
they had done so partly against their own judgment,
not because compelled by any authoritative right
existing in the Town Council to order regulations
for degrees,-for they disclaimed the existence of
any such authority external to themselves, - but
simply out of respect for the Patrons, as representa-
tives of a body who had done great services to the
University in times past. Such a statement would
have conceded nothing, unless ex gratia, and it
would have thrown all the responsibility for anything
unpopular in the altered form of the regulations
upon the Town Council. Failing this, the Senatus
might have awaited the opinion of their legal
adviser. But without doing so they declined the
suggestion, and proposed a conference with the
Town Council ; which proposal was at once refused.
At last, on the roth August 1825, the opinion of
the advocate (Mr. Thomas Thomson) whom the
Senatus had consulted was read to them. In their
a
26
[1825.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
.
memorial they had laid before him documents
relative to the history of the University, and had
asked him to advise them (1) whether “the Semin-
ary to which they belong, is, notwithstanding its con-
stant designation, and its celebrity as a University,
wholly void of any corporate or deliberative attri-
butes, and dependent, even to the extent of receiv-
ing from a fluctuating, though respectable body of
citizens, annually elected into office, the laws regu-
lating the Academical honours conferred in its name
and on its authority.” (2) Supposing this not to be
the case, they asked if it would be equitable and
proper for them to enforce new rules, making Mid-
wifery compulsory upon Students who had already
commenced their curriculum. (3) Supposing it to
be the case, what steps should be taken to obtain a
constitution for the University ?
With regard to this memorial, it must be remarked
that the first question is too leading. It states a
grievance and describes a great anomaly, asking
can this be the case ?" instead of dispassionately
requesting counsel to discover from the documents
submitted to him, and the common law of Univer-
sities, what were, in 1825, the respective powers of
the Town Council and Senatus, especially as to the
regulation of degrees. The second question was
unnecessary, because if the Senatus had, in the
opinion of counsel, full powers to regulate degrees,
they would be surely themselves the best judges
as to whether a particular regulation would be
“inequitable” to Students, in which case it would
.
1825.]
27
THE OPINION OF COUNSEL.
of course be “improper.” The third question was
a very suitable one, but it does not appear to have
been answered by Mr. Thomson.
In his opinion he said that the matter submitted
to him was difficult to judge of, owing to want of
full information. The original constitution of the
College was undecided. By the charter the Patrons
might have made it anything they pleased. But the
Act of 1621 "assured to the members of the College
the right to a constitution suitable to those high
public functions, which they were officially called
upon and entitled to discharge.” He then founded
a good deal on the regulations of 1628, which
ordered the Principal to consult with the Regents,
and which showed that they “possessed an original
deliberative authority on matters of internal regula-
' He admits, however, that he is "doubtful of
the compulsory efficacy of regulations devised by the
Senatus Academicus, without the subsequent sanction
of the Town Council.” He says that the Town
Council have not been disinclined at times to the
extension and masterful exercise of their powers,
especially at the beginning of the eighteenth century,
when, though the Senatus were wrong, the Town
Council pressed their advantage too far. For nearly
a century, however, relations had been milder. He
)
tion.” 1
2
1 This part of the opinion was irrelevant, as the consultation
referred to was to be on matters of discipline (ad ordinem et discip-
linam Academiæ conservandam), and the Town Council had never
denied the right of the Senatus to order matters of discipline.
2 This was surely irrelevant. It was the business of counsel to say
what were the limitations (if any) of the powers of the Town Council,
28
[1825.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
then proceeds to tell the Senatus plainly : “With
regard to the only point now in debate between the
University and the Patrons, it is impossible to
regard it as in itself of any vital importance to the
rights or interests of either party; and considering
the relation that necessarily subsists between them,
it would be difficult to reconcile the conduct of
either to any reasonable notions of propriety or
prudence to make it the occasion of a judicial and
perhaps a doubtful discussion.”
Why could not the opinion have ended here?
The Senatus might then have seen how glaringly
weak, in the eyes of a dispassionate adviser, their
case was, and that their only course was to com-
promise matters for the time with the Town Council,
and then to make all possible exertions to get a con-
stitution for the University, in lieu of the irrespon-
sible oligarchy under which they were placed.
But counsel perhaps rarely put a stop to litiga-
tion, and Mr. Thomson added another sentence
appealing not to the reason but to the passions of
the Senatus, and making it almost a point of honour
with them to fight. He said: “At the same time, it
is not to be disguised that in agreeing to accelerate
the commencement of the regulation in question, the
proceeding of the Senatus might be regarded as un-
gracious and vacillating; and under the circum-
stances the urgency of the Patrons has driven them
not to remind the Senatus that the Town Council had sometimes
shown a “masterful exercise of these powers " which could only irritate
the Senatus without instructing them.
1825.]
29
THE OPINION OF COUNSEL.
» 1
to a painful alternative, as to which, however, it
would be presumption in me to offer advice.”
No more unfortunate paragraph than this was
perhaps ever penned by counsel. Mr. Thomson
had told the Senatus that if they went to law their
conduct would be irreconcilable with any reason-
able notions of propriety or prudence.” And he
winds up by telling them that if they do not act in a
way which will certainly bring on a law-suit, their
conduct “might be regarded as ungracious and
vacillating,” and that he cannot presume to advise
them which alternative to accept. As the Senatus
was composed at that time of men of remarkably
high spirit, who were also in an irritated frame of
mind, it could not be doubtful which alternative they
would choose. Of course they elected to throw prud-
ence to the winds, and to fight the Town Council.
They sent a long letter to the Town Council,
regretting that a conference had been denied them,
and proposing to state on paper what they would
have said at such a conference. Their letter begins
blandly, but soon relapses into threats, intimating
that they "will have no hesitation in maintaining
their right to prescribe the regulations for Aca-
demical honours. The rest is a long argument
to prove-first, that making Midwifery immediately
compulsory would not be any great advantage to
Dr. Hamilton; and secondly, that it would be a
great injustice to Students who had already com-
menced their course. But the reasoning employed
to establish the first point was destructive of the
30
(1825.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
second; for they asserted that by the immediate
introduction of the rule, not more than one in
twenty of the candidates for Graduation would be
added to Dr. Hamilton's class. In other words,
nineteen out of twenty of all the Medical Students
already attended it. So that out of the one hundred
and forty Medical graduates (which was the highest
number in any one year reached in the University
at that time) only seven would be affected by it.
And yet the Senatus were ready to go to law to
protect these seven Students from hardship. But,
of course, they were really fighting, not for the
Students, but for their own privileges as a Senatus,
and they would have been quite right to do so had
there been any reasonable prospect of success.
The Town Council, conscious of power, sent an
incisive answer. They pointed out that, as the
governing body of a University, they were trustees
for the public, and that the interests of the public
demanded that Students with an imperfect Medical
education should not be graduated, and so licensed
to practise. They said that the Senatus had brought
matters to such a pass that the Town Council could
not give way to them without making a substantial
concession of the legal rights and powers with which
they had been invested. As advised by their
counsel, they ordered the Senatus to issue the
notice,' which had been prescribed to them, before
a certain day; failing which, the Lord Provost and
1
1 i.e. That henceforth no Student would be admitted to a Medical
degree who had not previously qualified in Midwifery.
1825.] THE PATRONS THREATEN A VISITATION.
31
Magistrates, as Patrons of the University, would
hold a Visitation within the Senate Hall of the said
College for the purpose of taking effectual measures
to add the class of Midwifery to the curriculum for
a Medical degree.
And now, being thoroughly “on the war-path,”
they proceeded to harass the enemy in other direc-
tions. They demanded afresh the accounts of the
Matriculation Fund. These the Senatus at last
furnished, with a long account of the history and
state of the Library, and an earnest appeal to the
Patrons not to lower the matriculation fee. On the
21st October 1825 the Town Council sanctioned
the existing rate of matriculation fees, and then flew
off to attack the Professors on a new point that of
the “small fees,” being sums of a few shillings,
which were levied on the Students in the different
classes, according to old usage, for coals and class-
servants, laboratory expenses, etc. They enjoined
that the practice of doorkeepers taking gratuities
from the Students should be immediately stopped ;
and they added somewhat spitefully that this was
the more necessary “since the Medical Students
would now be subjected to an additional expense,
on account of their being obliged to attend the
Midwifery Class.” It may have been the case that
these old customs of the University required looking
into; but a sudden and spasmodic interference with
them, when they had been so long let alone, bore
evident traces of the animosity of the moment.
The Senatus, at sore disadvantage, stood at bay.
a
32
[1825.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
On the 31st October they wrote expressing their
regret that the Patrons should have resolved on
"the unseemly exhibition of a contest for power,
with some show of violence in its exercise.” They
declared that the proposed Visitation threatened to
destroy discipline among the Students, and to ruin
the University. They ended by saying that they
could no longer bear to have their time wasted and
their minds distracted by such disputes, and there-
fore that they would petition for a Royal Commission
to settle the respective rights of the Town Council
and the Senatus. And accordingly a petition, drawn
up by Mr. Thomson, was forthwith despatched to
the Right Hon. R. Peel, Home Secretary, with a full
statement of the case, and praying that Extraordinary
Commissioners might be appointed to deal with it.
The Town Council now wrote announcing a
" Visitation of the College" to take place on the
roth November 1825. The letter was signed “W.
Trotter, Lord Provost and Rector."
On the 8th November the Senatus wrote with
ironical politeness requesting to be informed what
were the "formalities, which the Patrons proposed
themselves to observe (in the Visitation), as well as
those which they expected to be observed by the
Senatus," as there was no precedent for such a
ceremony in the modern annals of the University.
They also adverted to the title of “Rector" assumed
by the Lord Provost in writing, observing that
“the office to which that title corresponds is wholly
unknown in the actual administration of the Univer-
1825.1
33
THE VISITATION OF THE UNIVERSITY.
1
sity,” and soliciting some information “as to the
objects and powers assigned to this office.”
To this Lord Provost Trotter sent a good-
tempered reply, as he could well afford to do. He
said, most truly, that the Senatus had brought on
the whole dispute by the terms of their letter of 3d
June 1824; and that it would have been well if they
had attended to “the luminous views as to their
situation, which the Professors had recently received
from a very learned Judge, perhaps the highest
legal authority in Scotland, then one of their own
number.” With respect to the Visitation, he and the
Town Council proposed to robe in the Principal's
chambers and proceed to the Senate Hall, where he
would read the Act of Visitation requiring the
Senatus to acquiesce in the rules for Medical degrees
which the Town Council ordered. If the Senatus
refused, this would be the ground of legal proceed-
ings. “The Patrons wished that no parade should
attend their Visitation." It was in fact to be a
matter of business.
With regard to the title of
Rector, the Lord Provost said that it looked as if
the Senatus had been consulting a different set of
records from those in the hands of the Town Coun-
cil. Indeed, the Senatus had laid themselves open
to the imputation of ignorance as to the history of
the College in the seventeenth century. To en-
lighten them the Lord Provost enclosed copies of
the regulations for the office of Rector enacted in
1)
1 Though the word "recently” is used, this would seem to refer to
the opinion given by Professor Hume in 1810.
VOL. II.
D
34
[1825.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
1640, and of the Act of Council of roth November
1665. It was nevertheless the case that the office of
Rector had really fallen into desuetude, and to rake
up the title upon this occasion was rather absurd.
On the 10th November the Visitation took place.
The Senatus assembled along one side of the table
in the Senate Hall, and sent the Janitor with the
Mace to usher in the Lord Provost and Council,
who were robing in the Principal's chambers. They
came in, in full costume, preceded by the University
Mace and followed by officers bearing the City Mace
and Sword. They occupied the other side of the
table, and the Lord Provost read a requisition to
the Senatus to modify their Statuta Solennia. Prin-
cipal Baird read a reply, asserting the exclusive
right of the Senatus to regulate the conditions for
degrees, and stating that they could not comply
with the requisition. The Act of Visitation was
then read by the Lord Provost, enacting and declar-
ing that from that date Midwifery was a necessary
subject for degrees in Medicine, and also that no
degree should henceforth be conferred by the
Senatus, except in accordance with the terms of the
Act.
The Lord Provost ended up the meeting with
remarks which were no doubt meant to be compli-
mentary and soothing, but which the Senatus per-
haps, under the circumstances, felt to be patronising
and unwelcome. He said: “While I discharge
this duty, allow me, Gentlemen, to assure you of the
anxious and affectionate solicitude with which the
1826.]
35
THE VISITATION OF THE UNIVERSITY.
9
Patrons always regard your important labours, and
to return you our grateful acknowledgments for
the zeal and assiduity with which these labours are
discharged; to express the pleasure, and permit me
to say the pride, with which we contemplate the
splendid and powerful talents, which, in your
Academical labours, are so usefully and honourably
employed; and to assure you that the high character
which the College of Edinburgh has so long main-
tained renders our office and character of Patrons
one of the most honourable distinctions which any
body in the Kingdom enjoys. Mr. Principal and
Gentlemen, I avail myself of this opportunity to
express to you my earnest wishes for your prosperity
and happiness."
The practical reply which the Senatus made to
these somewhat empty compliments was to resolve
that a contribution of at least £ 5 should be collected
from each Professor to meet the cost of litigation
with the Town Council, and to be repaid from the
first available fund. . In fact the Senatus were
secretly buoyed up at this time by knowing that
General Reid's Bequest of more than £ 50,000 must
soon fall in to them, to be almost at their absolute
disposal. They felt that the “sinews of war" would
ultimately be provided from this source; and this
led them to fight perhaps with too light a heart.
In the spring of 1826 the Town Council, full of
governing activity, wrote to say, with regard to
“small fees," that it would be desirable that each
Professor should exhibit in the Library a schedule
a
36
[1826.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
of what was to be exacted by him from the Students
in the shape both of class fees and of small dues.
The Senatus at once protested against the sugges-
tion as degrading to themselves as a body, and to
the Professors individually. There is a certain
delicacy about the fees in all professions which is
generally respected. And it can easily be under-
stood that a Professor, holding a good position in
society, would dislike to put up a notice that every
Student coming to him should pay 5s. "towards
coals and cleaning,” though it might be understood
that this was the arrangement.
But the Town
Council, in spite of the fine words of the Lord
Provost, showed no consideration for the feelings of
the Senatus.
On the 25th August 1826 the Senatus must
have fancied that their deliverance was at hand, for
on that day there arrived a letter from the Solicitor-
General, announcing that a Royal Commission had
been issued for a Visitation of the Universities and
Colleges of Scotland, who were to meet "in the
College at Edinburgh," on the 31st August, and
requesting that proper accommodation should be
provided.
The Commissioners were, the Duke of Gordon
(Chancellor of King's College, Aberdeen); the
Duke of Montrose (Chancellor of the University of
Glasgow); the Marquis of Huntly (Chancellor of
Marischall College); the Earl of Aberdeen (Rector
of King's College); Robert, Viscount Melville
(Chancellor of the University of St. Andrews); the
a
a
a
و
1826.] APPOINTMENT OF A ROYAL COMMISSION.
37
Earls of Rosebery and Mansfield; Lord Binning;
the Lord President (C. Hope); the Lord Justice-
Clerk (Boyle); the chief Baron (Sir S. Shepherd);
the chief Commissioner of the Jury Court (W.
Adam); the Lord Advocate (Sir W. Rae); the
Solicitor-General (John Hope); the Dean of Faculty
(Cranstoun); and the Reverend Drs. Taylor
and Cook. To these, five others were shortly
added : the Earl of Lauderdale; Sir Walter Scott;
the Rev. Dr. Lee (afterwards Principal); Henry
Home Drummond; and James Moncreiff (afterwards
Lord Moncreiff). At their first meeting they elected
Lord Aberdeen to be Chairman, but he soon resigned
the position, and was succeeded by the then Lord
Rosebery, grandfather of the present Earl, who, with
great assiduity and ability, conducted all the pro-
ceedings of the Commission till its close.
Some clauses in the deed of Commission evi-
dently pointed to the state of matters in Edinburgh.
Thus it spoke of “Our Sovereign Lord ” “ being
informed that certain irregularities, disputes, and
deficiencies have occurred in the Universities of
Scotland, calculated to impair the utility of those
establishments.” But a far wider scope was given
to this great Commission than the mere function of
settling the disputes between the Town Council and
the Senatus of the University of Edinburgh. The
Commissioners were required to frame, by the ist
January 1828, a Code of Rules, Statutes, and Ordin-
ances, for each University and College; which
Statutes, when approved by His Majesty, were to
38
[1826.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
be issued, and thereafter to be observed in all time
coming in such Universities and Colleges, until
altered or revoked by authority of His Majesty.
The Commission was signed by Peel.
One of those who took a leading part in the
work of the Commission was the Solicitor-General
for Scotland (John Hope); he drew
;
up
the “Requisi-
tions for Returns and Heads of Enquiry,” which the
Commission issued on the 5th September to all
the Universities, ordering answers to be sent in
by the 27th. This was an able, searching, and
exhaustive document, which prepared the way for
the thorough and masterly report ultimately arrived
at by the Commissioners. 1
As the Commission which they had invoked was
now sitting within the same walls as themselves, 2
the Senatus promptly endeavoured to get their dis-
pute with the Town Council removed from the Law
Courts to the arbitration of the Commission. They
wrote to the Town Council suggesting that this
should be done, and at the same time sent a state-
ment of their case to the Commission. But the
Town Council, on the one hand, declined to accede
to the proposal, and on the other hand the Com-
mission passed a resolution that, while an Action
of Declarator was pending, they would not pronounce
i In the copy sent to the University of Edinburgh the term gener-
ally used is "the College of Edinburgh.” Thus article 14 speaks of
“the different Faculties established in the said College." But in refer-
ence to the conferring of degrees it speaks of “the University.”
2 The Commission held all its meetings in the Principal's chambers
in the University of Edinburgh, though they occasionally sent out
delegates to collect evidence in the other Universities.
1827.] PROCEDURE OF THE ROYAL COMMISSION.
39
A
1
any judgment or opinion on the matters at issue.
This was, of course, a disappointment.
The Commissioners in another way began to
exhibit a paternal interest in the University. In
January 1827, at the suggestion of the Chairman,
Lord Aberdeen, they offered a prize of one hundred
guineas for an essay, to be competed for by the
Students, the subject being “the national character
of the Athenians, and the causes of those peculiarities
by which it was distinguished.” The Principal and
the Faculty of Arts were to be the judges in this
competition. This prize excited great interest
among the Students, and was keenly competed for.
In October the result was announced to the Com-
missioners. Mr. John Brown Patterson, Student
of Divinity, was found to be the author of the best
essay. But the judges considered three of the other
.
essays also to be of remarkable merit. The Com-
missioners begged that the names of the authors
might be ascertained, and they turned out to be
Allan Menzies, John Murray, and George Deas.
On these three gentlemen the Senatus conferred the
degree of Master of Arts extra ordinem,-a proced-
ure which shows how loose the practice with regard
to Arts Graduation was at that time, a degree being
conferred as the reward of a creditable essay. On
the 17th November Mr. Patterson's essay was read
in the Chemistry class-room before a distinguished
See Appendix N. JOHN BROWN PATTERSON.
2 Allan Menzies afterwards became Professor of Conveyancing in
the University. George Deas is now a venerable and highly respected
Lord of Session in the First Division of the Court.
3 This is the largest class-room in Robert Adam's building (finished
2
3
a
1
40
[1829.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
audience, the Members for the City, the Ministers,
and Town Council, etc., being invited. The Com-
missioners expressed admiration for the essay, and
ordered it to be printed. But after “ Athenian
Aberdeen” (as Byron called him) had retired from
the Chairmanship they did not repeat their encourage-
ment to literary effort.
They continued most assiduously to prosecute
their task, as the huge volumes of evidence which
they collected may testify. It will be more con-
venient to conclude in this place a brief account of
their action in regard to the University of Edinburgh,
and of the conclusions which they arrived at during
their four years of existence as a Commission. In
August 1829, that is, after they had been three years
in office, they sent to the Senatus the draft of a
Scheme for courses of study, without a word of
intimation as to their ideas of the constitution and
government of the University. This omission, and
the character of the document which they sent, must
have struck consternation into the minds of the
Senatus. The whole quarrel with the Town Council
had arisen from the proud unwillingness of the
Medical Professors to accept external dictation upon
a single point. And now the Senatus found the
Commission which they had invoked to save them
from such dictation saying not a word against their
enemies, and, on the other hand, acting the part of a
veritable King Stork,—dictating to every Faculty
by Playfair). It will soon lose its designation (1883) when Chemistry
is transferred to the new buildings.
1829.] PROCEDURE OF THE ROYAL COMMISSION.
41
on every part of its curriculum. In their vexation
they reported very critically upon the scheme of
studies, and expressed disappointment that no con-
stitution for the University should have been drawn
up,--that being “the primary object” for which His
Majesty had appointed the present Commission.
On this the Commissioners minuted that these
observations were irregular and uncalled for, and
that the formation of a Constitution for the Univer-
sity of Edinburgh was not the main or principal
object for which a Visitation was appointed. How-
ever, they were stimulated to complete what they
had really been long considering, and within three
days they adopted the form of constitution which it
seemed to them should be given to the University
of Edinburgh.
It was almost identical with that
Constitution which became law by the Act of 1858,
and under which the University now is.
The following differences may, however, be
noted :-
(1.) By the plan of the Commissioners there was
to be a Chancellor nominated by the Crown; where-
as, by the Act, he is elected by the General Council.
(2.) The Rector was to be chosen by the
Senatus and Graduates ; whereas he is now elected
by the Students.
(3.) The Rector's tenure of office was to be for
seven years; whereas now it is for three.
(4.) He was to undertake, by acceptance of office,
to be a working Rector ; whereas actually the office
of Lord Rector is, most often, only ornamental.
42
[1829.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
(5.) The University Court was to be of seven
members, with a quorum of four; whereas, by the
addition of the Lord Provost, the members have
been increased to eight, and the quorum is five.
(6.) The Court were to inquire into and control
the Revenues and Expenditure, the administration of
the funds being thus left in the hands of the Town
Council ; whereas subsequent legislation has trans-
ferred it to the Senatus, under control of the Court.
(7.) There was no provision for a General
Council of the Graduates.
(8.) The Principal was to have the duty of
inspecting the Professors and their classes ; whereas
no such function now belongs to him.
(9.) There was one remarkable omission in the
plan of the Commissioners : that they made no
express mention of the way in which regulations for
Graduation were to be enacted (this being the very
point on which the expectations of the Senatus
Academicus of Edinburgh were centred). Perhaps
the Commissioners were unconsciously under the
impression that their own code for degrees would
be sufficient and final. They proposed, however,
to give the Court a power of originating “improve-
ments on the internal system of the University, after
communication with the Senatus, and with the
sanction of the Chancellor." And perhaps they
intended changes in the rules for Graduation to
come under the head of internal improvements.
But the present system is better, by which rules for
Graduation have been laid down by Ordinances, and
1829.) THE SCHEME OF THE COMMISSIONERS.
43
But very,
no alteration in these can take place without the
sanction, not only of the Chancellor, but also of the
Privy Council.
(10.) They would have left the patronage of the
Professorships and of the office of Librarian in
the hands of the thirty-three members of Town
Council; whereas, by the Act, the appointments
are made by seven Curators, four of whom are
nominated by the Town Council, and three by the
University Court.
With this proposed constitution the Senatus
were, on the whole, well satisfied, though they
wished it modified in some respects.
different was their reception of the Commissioners
"Scheme of Studies," which naturally alarmed so
Conservative a body as the Professors then were.
The following are some of the more striking features
of the scheme : The Commissioners recommended
(1) that Rhetoric and Logic should be again united
under one Chair, i.e. that the Chair of Rhetoric
should be abolished; (2) that a Chair of Political
Economy should be instituted; (3) that the Chair
of Practical Astronomy should be abolished; (4)
also that of Civil History; (5) also that of Agricul-
ture, unless a class could be obtained and regularly
taught; (6) that the Chair of Public Law should be
6
abolished, and changed into one more useful, e.g.,
Criminal Law; (7) that Surgery should be separated
from Anatomy, and erected into a separate Chair.
These bold innovations were suggested by a
state of things of which hardly any trace now
44
[1829.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
remains in the University. There were then
several Chairs, the incumbents of which did not
teach at all. The Chairs of Public Law and Prac-
tical Astronomy were in that condition, and the
teaching of Agriculture was intermittent, while the
Professors of Civil History and of Rhetoric were
willing enough to teach, but were attended by very
slender classes, their subjects not being necessary
for Graduation. It does not seem to have occurred
to the Commission that they might foster the subject
of any particular Chair by bringing it into the degree
system. This they should certainly have done
with regard to Civil History and Rhetoric, instead
of proposing to abolish such important Chairs.
They were right in wishing to have a Chair of
Political Economy, but this should have been in
addition to and not in lieu of the Chair of History.
They were, of course, absolutely right in proposing
that Surgery should be separated from Anatomy.
They recommended also (8) that there should be
a Chair of Mental Diseases; (9) that the examina-
tions in the Medical Faculty should be conducted in
English; (10) that there should be a degree in
Surgery, but only one degree in Medicine. (11)
They proposed to do away with the system of joint-
Professors. A Professor, when superannuated, was
to be allowed by the University Court to resign,
and under their sanction a portion of the emolu-
ments of his successor was to be granted to him.
1
1 As they made no provision for retiring pensions this alteration
would have been only a slight improvement.
1829.] THE SCHEME OF THE COMMISSIONERS.
45
(12) They proposed that the foundation of any new
Professorship must, after approval by the Court, be
made with sanction of the Crown. (13) In their
curriculum of Arts they proposed to give up the
third year to Second Mathematics and a class of
Elementary Logic and Rhetoric, which was to be
held twice a day. Metaphysics, they considered,
should be combined with Moral Philosophy in the
fourth year. (14) They were for forbidding Greek
grammar to be taught in the University. Persons
were to "profess” themselves competent to commence
reading the Greek classics, and then to be enrolled as
public Students in the first Greek class. Else, they
might join as private Students, and be examined in
Greek grammar at Christmas, and so become public
Students, In the same way persons joining the
first Mathematical class were to “profess” that they
knew four Books of Euclid, and Algebra to simple
equations. These regulations for Entrants were
.
not, however, to take effect for three years. (15)
They proposed to allow Entrants, after private
examination, to be enrolled for a three years' cur-
riculum. (16) The degree in Arts was to be two-
fold, the Bachelor's and the Master's degree. The
standard for a pass B.A. in the Commissioners'
scheme was about equal to that for a pass M.A.
Honours were to be obtainable in connection
with the B.A. degree in two grades, to be called
“Honourable Distinction "and “ Highest Honours."
The latter might be taken either in Literature or
Science; thus affording a bifurcation of subjects.
»
now.
46
[1829.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
1
The M.A. degree was to be taken a year after the
B.A. The Candidate in the meantime must have
attended classes of Natural History, Chemistry, and
Political Economy,' and must bring up, at his own
option, some branch of Literature, Philosophy, or
Science; in which very high attainments would be
expected.
(17) Four examiners for B.A. and two for M.A.
were to be appointed by the Senatus. They were
not to examine their own pupils (i.e. they were not
to be Professors); they were to be ex officio members
of Senatus.
With regard to Divinity, the Commissioners
proposed (18) to establish a Chair of Biblical Criti-
cism, and to introduce a Bachelor of Divinity degree
only obtainable by Masters of Arts, after examina-
tion, as now. They also proposed to open the
degree of Doctor of Divinity to the Bachelors of
Divinity of five years' standing, by subsequent
examination.
The curriculum of Laws (19) was to consist of
one year in Civil Law, two years in Scots Law, and
one year in Conveyancing. The degree was to be
that of Doctor of Laws, and was only to be open
to those who had graduated in Arts.
Such was the scheme of the Royal Commis-
sioners; and looking back upon it from the stand-
a
1 This was a strange device. It was giving unnatural protection to
a favourite subject. Civil History might just as well have stood here.
But the list of subjects implies an aiming at varied information, and,
in so far, a false idea of the aims which should direct the highest Uni-
versity education.
1829.] THE SCHEME OF THE COMMISSIONERS.
47
.
point of experience, we can see how enlightened in
most of its features it was. It is pleasing to observe
now how many of the ideas of the Commissioners
have been either realised or improved upon. Thus,
(1) the University has now acquired a Chair of
Political Economy, (2) also a Chair of Surgery, (3)
also a Chair of Biblical Criticism, (4) also a Lecture-
ship on Mental Diseases. (5) The degree in
Surgery has been introduced, (6) also the degree of
Bachelor of Divinity, (7) also a degree in Laws,
though not called LL.D. (8) The Examinations
for Medical Graduation have been long conducted
in English. (9) Joint-Professors have been abolished,
and retiring pensions provided for superannuated
Professors. (10) The examination for a three years
. (
curriculum in Arts has been adopted. The Com-
missioners' proposals for the abolition of Chairs have
been wisely set aside. The only point in which the
present practice of the University falls short of their
ideas is in the regulation of the course of studies in
the Arts Faculty from entrance to Graduation.
Those ideas were not perfect, but they contain a
higher conception of University education than has
been subsequently realised.
But if we take the point of view of the time
when this scheme was published, we must see that
it contains many crudities, and a considerable want
of consideration for the Professors of those days.
The Commissioners should have told the Govern-
ment that their views could not be carried out
without money, both to pay for new things and to
48
(1829.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
а.
compensate injury to vested interests. They made
no mention of this, and they proposed the appoint-
ment of Examiners, and of Assistants to Professors,
without any hint of the source from which they were
to be paid. Their scheme would have diminished
the number of Students; and, regardless of this,
they proposed in some cases to diminish Professors
emoluments, while increasing their labour in various
ways not hitherto mentioned, but which will emerge
in the remarks of the Senatus.
The Senatus naturally protested against the
scheme in detail. Many of their criticisms were
just, while others were conceived in a too narrow
and conservative spirit: (1) They generally charac-
terised the proposed improvements as “speculative;"
they stated their opinion (2) that to increase the
number of hours which each Professor must teach
would produce “lassitude, exhaustion, and disgust
in the Student," while it would deter eminent men
from taking Professorships ; (3) that to extend the
winter course to six months and the summer course
to five months would abolish private study; (4)
that an Entrance Examination, to be conducted
by a Board of Examiners, was a proposal “wholly
unnecessary, pregnant with consequences the most
dangerous, unjust, and cruel, and encroaching on
the rights of the public.”
Then followed protests of the separate Faculties :
-The Faculty of Divinity said that Theological de-
grees must not be given for “intellectual attainment
alone.” They added two remarks curiously incon-
1829.] THE SCHEME OF THE COMMISSIONERS.
49
"
sistent with each other: first, they said that to
associate a Committee of the Presbytery of the
Bounds with Professors in examining for degrees,
would be an infringement of "the chartered rights
of Universities;” secondly, they said that “the
wisest regulations which human wisdom can frame
will be of no avail, except in so far as the Church
acquiesces in them.” Thus they were for conceding
to the Church the architectonic function of legislating
for degrees, while they would refuse to representa-
tives of the Church the practical and minor function
of serving as examiners.
The Laws Faculty reported their opinion that
the changes proposed by the Commissioners would
"very materially injure the interests of the Univer-
sity and the advancement of the study of Law in
Scotland."
They pointed out that the hours of
teaching (which the Commissioners had proposed
to prescribe) must be fixed in consideration both of
Students who had to attend offices, and of Professors
who might require to attend the sittings of the
Court.
The Medical Faculty maintained that they them-
selves ? had introduced an extension of medical
studies, such as had not been initiated either in
Dublin, Oxford, or Cambridge. They deprecated
a high standard of Preliminary Examinations as
likely to deter Students from entering the University
1
? This was not absolutely correct. The Faculty had resisted the
introduction of several Chairs, which were ultimately forced upon them
by the Town Council or the Crown.
VOL. II.
E
50
[1829.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
at all. They reasonably objected to a five months'
.
summer course as too burdensome both for Students
and Teachers.
The Arts Faculty protested against the pro-
posed Entrance Examination. They said that to
raise the qualifications for entrance into the lan-
guage classes without hinting at any improvement
in the primary Schools was preposterous; and that
the standard in Greek proposed by the Commis-
sioners was so far beyond the level of those Schools
that if it were insisted on it would extinguish the
teaching of Greek in them altogether. They quoted
the instance of a youth of twenty who entered the
Junior Humanity class in October 1826, having
previously studied Latin only eighteen months in a
remote parish school. His knowledge of the lan-
guage was so imperfect that it would have insured
his rejection by any Board of Preliminary Exam-
iners; yet so rapid was his progress, that in the
month of March following he took the lead in almost
every branch of the business, and gained the two
highest prizes. In the next session, having joined
the senior class, he carried off the first prize for
Latin verses, "against a formidable array of com-
petitors from English as well as Scotch schools.
The Faculty cited this as “a strong, but by no
means a solitary, instance of extraordinary profi-
ciency in the class of youth, whom the proposed
resolution would exclude from the benefits of a
College education.” They protested that the ap-
pointment of a body of extra-Professorial Examiners
а.
1829.] THE SCHEME OF THE COMMISSIONERS.
51
would be an indignity to themselves; and that to
extend the Winter session to seven months would
co-operate with the Entrance Examination in ex-
cluding a numerous class of meritorious Students.
The Faculty, however, expressed their concurrence
with the Commissioners as to the desirability of
introducing public examinations for Arts degrees,
and of “increasing the difficulty of obtaining de-
grees,” in order to give them greater value. And
they generally acquiesced in the standard for B.A.
and M.A. proposed by the Commissioners.
Several of the Professors sent in separately their
remarks on the scheme. The most interesting of
these communications is the brief paper submitted
by Dr. Chalmers. In it he says that he "thinks
well of the primary enactment of the Commissioners,
which provides for a high preparatory education, and
furthermore thinks that there is nothing in the cir-
cumstances of the country which should prevent the
adoption of it at the time specified in the scheme.”
But he points out that the subsequent proposals of
the Commissioners are not consistent with that
primary enactment; (1) that, after requiring the
Students to be highly educated before entering the
University, the Commissioners propose to treat them
after entry as schoolboys, with multiplied tasks and
minute supervision ; (2) that the scheme, while
annihilating the junior classes in Greek and Mathe-
matics, makes no provision for indemnifying the
Professors, and indeed that, instead of doing this, it
proposes a reduction of class fees; (3) that high
;
52
[1830.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
work and cheap work in a University cannot be
amalgamated. Hence that the proposals of the
Commissioners are destructive of each other.
These brief remarks were characteristic of the
insight of Chalmers and of his genius for organisa-
tion. It is of great interest to observe that, more
.
than half a century ago, he saw nothing in the
circumstances of the country to prevent the in-
troduction of an Entrance Examination, pro-
vided that three years' warning were given to the
Schools.
The Royal Commissioners held their last meet-
ing on the 28th October 1830, when their General
Report was finally revised and ordered to be signed
and transmitted, with printed copies of their codes
of Laws for the several Universities of Scotland, to
the Secretary of State. The Senatus must now
have had divided feelings, desiring on the one hand
that the constitution drawn by the Commissioners
should become law, on the other hand that their
scheme of studies should not do so. But both their
hopes and their fears were belied; for more than six
years no result of the Commission appeared. At last,
in 1837, Lord Melbourne brought in a Bill appointing
a Board of Visitors for each of the Universities of
Scotland, the Principals in each case to be members
of their respective Boards. These Boards were in
fact to be Executive Commissions to carry out with
modifications, after receiving the views of each
Senatus, the recommendations of the Royal Com-
mission. They were to draw up statutes and regu-
а.
1837.]
53
LORD MELBOURNE'S BILL.
lations, which, after being approved by the Privy
Council, would become law. This Bill, however,
met with such strenuous opposition in Scotland, not
only from the Town Council of Edinburgh, but also
from the General Assembly, that the Government
decided to let it drop. Thus the report of the
Royal Commissioners, like a strong wine, was left
to mellow for twenty-eight years.
In the meantime, as might have been expected,
the Law Courts had decided against the defendants,
in the case of the Magistrates of Edinburgh versus the
Senatus Academicus of the University. In Novem-
ber 1827 Lord Mackenzie found that the pursuers
"have right of making regulations for the College of
King James " in respect of rules for studies, as well as
other matters. And that the Senatus have no right
of making regulations "in contradiction to the Pur-
On the other hand, that it does not appear
that the Senatus acted absolutely illegally in making
statutes, so long as these were not forbidden or
rescinded by the Town Council. On the last ground
he decreed costs to neither party.
The Law Faculty, however, not yet satisfied,
unanimously recommended that the Senatus should
immediately take steps for bringing this judgment
of the Lord Ordinary under review of the Court.
The case then started afresh, under an appeal to the
Second Division. It ran on for more than a year, ,
and documents on both sides were printed which
filled a large quarto volume. The Lord Justice
Clerk said that the case "exceeded in bulk every
suers."
54
[1829.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
case that he ever saw.” In January 1829 Lords
Glenlee, Pitmilly, Alloway, and the Lord Justice
Clerk, unanimously confirmed the judgment of Lord
Mackenzie, as being exactly what should have been
given. The Judges agreed that “the Colleges ” of
Scotland stood each on a different footing from the
others, and Lord Glenlee said that “the situation of
the College of Edinburgh was that of a minor cor-
poration subordinate to the corporation of the City
and Town Council.” He added the somewhat hazy
remark that “the right of conferring degrees is not
derived from the Town Council but belongs to the
College, as a necessary effect of its erection into a
University.” He did not mention at what period it
"
was so erected, and he seems to have forgotten that
from its very outset degrees were conferred by the
College of Edinburgh.
It must have lent additional bitterness to the
defeat of the Senatus that Lord Pitmilly pronounced
a eulogy upon the general administration of the
patrons and on their particular action with regard to
the teaching of Midwifery; and that two of the
Judges expressed an opinion that, apart from the
law of the case, it was not clearly a matter of
expediency that the Professors should be emanci-
pated. “It is notorious,” said one, “that formerly
the Universities of Europe assumed great and some-
times dangerous powers, and have occasionally given
rise to much turbulence, under pretence of their
privileges. It is not likely, perhaps, that this should
again happen ; but I do not see any good reason
1829.]
55
JUDGMENT OF THE COURT OF SESSION.
for indulging the defenders in the fancy they have
now taken to vindicate their independence.”
The only crumb of comfort which the Senatus
could gather out of these judgments lay in the
concluding words of the Lord Justice Clerk (Boyle).
He said: “I must add that I do not admire the
time and manner in which the Magistrates have
brought this question to issue. In consequence of
the appointment of the Royal Commission, the
whole affairs of the College are under their con-
sideration; and I think that at this time, it might
have been as well to have allowed the present ques-
tion to sleep, without calling on us to decide it here."
After all, however, it was a question of legal rights,
and it is difficult to see how these could have been
settled by the Royal Commission. The Town
Council were obviously right in refusing to submit
to the arbitration of such a body, when they could
get the far more satisfactory decision of a Court of
Law. The Senatus, by asserting an “exclusive
right" to regulate degrees, and by refusing to obey
the “Act of Visitation,” had really forced the Town
Council into the course which they adopted."
The Senatus having been publicly defeated in
the Courts of Law by the Town Council, had now
to acknowledge themselves defeated in private by
1 In November 1830 a bill of £610 for expenses in defending the
action brought by the Town Council was sent in. Four Professors
(Hope, Duncan, Graham, and Alison) then offered to lend the
amount to the Senatus. Which offer was accepted ; the Senatus
binding themselves and their successors to repay the amount with
interest, and making it a first charge upon the produce of the Reid
Bequest.
56
[1832.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
Dr. Hamilton. We have seen before (p. 23) that
early in 1825 they had passed sharp resolutions
upon his conduct, which he demanded to have
cancelled. For seven years he persisted in renewing
this demand, and in March 1832 he commenced
legal proceedings against them. The Senatus,
having perhaps had enough of law, took a step
which formed a remarkable contrast to their recent
utterances and attitude—they resolved to "submit
to the final decision of the Lord Rector, whether any
and what Minutes and Reports of their Body should
be cancelled.” This was the first time that the
Senatus, since it had become a Senatus, recognised
the authority of the Lord Provost as Lord Rector.
In fact, they had a few years before (p. 32) disputed
this title. But their law-suit had taught them
history.
Dr. Hamilton, being informed of this resolution,
wrote to say that he declined all arbitration except
that of a Court of Law. And the Lord Provost then
intimated that, under the circumstances, he was
unable to undertake the office of mediation which
the Senatus had done him the honour to propose
for him.
On the 7th April 1832 the Senatus inquired
which of its members were ready to stand to their
guns in an action brought by Dr. Hamilton junior.
It appeared that thirteen, including the Principal,
would do so; six Professors were of too recent
appointment to be implicated; four said that they
had not been concerned, and did not wish to be
a
1832.)
57
DR. HAMILTON VICTORIOUS.
concerned in the matter. Professors Pillans and
Napier now moved that the Senatus, rather than
have their private differences brought before the
public, should agree to expunge from their Minute
book all traces of the quarrel. This was carried by
a majority of two. Consequently several pages of
the Minutes were obliterated, and we are left in
ignorance what were the terms of the votes of cen-
sure which the Senatus, in their anger, had passed
upon Dr. Hamilton. And whether these were just
or unjust we can form no judgment.
About the same time the Town Council issued an
able set of regulations for the duties of the Janitor;
in which they intimated a rise in the matriculation
fee from los. to 128. 6d., and ordered the discon-
tinuance of all “small class fees,” except that of 5s.
to be paid by each student in Botany for the use
of the Garden.
Soon after Dr. Andrew Duncan, secundus, who
had for many years acted as Secretary of Senatus,
died. The Town Council then raised the question
whether it would not be better to have a Secretary
appointed who was not a Member of Senatus. In
so doing, they confined their attention to the purely
business and mechanical part of a Secretary's duties.
The Senatus, on the other hand, pointed out the
higher qualifications necessary for their Secretary,
such as knowledge of the history and constitution of
the University, Academic feeling and ability to
correspond with foreigners and persons of high
standing ; qualifications which, they submitted, could
58
[1833
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
not be obtained outside the Senatus, except at a
salary which there were no funds to provide.
After much fencing on both sides, the Town
Council, in January 1833, created the new appoint-
ment of “General Secretary of the University," with an
office in the buildings and nearly all the emoluments
formerly received by the Secretary of Senatus. He
was to keep the University records, conduct corre-
spondence, matriculate Students, supervise discipline,
take charge of buildings, and make annual reports
to the Town Council.
As the first "General Secretary of the University,"
Mr. John Gordon, M.A.,' was appointed, with the
duties above mentioned, and to be employed by the
Senatus, if they should see fit, in a confidential
capacity to record their meetings. But the Senatus,
with a proper regard to their own dignity, declined
to receive an extra-Academical servant of the Town
Council as their confidential Secretary. And they
proceeded to elect Sir William Hamilton to be
Secretary of Senatus,” resolving to negotiate with
the Town Council for the continuance of an adequate
salary for him in that capacity.
1
1 This much-respected gentleman, who was a friend of Carlyle's
and of Professor Wilson's, was in 1825 Secretary to the Education
Committee of the General Assembly, and visited schools, especially
in the Western Highlands, for them. He became an authority in
education, and was in 1843 appointed the first Inspector of Schools
in Scotland. In 1845 he brought out the Statistical Account of Scot-
land, which he had drawn up in connection with Sir J. Sinclair. In
1874 he was made honorary LL.D. by the University. He was General
Secretary of the University from 1833 to 1843. No more modest or
accurate man could have been appointed to the post. He died in
1882.
1833.]
59
MR. GORDON APPOINTED SECRETARY,
The Town Council were now exhibiting great
activity in the government of the University. (It
may be observed that this was at the very time
when they had just brought their own municipal
affairs to bankruptcy.) It was an afterwave from
the unfortunate conflict of 1826, which had been
stirred up by the imprudence of the Senatus, and
which had resulted in establishing the absolute power
over the University of the Town Council. Their
edicts at this time showed considerable administra-
tive ability, but the manner of them was unnecessarily
harsh, ungracious, and humiliating.
In April 1833, without consulting the Senatus,
they intimated new arrangements for the Matricu-
lation Fund and its distribution. The fee was to
.
be raised from 12s. 6d. to 203 ; out of which the
"General Secretary” (Mr. Gordon) was to have
£150 fixed salary, and £30 for a house. No
mention was made of a salary for Sir W. Hamilton.
The Senatus then immediately put themselves
in the wrong; they expressed “extreme surprise,"
criticised in a very carping spirit all the arrange-
ments of the Town Council, and protested (errone-
ously, as time has shown) against the increase of
the matriculation fee, as “likely to drive away
Students to other Universities and extra-Academi-
cal seminaries."
On this the Town Council issued their final
orders. They said they “were satisfied that the
fears of the Senatus would ultimately prove ground-
less,” “and at any rate that the general improvement
60
[1834.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
3)
of the University is of more importance even than
the loss of a small number of Students.” Accord-
ingly they fixed the matriculation fee for a whole
year at 20s., and for the Summer session at ios.,
and intimated a variety of purposes to which the
additional funds would be applied, such as fire
insurance, and increasing the working facilities of
the Library. They said very ungraciously, that the
Senatus might for the present draw £ 50 a year
for
the payment of their Secretary, but that the Patrons
,
reserved their right to appoint a Secretary "to keep
the past records of the Senatus Academicus,” “and
even to record their immediate proceedings,-a duty
not conceived to be of any peculiar delicacy or
difficulty.”
During the year 1834 a good deal of fighting
took place on the subject of the Natural History
Museum. By an arrangement made in 1820, the
public were admitted to inspect the splendid collec-
tions which the Museum contained, on payment of
a fee of 25. 6d., which went to meet expenses. The
Town Council now took it into their heads to open
the Museum widely both to the public and to the
Students. They went to work unceremoniously, got
a report from their own servant, the “General
Secretary” (which was an improper course), disre-
garded the remonstrances of the Senatus, and issued
a ukase that the Museum was to be open at all hours
to the public on payment of a fee of one shilling.
Probably the Town Council were less right in this
instance than they often were in their contentions
1834.]
61
THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM.
with the Senatus. The University Museum was
intended, not to be a “lion" or raree-show for the
public, but to be a place and means for study. The
Senatus wished to keep it to this purpose, and they
would have always been glad to facilitate the access
to it of persons wishing to make special researches
in Natural History. The action of the Town
Council was also probably illegal, as the Museum
was Crown property, held for the University under
a Regius Keeper.
As if to make things more pleasant, two not
very wise Town Councillors moved that, as the
Professors' class fees had been raised in 1812, "on
account of the high rate of living, no longer existing,"
reasonable reductions in the fees should now be
made. This proposal met with an indignant reply
by the Senatus, who pointed out how inopportune it
was at a time when “ several of the Professors were
suffering from the pecuniary embarrassment of the
municipal government.” 1 This matter went no
farther, but it is mentioned to show the restless
spirit of interference which animated the Town
Council at that time, and which must have kept the
Senatus in a state of chronic irritation, combined
with a sense of insecurity.
In 1833, however, the Town Council had re-
ceived a great compliment upon their exercise of the
patronage of the University (as distinct from their
government of it). For it appears from the Com-
11
a
| The Principal and some of the Professors were kept out of their
salaries for more than three years owing to the bankruptcy of the City
62
[1838.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
mission to Sir Charles Bell as Professor of Surgery,
that, on the creation of Regius Professorships of
Pathology and Surgery, the Town Council had
applied to have the future patronage vested in
them, whereon His Majesty, acknowledging "the
liberal, impartial, and judicious use” which they
had always made of their patronage, transferred
to them by royal warrant the patronage of the two
Chairs.
There was a comparative lull in warfare for
three years, the Senatus during that time not arguing
with the Town Council, but urging Government
ever and anon to settle the bankrupt affairs of the
City, and to legislate for giving the University a
constitution. In 1837 came the disappointment of
Lord Melbourne's Bill for regulating the Universities
of Scotland being abandoned.
But in 1838 offensive operations were resumed.
There were some anomalies in the fees of the
Arts classes. It had been understood by the
Town Council that at the rearrangement of fees
in 1812 all the Arts classes were fixed at three
guineas each, with the exception perhaps of the
class of Moral Philosophy, which stood on
peculiarly favoured footing. It appears, however,
that the Professors of Logic, Mathematics, and
Natural Philosophy had come into the practice of
charging four guineas, the same as the fee of the
Professor of Moral Philosophy. Doubtless this
might require explanation, though no grievance had
been felt about the fees, else complaints would have
a

SEARSON
SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON, BART.
FROM A PORTRAIT BY JAMES ARCHER.

1838.] SIR W. HAMILTON AND THE TOWN COUNCIL.
63
been laid before the Royal Commission. But the
Town Council were, as usual, unfortunate in their
mode of procedure; without consulting the Senatus,
or hearing the parties concerned, they passed an Act
of Council, which got into the newspapers, and which
had the effect of throwing some imputation upon the
four Professors above mentioned. They ordained
the fees to be reduced to three guineas, except for
the class of Moral Philosophy. But Professor
Wilson here magnanimously came forward and ex-
pressed his desire to be placed on the same footing
as the other Professors of Philosophical classes.
The Senatus at the same time sent a long and
indignant protest, drawn up by the incisive pen of
Sir William Hamilton, against the proceeding of
the Town Council, and especially against the manner
of it.
The Town Council, like the bull who feels the
thrust of the picador, at once turned round upon Sir
William Hamilton. They wrote to say that they
had heard he had divided his subject of Logic and
Metaphysics into two separate courses of lectures,
charging a fee of three guineas for each, and re-
quested to know if this was the case. To this
question Sir W. Hamilton sent an elaborate reply:
Logic and Metaphysics were distinct subjects, and
could not be taught together; the Church required
every Divinity Student to learn Logic, but said
nothing about Metaphysics; therefore Hamilton's
immediate predecessor had dropped Metaphysics
out of his teaching; he himself had revived it in the
64
[1839.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
only possible way, as a separate class with a separate
fee. Whereupon the Town Council briefly pro-
nounced judgment : that “no more than one fee
is exigible by the Professor of Logic and Meta-
physics for a complete course on these subjects.”
The real point in Hamilton's favour was that it
had been a common practice for Professors to have
double classes, and that there was abundant prece-
dent for his procedure. This he might very well
have submitted in his first letter, but he did not do
so. And now the temptation was irresistible to show
the Town Council that they had got out of their
depth, and made themselves ridiculous, as they had
no conception of what was implied by "a complete
course of Logic and Metaphysics.” He rose to the
occasion, and sent off a tremendous letter, concluding
with an insinuation that the Town Council were
trying to punish him (as, indeed, perhaps they were)
for taking part in “calling them to account for a
signal act of contumely and injustice.” But in their
reply to this (January 1839) the Town Council vir-
tually gave way to Sir William Hamilton. They
said that he must give a course of Logic and Meta-
physics, of five lectures a week, during the Session,
but that if he wished in addition to have an optional
class of an advanced kind, charging for it the ordin-
ary fee for Philosophical classes, he might apply to
be allowed to do so.
This was surely all that was necessary under
the circumstances. Only Hamilton was too high-
spirited to apply for leave to do that which he con-
a
a
1839.] SIR W. HAMILTON AND THE TOWN COUNCIL.
65
ceived he had a right to do; and he would not
accept any pacification or compromise. He wrote
a letter, full of trenchant dialectic, asking the
Town Council what they meant by “lectures," and
showing that their deliverance involved at least
seven absurd propositions ! He really had one
grievance at this point, namely, that reporters seem
to have been allowed to publish partial accounts of
the controversy, tending to the prejudice of the
Professor. The Town Council prudently replied
that they declined to argue with Sir William
Hamilton, and that they adhered to their former
resolution. But this drew forth an overwhelming
rejoinder from the offended logician, asking again
what their resolution meant, and showing the
absurdity of their requiring him to include in his
lectures on Logic and Metaphysics "all the subjects
hitherto taught therein.” This, to which there was
no answer, concluded the correspondence. It was a
loss to the University that Sir W. Hamilton's
separate class in Metaphysics was put a stop to ;
but this was due to his own uncompromising temper,
as well as to the somewhat ignorant interference of
the Town Council.
The Senatus, stimulated by the recent quarrel,
petitioned Lord Melbourne to sever their connec-
tion with a body who treated their proceedings
“with indelicacy, not unmixed with contempt,” and
who "depressed Academical improvements by total
want of sympathy.” The Town Council, getting
hold of this petition, set their “College Committee"
VOL. II.
,
F
0
66
[1840.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
1
2
to answer it. And a very able report was accord-
ingly drawn up for transmission to Lord Melbourne,
and was afterwards published. It was full of inter-
esting particulars, and made out a very good case
for the government of the Town Council. With
regard to the charge made by the Senatus that the
Town Council thwarted improvements in the educa-
tion of the University, the Report maintained that,
so far from this, the only improvement suggested
by the Senatus, and not as yet carried out by the
Town Council, was the making History a necessary
subject in the Arts curriculum. Whereas, on the
other hand, the Senatus had constantly endeavoured
to thwart improvements proposed by the Town
Council, as, for instance, the making Midwifery a
compulsory subject, the creation of various Profes-
sorships, the raising of the matriculation fee, and
the opening of the Natural History Museum to the
public. The report said (not truly, however,)
(
that the real grievance of the Professors was the
regulation of their fees. And it gave an able, and
only slightly unfair, summary of the correspondence
1 The ability of the documents of the Town Council on University
matters at this time, is accounted for by the composition of the
College Committee, which, the Report says, consisted of eleven
members, two of whom were Advocates, two Writers to the Signet,
two Fellows of the College of Surgeons, and two Fellows of the Royal
Society of Edinburgh, and it was added that “the majority of the
Members of the present College Committee are known to the public
as authors.” This was a formidable conclave to encounter in epistol-
ary war, especially when they had legal right on their side.
2 The authors of the report forgot their suppression of Sir
William Hamilton's class in Metaphysics.
3 This, as we have seen, was a questionable improvement.
1840.] SIR W. HAMILTON AND THE TOWN COUNCIL.
67
a
with Sir William Hamilton, characterising his letters
as "conceived throughout in a quibbling contentious
spirit, and with unfounded imputations against the
Town Council, expressed in a style of exaggeration
and defiance."
Sir William Hamilton, in reply to this report,
wrote a violent letter to the Town Council, which
he sent to the newspapers, and which he wound up
by saying that, if they did not publicly withdraw the
allegations they had made against him, “the Town
Council would henceforth be a body which no gentle-
man would join.” The Town Council then resolved
that they would receive no more letters from Sir
William. Such were the relations now brought
about between the Secretary of the Senatus and the
governing body of the University.
Towards the end of 1841 the Town Council,
without apparent cause, were guilty (for so it must
be called) of a harsh and imperious procedure. Mr.
Skene, the Professor of Civil History, having ac-
cepted the office of Sheriff-Substitute of Lanark,
wrote to them to say that he was about to resign his
Chair, so soon as the Faculty of Arts should have
met and appointed a successor to him as Dean. The
Town Council then called upon him immediately to
place his resignation in their hands. He wrote that
he did not conceive that one day's delay would
cause inconvenience to the Town Council, whereon
they minuted that, as Mr. Skene had refused, or
at all events delayed, to resign his Chair, they
'removed" him from it.
a
68
[1840.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY,
After this it is no wonder that the Senatus, in
January 1842, agreed on an elaborate memorial to
Sir James Graham, showing that “the Senatus
Academicus continue to be exposed to all the incon-
veniences of a position which every year is becoming
more harassing and more alarming.” They com-
plained that since 1836, when Lord Melbourne's Bill
was conceived, Commissions had been appointed to
visit all the other Universities of Scotland, and that
the University of Edinburgh had alone been passed
over. They stated an amusing fact as a commentary
on the boast made in the above-mentioned report
of the Town Council —that their body contained
many members of the learned professions-namely,
that in the previous session an ex-Town Councillor
had applied for the office of Janitor to the College.
A fresh cloud now arose upon the horizon, out of
which there grew another great law-suit. In this
case we must confess that the Senatus were entirely
in the wrong, not only legally, but in a question of
educational and academic policy. And the attitude
which, as a body, they took, was opposed to the
opinion and advice of one of the wisest of their own
body.
In 1840 Professor Syme had written an import-
ant letter to the Town Council, adverting to the
great and progressive diminution in the number of
the Medical Students. He greatly attributed this
1
1 The numbers continuously dwindled during the forty years
succeeding the year 1826 from about 900 to about 400. They have
subsequently increased steadily, till they have become over 1700.
1840.]
69
PROFESSOR SYME'S LETTER.
to the rigidly exclusive rule, according to which the
University of Edinburgh recognised no Medical
teaching as serving to qualify for its degree except
that given within itself or in some other University.
He recommended the Town Council to enquire into
the matter, and to ordain a recognition of extra-
Academical teaching. The fact was that since 1826
—the palmy time of the University--many vigorous
schools of Medicine and Surgery had sprung up in
Great Britain and Ireland ; and, as degrees in
Medicine were not necessary as a qualification for
practice, it would be surely politic in the Universities
to encourage graduation by recognising the teaching
of accredited Schools as equivalent to some portion
of their course.
Such a measure, however, would
undoubtedly introduce a possible rivalry between
extra-Academical teachers and each of the Medical
Professors. Indeed, it was an argument for the
change that one of the Professors in the University
of Edinburgh was so comparatively inefficient that
many Students, after paying him his fee and obtaining
his certificate of attendance, went to learn his subject
elsewhere, and so paid twice over for instruction
in the same subject, during the same session. Of
course any Professor who was conscious of weak-
ness would resist a change that might deprive him
of his class. But many Professors even, who, like
Syme himself, felt secure from the consequences of
rivalry, still opposed the proposal from a conserva-
tive instinct. And the Senatus accordingly reported
unfavourably to it, as likely to be injurious to the
70
(1845.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
а.
Medical Faculty, without in any way benefiting the
University
In February 1842 the Town Council, after
mature consideration, sent down a draft of alterations
in the Medical Statuta, the main point in which was
a recognition of four extra-Academical classes, as
qualifying towards a degree. A committee of the
Senatus was for resisting this, except on the condition
that the candidate who had not taken all his classes
in a University was to have a year added to his
curriculum for a degree. To stave off the question
the Senatus requested the Town Council to delay
their new regulations till Sir James Graham's Bill
on Medical Education should be brought in. The
Town Council saw no necessity for this, and directed
their College Committee to proceed in drawing up
regulations to come into force next winter.
The matter, however, was allowed to stand over
till November 1845, when the Senatus took the
initiative by sending up for approval a draft of altera-
tions in their rules for Medical degrees. In these
they went the length of proposing to recognise the
teaching of the hospital Schools of London, and of
the School of the College of Surgeons in Dublin, as
equivalent to that of the University of Edinburgh.
But this concession was not deemed sufficient by the
Town Council, who after another year's deliberation
issued their new regulations, in which they made
attendance on the hospital Schools of London, or
the School of the College of Surgeons in Dublin, or
on the lectures “of teachers of medicine in Edin-
a
1846.]
71
EXTRA-ACADEMICAL CLASSES.
burgh, recognised as such by the Royal Colleges of
Physicians and of Surgeons in Edinburgh,” as
qualifying for graduation to the extent of one-third
of all the subjects required, and of one year out of
the four years' Medical course. Extra-Academical
lecturers, however, were not to be allowed to under-
sell the Professors. They were to charge in each
case the same fee as that paid for the corresponding
class in the University.
All this was equitable and judicious. But it
touched the Medical Professors of those days on a
tender point. They could bear the idea of accepting
teaching that was given in London or Dublin as
equivalent to their own; what they disliked, and in
some cases perhaps dreaded, was the idea of having
rival teachers started in Edinburgh, so that any
Student, instead of coming reverentially to the Pro-
fessor of a Medical subject, might elect to walk
across the street and get his teaching from some
rising genius who had been recognised by the
Medical Corporations of the City. And this each
Student might do, according to the new regulations,
in four separate departments of his course, and
might yet claim a degree from the University after
all. It can easily be understood that many Pro-
fessors, after the long enjoyment of a monopoly,
would find this innovation distasteful,
The Senatus, as a body, espoused the cause of
the majority in the Medical Faculty, and resolved
to obtain the opinion of counsel. Being fortified
by the weighty advice of the Dean of Faculty (after-
1
72
(1846.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
wards Lord Colonsay) and Mr. Inglis (now the
Lord Justice General), they proceeded to obtain from
the Court of Session an interim order of suspension
and interdict against the new regulations coming
into force; and then they lodged an action against
the Town Council, pleading that their issue of the
regulations had been illegal, as they (the Senatus)
had the sole power of making laws for graduation in
the University.
It will be seen that the ground taken was pre-
cisely the same as that in the previous action of
1826. The point urged was that the Senatus, and
not the Patrons, had the right to regulate University
degrees. The Court had already decided absolutely
against the Senatus on this point, but the Senatus
resolved, on the advice of counsel, to get the ques-
tion tried over again. They knew, of course, that,
so far as the Law Courts of Scotland went, the
matter was res judicata, and was certain, as such, to
be again decided against them. But their object
and intention was to carry on the suit to the House
of Lords, in hopes of finding there a fuller recogni-
tion of “the common law of Universities” as over-
riding the statutory powers claimed by the Town
Council, and of having the Scotch decisions reversed.
Their present course was, then, a roundabout and
expensive mode of doing what they might have
done directly in 1829, when they might have appealed
to the House of Lords against the decision in their
former action. This time they were encouraged by
the opinion of very eminent English counsel, Sir
1854.]
73
JUDGMENTS AGAINST THE SENATUS.
a
John Stuart (afterwards Vice-Chancellor) and Sir
Richard Bethell (afterwards Lord Westbury), of
whom the latter said, that "it was difficult to imagine
anything more anomalous, or more at variance with
the rights and duties of a University, charged with
the education of the persons upon whom its degrees
were to be conferred," than the powers claimed by
the Town Council.
But however “anomalous” the position of the
University of Edinburgh might seem, it was found
to be one created by royal charter and destined to
continue until it should be altered by the legislature.
In 1850 Lord Dundrennan pronounced against the
plea of the Senatus, as being res judicata. He
added that he concurred in the decision of the
Judges in the former suit; and he gave costs to the
Town Council. In 1852 Lord Dundrennan's ruling
was confirmed by the Inner House. And on the
Senatus resolving to appeal to the House of Lords,
Professor Pillans entered his dissent from this
resolution—(1) on legal grounds, because they had
no chance of success ; (2) on the merits of the case,
because the Town Council's proposals were reason-
able, and would be advantageous. In August 1854
the case was argued before the House of Lords,
and Sir Richard Bethell in a three days' speech
urged all that was possible on behalf of the Senatus.
But in vain. The Law Lords confirmed, instead of
.
reversing, the Scotch decisions. All that the Senatus
had gained by their legal proceedings and wasteful
expenditure of Reid Fund money was that they had
74
[1844.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
now ascertained beyond further question their total
want of powers, and that they had procrastinated for
eight years the operation of the Town Council's
regulations. These came into operation in 1855,
when extra-Academical rivals to the Medical Pro-
fessors were started in Edinburgh, without, however,
bringing ruin on the University.
We must now go back to recall other contro-
versies and struggles which had taken place in the
meantime between the Senatus and their masters.
The Disruption of the Church of Scotland in 1843
had split up society in the country, and it did not
fail to produce an unfortunate effect in the Town
Council of Edinburgh; the spirit of ecclesiastical
faction was introduced among them, and it was
observed that henceforth their appointments to
Professorships were not so absolutely disinterested
and impartial as they had been before. The
majority of the Town Council had joined the Free
Church. And in February 1844 the Patrons took
the remarkable step of resolving, without consulta-
tion of the Senatus, that the Chemistry class-room
should be used as a place of worship by the seceding
portions of the congregations of Greyfriars. Against
this measure the Senatus protested as "a glaring
appropriation of University property to purposes
utterly unacademical.” The protest seems to have
been effectual. Probably on reflection the Town
Council felt that it would not do to press the views
of a majority among themselves. But that such a
resolution should ever have been passed by them
1847.) FRESH LAW-SUIT WITH THE TOWN COUNCIL. 75
.
serves to illustrate the impulsive and uncertain
character of their government of the University at
this time.
In November 1847 the Lord Provost and some
Bailies appeared in the Senate Hall to present Mr.
Charles M‘Douall for induction as conjoint Professor
of Hebrew with Dr. Brunton superannuated. Mr.
M'Douall, being a Free Churchman, had, of course,
not signed the Confession of Faith and acknow-
ledged the authority of the Church of Scotland before
the Presbytery of the bounds. He was therefore,
in strict law, inadmissible as a Professor, though
several members of the Senatus had taken their
seats without going through the forms required by
the Act of 1690 and the Act of Union. On this
occasion the Senatus determined to put the law in
force, and on the motion of Principal Lee they
refused to receive Mr. M.Douall as a Professor.
It was an ecclesiastical squabble,-Established
Church against Free Church,—but the Senatus had
the law on their side. They applied for an interdict
forbidding the induction of Mr. M'Douall, which
Lord Robertson, in a few days, granted. A month
later the First Division (Lord President Boyle, and
Lords Mackenzie, Fullerton, and Jeffrey) finished
the business by confirming Lord Robertson's decision.
The Town Council tried to plead that the Senatus
were not a corporation, and therefore had no locus
standi to appear in Court, which was a curious plea
after so inany legal contests between the same
parties, and which was at once repelled. They also
76
(1848.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
pleaded that Mr. M‘Douall had been already in-
ducted. But Lord Jeffrey said: “The Senatus are
the domini of their own records and they say that
these shall not bear the admission of one whom the
law excludes." He also laid stress on the fact that
the records of the Town Council never bore the
admission of a Professor. This shows that the
Senatus had been wise in having a Secretary
appointed by themselves. Had the Secretary been
a servant of the Town Council he would have been
ordered by them to record the induction of Mr.
M'Douall.
A perpetual interdict against Mr.
M'Douall was granted. And the General Assembly
of the Church of Scotland, “feeling the importance
of the cause which had been defended,” agreed to
defray any “unallowed expenses” which the Senatus
might have incurred in the suit.
The decision of the Judges gave rise to a new
system of tactics on the part of the Town Council.
They determined that it should not any more be
said that they did not induct Professors as well as
appoint them. Accordingly in July 1848 the
Commission of Dr. John Hughes Bennett, as Pro-
fessor of the Institutes of Medicine, was presented to
the Senatus, accompanied by an Act of Council
"admitting” him. Principal Lee at once entered
a protest against this proceeding as unprecedented,
"degrading the University of Edinburgh
below the other Universities of Scotland.” And the
Senatus resolved to admit Dr. Bennett irrespective
of the “Act.” They also, under legal advice, lodged
and as
1850.]
77
INDUCTION OF PROFESSORS.
a formal protest on the subject with the Town
Council.
But that body, nothing daunted, in the November
following, in reappointing Mr. Syme to the Chair of
Clinical Surgery, and in appointing Mr. Liston to
the Chair of Hebrew, accompanied their Commissions
with "Acts” admitting the two Professors. Mr.
Liston's Commission also bore that the Chair of
Hebrew was vacant “by the resignation of Mr.
Charles M.Douall," whereas the Court of Session
had pronounced that M'Douall had never been
legally admitted Professor. All which caused
vehement outcry from the Senatus, and fresh recur-
rence to the opinion of counsel. No legal action,
however, was taken, and probably this was as well
for the Senatus, as it is difficult to see how, in the
face of the express power of “inputting and out-
putting Professors” granted to the Town Council by
the Charter of James VI., they could have resisted
admitting any Professor whom the Town Council
chose to appoint. M.Douall was disqualified by
refusing to take a test required by law in those days,
but with any Professor not so refusing the case
would have been different.
In July 1850, on the resignation of Professor
Wilson, Mr. Macdougall was presented by the
College Bailie as Professor of Moral Philosophy.
By preconcerted arrangement Principal Lee asked
the Bailie whether in the present case the Town
Council assumed to have inducted Mr. Macdougall,
and being told they did, the Principal, in the name
78
(1850.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
of the Senatus, declined to go on with the proceed-
ings. The Bailie stated that he held Mr. Mac-
dougall to be duly inducted, and then took his leave.
For more than three years Professor Macdougall
never took his seat in the Senate Hall. There was
a peculiarity about his case; he was a Free Church-
man, and therefore the Town Council could not
bring an action to force the Senatus to admit him,
because he had not taken the test; on the other
hand, as he was not to be a Professor in the Faculty
of Divinity the Senatus would be unwilling to exact
the test from him, which had been excused to so
many lay Professors, members of various churches.
The only thing that the Senatus required was that
Macdougall should accept their induction as the truly
valid one, ignoring that of the Town Council. This
he declined to do, till the Test Act was passed in
1853, and then he presented his Commission and took
his seat among the Senatus, having taught his class
quietly in the meantime. No further trouble arose
as to the induction of Professors till the end of the
Town Council's reign. There had been indeed
another litigation shortly before this time between
the Senatus and the Patrons, but no mention need
here be made of this, as it related to the administra-
tion of the Reid Fund, which falls under the history
of the University Finances.
It is pleasing to be able to conclude the narra-
tive of the Town Council's government of the
University with the mention of matters illustrative
of their enlightened zeal for Academical improve-
1847.]
79
ENTRANCE EXAMINATIONS.
ment. In October 1847 they wrote to ask the
opinion of the Senatus on the question "whether
it is expedient that the system should be continued
of admitting students to the Humanity, Greek, and
Mathematical classes, without any regard to their
knowledge of the rudimentary principles of the
Latin and Greek languages, and of Mathematics?"
If not, they asked what examinations should be
introduced ? and further, whether it was not expe-
dient that Students should be examined yearly to
ascertain their fitness for the higher classes ?
The answers of the Senatus to these questions
are not recorded ; they were probably not encour-
aging, as the Arts Faculty were always opposed to
the principle of Entrance Examinations (see above,
Pp. 48, 50). The whole matter slept for four and a
half
years,
and then the Town Council, in appoint-
ing Professor Blackie to the Chair of Greek, issued
some excellent regulations to the effect that no
Student should be admitted to the junior Greek
class who had not mastered the rudiments of the
grammar, or who was unable to translate the first
six chapters of St. John. The standard of examina-
tion was to be reconsidered after a year's trial.
To obviate any bad consequences from this
innovation the Senatus appointed a Tutor," with
salary of £100 a year out of the Reid Fund, to
prepare, without fee, during the month of October,
1
The Tutor appointed on this occasion was Mr. James Donald-
son, subsequently Rector of the High School of Edinburgh, and now
Professor of Latin in the University of Aberdeen.
80
[1855.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
persons wishing to enter the junior Greek class at
the beginning of the Winter Session, and afterwards
to assist and drill the junior Greek Students. This
was the beginning, in the Arts Faculty, of the system
of Class-Assistants now adopted in all the classes.
In the next year the Town Council re-issued their
regulations, raising their standard, however, to the
extent of requiring twelve chapters of St. Luke
instead of six of St. John.
In 1855 Professor Pillans, having persuaded the
Senatus that, instead of an Entrance Examination
in Greek, there should be an Examination for
pro-
motion to the senior classes in Greek and Latin,
Professor Blackie submitted to the Town Council
a vigorous protest against this. He said that the
new proposal would do away with the boundary line
between School and University, and deprive the
Schools of a wholesome stimulus; that the expulsion
of Greek grammar from University teaching was
imperatively called for, and essential to the dignity
of a University ; that four-fifths of the entrants
already came up to the standard, and that the rest
might be treated equitably; finally, that the intro-
duction of an Entrance Examination had not dimin-
ished the number of the junior class ; in fact, it had
increased.
A Committee of the Senatus, consisting of
Professors Robertson, Pillans, Aytoun, and Kelland,
drew up a powerful counter-memorial. They repre-
sented that, so far from its being a gain, it would be
a misfortune, if the Professor were to give up teach-
1855.)
81
ENTRANCE EXAMINATIONS.
a
ing Greek grammar ; that, even in the highest class,
he should constantly refer to the rudiments and
ascertain that each Student had a foundation to bear
his superstructure; that, if the Entrance Examina-
tion were administered equitably, i.e. left to be
tampered with at the discretion of the Examiners,
it would become a mere name; that it would be far
more useful to have an Examination, to be con-
ducted rigorously, for transition from junior to
senior classes in Latin, Greek, and Mathamatics;
and that this would prevent Students from being
debarred entrance on account of previous disadvan-
tages, and would prevent them also from gaining
credit in the University without any exertion on
their own part.
A good deal might be said in favour of either
point of view. Probably both should have been
adopted. Professor Blackie's statement must not
be forgotten ; that during a three years' trial of an
Entrance Examination his junior class had increased,
instead of diminishing, in numbers. The final re-
gulation adopted by the Town Council was advertised
as follows in May 1855:-"By a recent Act of the
Patrons of the University it has been ordered that
no Student shall be enrolled in the Junior Greek
class as a regular Student unless he has mastered
the rudiments of the grammar, and is able to trans-
late a portion of any of the first fifteen chapters of
the Gospel according to Luke, — Provided always
that
every candidate who may not pass the Examina-
tion in the beginning of November, may be per-
VOL. II.
G
82
[1857.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
mitted by the Professor to attend the class, and, in
the option of the Student, to present himself again
for examination on the ist February following ;
when, if he shall acquit himself to the approbation of
the Examiners, he shall be enrolled as a regular
Student, so that the Session may count as one in his
curriculum.” On the working of this order Pro-
fessor Blackie reported in March 1856. He did not
state the number of those examined, or indicate the
proficiency exhibited by them, but he implied that
all those who were examined passed, while eighteen
deferred their examination till the ist February,
when three were ultimately rejected. The whole
junior class had been drilled by a Tutor during
December and January. Professor Blackie added
his opinion that the standard of Examination could
not be much raised till the Schools in the south of
Scotland were better. The system introduced by
the Town Council had done no harm, and it was a
step in the right direction. It was, however, swept
,
away, three years later, by the Executive Commis-
sion, who instituted in its room a voluntary Examina-
tion for those wishing to spend only three years in
their Arts curriculum.
The last act of the Town Council which we
have to mention was a very judicious and proper
one, and yet it was carped at by the Senatus. It
was dated 27th January 1857, and was the result of
a petition from the Graduates, a reference to the
Senatus, and much deliberation. It admitted
Graduates of the University to the same Library
,
1857.] GRADUATES ADMITTED TO THE LIBRARY.
83
privileges as those enjoyed by Students on payment
of a ros. fee, and under very good and prudent
regulations. The Act was to be an experiment, and
only to remain in force till the 30th September 1859,
unless renewed. The Senatus, however, instead of
at once acquiescing in this most desirable measure,
which was for the first time to connect Graduates of
the University, in some measure, with their Alma
Mater, expressed doubts as to the legality of the
Town Council's admitting persons who were not
members of the University to Library privileges ;
and they proposed to matriculate the Graduates
anew. The Town Council very sensibly replied
that they saw no reason for altering their Act, which
was shortly afterwards confirmed by the Executive
Commission, and is now the law of the University.
What we have just mentioned was the last sparkle
of combativeness on the part of the Senatus, and
was the result of the long warfarę which had put
them into a frame of mind incapable of receiving
cordially even the wisest proposals of the Town
Council. But very soon all these antagonisms were
put an end to by the Act of 1858, of which we have
now to give the history.
APPENDIX N. JOHN BROWN PATTERSON.
It was a fortunate circumstance that when “Athenian Aberdeen"
and the other Royal Commissioners offered their prize to the
Students of the University of Edinburgh John Brown Patterson
should have been there to compete for it. He was well qualified
84
[1823.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
I
1
to do credit to the University, for he was probably the most
accomplished classical scholar ever turned out by the University
classes previous to 1858. And he was gifted by nature with
great literary ability. His early promise was annihilated by
premature death.
It may be interesting to note here a few
facts in the brief and beautiful career of this Edinburgh Kirke
White.
John Brown Patterson was “Dux” of the High School, and
the favourite pupil of Pillans during the last years of his Rector-
ship. Pillans joined the University as Professor of Humanity in
1820, and his pet pupil accompanied him. Patterson owed the
development of his scholarship to Pillans, and specimens of his
Greek and Latin verses and prose writing, which have been pre-
served, are results highly creditable to his teacher as well as to
himself.
Patterson went through the complete Arts curriculum of the
University, gaining the first prize in every class. The.precocity
of his learning and judgment is shown by the fact that in 1823,
when only nineteen years old, he was engaged during the vaca-
tion to assist the classical studies of the Count de Flahault (aide-
de-camp to Napoleon in his Russian and Belgian campaigns),
who had married Lady Keith, and settled with her at Meikleour
House in Perthshire. In this capacity Patterson gave complete
satisfaction, and his diary, written at Meikleour, records his con-
versations on literary and philosophic subjects with the Count.
In 1824 Patterson was engaged on another interesting extra-
Academical task; this was collecting from the classics passages
to illustrate the localities depicted by “Grecian” Williams in his
Scenes in Greece, which passages he accompanied by graceful
translations in verse and prose.
Patterson's essay
“On the
National Character of the Athenians” shows that his mind was
imbued with the best of the ancient literature; it also shows
wide reading and a bright artistic spirit.
After the subject had been proposed in January 1827 Patterson
quietly graduated in Arts (it was his seventh session in the
>
i See Discourses by the late Rev. John B. Patterson, A.M., Minister of
Falkirk, to which is added a Memoir of his Life, etc. (Ed. 1837), and An Essay
on the National Character of the Athenians, by J. B. Patterson, M.A., a New
Edition, to which is prefixed a Biographical Notice (Ed. 1860).
1828.]
85
JOHN BROWN PATTERSON.
.
University, and he had been a Divinity Student for three sessions),
and in the ensuing summer he set to work and accomplished his
essay in about six weeks. It was not so much the work of a
boy competing for a prize as of a mature scholar writing on a
subject which had long occupied his thoughts and on which he
had full information.
Mr. Leonard Horner read this essay after it had been pub-
lished in the spring of 1828, and "feeling how much it would
improve the Ministers of the Church of Scotland if classical
learning were more common among them," he sent a copy of
the essay to Sir Robert Peel, suggesting that Mr. Patterson
should be presented to one of the churches in the gift of the
Crown. Peel did not reply for some months, not, in fact, till he
had himself found time to read the essay, and then he was so
much struck by it that he wrote offering John Brown Patterson
the living of Daviot in Aberdeenshire. Professor Pillans, how-
ever, deprecated his “relegating himself into that Sarmatian
banishment,” and he declined the appointment. Peel, however,
still bore him in mind, and in September 1829 offered him "one
of the most important charges in the Church of Scotland—that
of the parish of Falkirk.” And at the same time, in a letter to
Horner, Peel said that he had greater personal satisfaction "in
appointing Patterson than he "could have had in the appoint-
ment of any other Minister of the Church of Scotland.” Such
was the tribute paid to the genius and learning of an Edinburgh
Student by a statesman who, amid the cares of office, had always
a vigilant eye for the recognition of merit.
During an incumbency of little more than five years John
Brown Patterson exhausted his frail bodily energies in a too
assiduous care of his extensive and populous parish. Beloved
and admired, he passed away in 1835. His Discourses and
Remains show a Christian, philosophical, and poetic spirit.
Some have thought his style too florid, and it is probable that he
received from Professor Wilson not only a literary impulse but
also an influence in style tending in the direction of poetical
exuberance of language. But in Patterson's writings this tendency
does not go far.
In his Discourses he is always earnest and real,
and never rhetorical. His was a beautiful soul, and he was too
soon lost to Scotland.
CHAPTER VII.
THE UNIVERSITIES (SCOTLAND) ACT, 1858, AND ITS
RESULTS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH DOWN
TO THE PRESENT DAY (1858–1883).
"Il faut dans une histoire, comme dans une pièce de théâtre, exposi-
tion, næud, et dénouement."
The history of the University of Edinburgh com-
plies with Voltaire's requisition; chapters III.-V.
contained a "setting forth” of its development; in
chapter VI. a formidable “knot" or complication
was disclosed; the subject of the present chapter is
a “clearing up of difficulties," so pleasing in a drama,
a
but still more so in real life.
It was said above (Vol. I. p. 258) that the religious
p.
struggles in the country, and the triumph of one side
or the other, did not affect the institutions of the
College of Edinburgh while it was still a College.
To this, one small exception must be mentioned ; for
in 1690, as part of the Revolution Settlement, an
Act was passed with the view of excluding Episco-
palians and Jacobites from the Universities, which
obliged every Professor before induction to sign a
1853.)
87
THE TEST ACT.
declaration before the Presbytery of the bounds that
he accepted the Confession of Faith, and avowed
obedience to the Established Church of Scotland.
This test was constantly evaded in the University
of Edinburgh, and notably so from the commence-
ment of Robertson's Principalship (1762), but it still
existed as part of the law of the country.
The ecclesiastical conflicts of the present century
in Scotland produced an effect on the University
such as the tragic and bloody strifes of the seven-
teenth century had never done. There can be no
doubt that to the Disruption of 1843 the University
owes--(1) the emancipation of its lay Professors
from the test above mentioned ; (2) a free spirit in
the country which greatly tended to the reform of
the Universities; (3) many important features of
the Universities Act of 1858. To show what a
difference in people's minds as to the question of
tests was produced by the Disruption, we may men-
tion that the Universities' Commissioners in 1830
recommended that the test required by the Act of
1690 should in future be rigorously exacted from
all Professors; and not only this, but that it should
be imposed upon all members of those University
Courts which the Commissioners proposed to create.
But in 1853 Lord Aberdeen, who had been himself
one of the Commissioners, said in the House of
Lords, referring to the Report of 1830, "a great
change has taken place in Scotland since then ; one
half the kingdom has now rendered itself unable
conscientiously to take that test.” And he there-
88
[1853
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
.
fore agreed to its abolition. But several successive
efforts had been required before a measure with this
object in view could reach the House of Lords.
In 1845 the Lord Advocate (Rutherfurd) and
Macaulay, then Member for Edinburgh, brought in
and eloquently supported a Bill for the purpose, but
it was defeated by Sir Robert Peel's Government.
In 1852 the present Lord Moncreiff (then Member
for Leith) brought in another Bill, which the
Conservative Government of that day threw out.
Trying again next year Mr. Moncreiff was more
fortunate, and succeeded in carrying through both
Houses a Bill which substituted for the old test, in
the case of all members of Senatus Academici
except Principals and Theological Professors, the
following declaration :—"I, A, B., do solemnly and
sincerely declare that as Professor of and in
discharge of the duties of the said office, I will never
endeavour, directly or indirectly, to teach or incul-
cate any opinions opposed to the divine authority of
the Holy Scriptures or the Westminster Confession
of Faith, ratified by law in the year 1690, and that
I will never exercise the functions of the said office
to subvert or prejudice the Church of Scotland, as
by law established, or the doctrines or privileges
thereof."
This declaration, while allowing each Professor
to be reticent about his own beliefs, served to allay
the apprehensions of those who fancied that, if there
were no safeguard, Professors of Chemistry, Natural
History, Metaphysics, and what not, might use their
1857.] MOVEMENT FOR UNIVERSITY REFORM.
89
Chairs as a propaganda of infidelity. At the same
time it secured the object which the framers of the
Bill had more immediately in view, namely, to enable
Free Churchmen legally to hold Chairs. Previ.
ously a Free Churchman was a person absolutely
under a disability; an Episcopalian might accept
the test, and several Episcopalians did so, but a
member of the Free Church could not possibly
avow his allegiance to the Church of Scotland. We
have seen above (pp. 77-78), how a Free Churchman
held by sufferance the Chair of Moral Philosophy in
the University of Edinburgh, but he could at any
moment have been forced into resignation if any
one had raised the question in a Court of Law of
his non-acceptance of the test. All this was happily
cleared away by the Act of 1853, and the Uni-
versities of Scotland, except in regard to their
Principalships and Theological Chairs, were made
representative of the nation at large, and not only
of the Established Church.
This first measure of reform was in opposition,
as we have seen, to the recommendations of the
Commission of 1826-30. But it prepared the way
for other and wider reforms, and, in short, for reap-
ing the fruits of the labour of that Commission.
It must be remembered that Lord Melbourne's Bill
of 1837 for this purpose failed, and was withdrawn
on account of the opposition which it met with from
the General Assembly, that is to say, from the
united Church of the whole country; but now the
Church was no longer united, and no such consoli-
90
[1857
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
dated opposition had to be encountered. Whatever
good or harm the Disruption may otherwise have
done, it certainly assisted the introduction of reform
for the Universities of Scotland.
Henceforward there was a growing desire in the
more enlightened minds of the Scottish nation for
the improvement of their Universities, and this was
stimulated by the appointment in 1852 of Parlia-
mentary Commissions to deal with the Universities
of Oxford and Cambridge. An “Association for
the improvement and extension of Scottish Uni-
versities” was formed, and some influential public
meetings were held in Edinburgh. The Associa-
tion aimed at strengthening the hands of Professors,
providing tutors, raising the standard of degree
examinations, and giving Graduates some connec-
tion with their University. Such was the modest
programme announced at one of their meetings.
The Association at the same time protested that
they had no intention whatever of depriving the
Town Council of Edinburgh of their patronage. In
April 1857 a deputation from this Association waited
on the Lord Advocate (Moncreiff), who received
them favourably, and promised to bring in a Bill.
He proceeded accordingly to draft one, but circum-
stances prevented its being introduced during the
session of 1857, the year of the Indian Mutiny, and
at the end of the year the Liberal party went out of
office.
The honour, then, of bringing in a " Bill to make
provision for the better Government and Discipline
1858.]
91
MR. INGLIS BILL.
of the Universities of Scotland” fell to the lot of the
Lord Advocate of the succeeding Government, Mr.
Inglis, now the Lord Justice General of Scotland.
He obtained the draft Bill of his predecessor, which
had limited itself to the appointment of an Executive
Commission, and modified it by the introduction of
clauses definitely prescribing the future constitution
of the Universities. On the 22d April 1858 he
brought this Bill before the House of Commons.
In moving it he is reported to have said, inter alia,
that “the Scotch Universities had lost sight of their
proper objects; and their educational establishments
had descended below the requirements of the age.
That which appeared to him to lie at the root of the
existing evil was the want of value which was
attached to the degrees in Arts. Any measure,
therefore, which should have the effect of enhancing
the value of those degrees, and of creating an
intelligent body of Graduates, would prove very
advantageous." " There was nothing novel in the
Bill which he proposed to introduce. It was founded
to a great extent upon the Report of a Commission
which had been presented to Parliament so far back
as 1830." “He should further state that in framing
his measure he had been under great obligations to
his honourable and learned friend the Member for
Leith (Mr. Moncreiff), who, having had himself a
measure on the subject in preparation, had furnished
him with his materials and the sketch of his plan.”
The first step which the Lord Advocate would
propose, in order to enhance the value of a degree
a
92
[1858.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
in Arts, would be to confer upon the Graduates a
certain share in the administration of University
affairs. By this means it would be possible to im-
prove the standard of qualifications for a degree
without discouraging occasional students," who
went to the Universities for special purposes, not
intending to graduate. This first principle of the
Bill—the foundation of University Councils—was to
be applicable to all the Universities alike.
His second proposal was borrowed from the
report of 1830, namely, the introduction of a “Uni-
versity Board,” or, as it ultimately was called, a
" University Court,” for each University. This was
based on the impropriety of University matters being
entirely decided by Professors, whose interests were
very often antagonistic among themselves, or who
might be, as a body, in a position of antagonism to
the Students. These considerations applied only to
the three Universities of St. Andrews, Glasgow,
and Aberdeen. But the Lord Advocate added with
regard to the Town Council of Edinburgh that "he
would venture to say that they were a body not
better qualified for the purpose of administering the
whole power of a University than the governing
bodies of the other Universities." He proposed,
then, the institution of a Board, consisting of a Rector,
the Principal, and a certain number of Assessors, to
control the administration of University property
and revenues, regulate and alter from time to time
the course of studies, and generally supervise.
The third proposal was to increase by Parlia-
1858.]
93
DEBATE ON THE UNIVERSITIES BILL.
mentary grant the Professors' stipends, and to create
some new Chairs, for which a vote of £10,000 per
annum was to be moved. The Treasury was also
to provide pensions for superannuated or infirm
Professors.
Fourthly, Mr. Inglis proposed to provide
“Tutors or Assessors" (" Assistants,” they are now
called) for the Professors.
Fifthly, he proposed the appointment of an
Executive Commission to carry out the details of
the Bill.
Sixthly, he inserted clauses providing for the
amalgamation of the two Universities of Aberdeen.
In accordance with the report of 1830, he pro-
posed no alteration in the patronage of the Univer-
sity of Edinburgh. Even, however, if the appoint-
ments of Professors and Principals had been left in
the hands of the Town Council of Edinburgh, still
a great deal of power would be taken from them;
the Executive Commission would entirely ignore
their existence in ordaining the future arrangements
of the University, and when this Commission should
have done its work, the administration and govern-
ment of the University for all time coming would be
transferred to the Senatus Academicus under control
of the University Court. Accordingly, Mr. Adam
Black, Member for the City of Edinburgh, opposed
the second reading of the Bill. He urged, not un-
truly, that "however anomalous it may appear in
theory, it has been found in practice not only that a
corporation of tradesmen are competent to manage
94
[1858.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
a University, but that, in fact, the University of
Edinburgh, of which the Town Council are patrons,
has been the best managed of all the Scottish Univer-
sities.” But he made some fallacious statements
about the revenues of the University, maintaining
that it had always been entirely supported by the
municipality. He thus ignored the royal endow-
ments, the private benefactions which the City
had held in trust for the University, amounting to
£13,000 or £14,000, and the sum of more than
£150,000, the cost of the new University buildings,
of which £30,000 had come from private liberality
and £120,000 from Government. He ended by
declaring : “Some are of opinion that all that is
wanted to provide for the deficiencies of the Univer-
sities is money, but for myself I would say 'Perish
the money, but may the honour and independence of
the University flourish. As though the honour
and independence of the University of Edinburgh
required that it should be governed by the Town
Council.
But such a protest as this, if not entirely reason-
able, was not surprising, as the Town Council
,
naturally clung to the anomalous powers which had
been thrust upon them in the sixteenth century, and
to their connection with the great University which,
after all, they had created.
The debate on the Bill showed a remarkable
unanimity in its favour on the part of all the Scotch
representatives. There were only two points on
which any opposition was made to the proposals of
1858.]
95
DEBATE ON THE UNIVERSITIES BILL.
the Lord Advocate. The two Members for Edin-
burgh wished to preserve the government of their
University in the hands of the Town Council, and
the Member for Aberdeen opposed the amalgama-
tion, not of the two Aberdeen Universities, but of
King's and Marischall Colleges. The point raised
was that while there was to be only one University
for Old and New Aberdeen, and only one Faculty
in Medicine, Law, and Divinity, a double Faculty in
a
Arts should be left existing for the convenience of
residents in the two towns.
The only objections, therefore, which were
brought against the Bill arose out of local interests.
Into the Aberdeen question we need not enter here;
but, with regard to the claims of the Edinburgh
Town Council, there were two considerations which
transpired during the debate: first, the Town
,
Council had, down to 1830, been a close, self-elect-
ing corporation, and, however objectionable in some
respects such a body might be, it was perhaps better
qualified for the government of a University than
the popularly-elected Council introduced by the
Municipal Reform Bill, subject to pressure from the
constituencies of the different wards; second, the
Disruption of the Church of Scotland in 1843 had
split up the Town Council of Edinburgh, as it had
other communities throughout the country.
The
speech of an Edinburgh Bailie was quoted to the
House of Commons, in which he said that “sec-
tarian jealousies had crept into the management of
the University to such an extent that the towns-
96
[1858.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
а.
people had become disgusted, and would not rally
round their municipal representatives in defence
of their just rights.
A “corporation of tradesmen ” with unbiassed
minds might succeed in governing a University
aright, but this could hardly be expected of a "cor-
poration of tradesmen” severally inflamed by sec-
tarian jealousies, and each of them responsible to a
constituency actuated by similar passions. The
Town Council of 1858 were not such a serene body
as the Council over which George Drummond had
presided a hundred years before.
Thus the Disruption influenced the debate in
the House of Commons, and it was the cause of an
important amendment being moved by Mr. Dunlop
then Member for Greenock, and one of the leaders
of the Free Kirk-to the effect that the office of
Principal in the Scotch Universities should no longer
be considered an ecclesiastical office attached to the
Church of Scotland, but should be opened to laymen
and members of any Church. This amendment,
though opposed by the Government, was carried
against them by a majority of 82 to 58. And as a
result of it, in the very next year, 1859, Sir David
Brewster, a layman and a member of the Free
Church, was appointed Principal of the University
of Edinburgh.
Another essential amendment upon the Lord
Advocate's Bill was carried, in accordance with
what was evidently the general sense of the House
of Commons. The Lord Advocate, as has been
1858.]
97
DEBATE ON THE UNIVERSITIES BILL.
mentioned, was disposed to acquiesce in the recom-
mendation of the Commission of 1826-30, and leave
the patronage of Professorships in Edinburgh in the
hands of the Town Council. But since 1830 a
great deal of discussion on this very subject had
taken place. A Commission appointed to inquire
into the Municipal Corporations of Scotland had
zealously gone into the question, and had, in 1835,
submitted a very strong and rather one-sided Report,
unfavourable to the fitness of the Town Council for
the administration of such patronage.
And the
occurrences of 1843 had certainly introduced new
matter for consideration. Mr. Bouverie (Member
for Kilmarnock) moved an amendment which would
have entirely transferred the patronage from the
hands of the Town Council to those of the University
Court. This extreme measure was, however, depre-
cated, and the House ultimately adopted a com-
promise proposed by Sir William Dunbar (Wigtown
Burghs), to the effect that there should be seven
Curators for the administration of patronage in the
University of Edinburgh, four of whom should be
nominated by the Town Council, and three by the
University Court. This arrangement, while it secured
to the Town Council a preponderating influence in
future University appointments, at the same time
removed what had been felt to be an impropriety,
that is to say, that the candidates for scientific and
literary offices should be under the necessity of can-
vassing the thirty-three representatives of the dif-
ferent City Wards. The Board of Curators, as
VOL. II.
H
98
(1858.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
constituted by the Amendment, corresponded, or
might be made to correspond very nearly with what
Sir William Hamilton, in his philosophical disquisi-
tions on University reform, had concluded to be
the best possible body for the administration of
University patronage, namely, a select number of
sufficiently intelligent persons holding a position
external to the University.
With a few other improvements, such as entrust-
ing the election of the Rector for the University
of Edinburgh to the Students, and that of the
Chancellor to the Graduates or General Council
of the University, the Bill was now accepted with
universal eulogiums on the Lord Advocate for the
ability with which it had been framed and carried
through. Before, however, the Bill left the House
of Commons, Mr. Gladstone, by the weight of his
authority, succeeded in introducing into it a per-
missive clause, by which the four Universities of
Scotland would be empowered severally to abrogate
their individual existence as Universities, and turn
themselves into “Colleges, under a central Uni-
versity, which would be the examining body for
Scotland.” The alleged object of this proposal was
to stimulate teaching and study in each of the four
Academical seats by means of an external examining
Board similar, probably, to that of the London Uni-
versity. It was pointed out in the House of Lords
that such an innovation would amount to suppres-
sion of ancient corporations—the only links almost
which connected Scotland of bygone times with
1858.]
99
DEBATE ON THE UNIVERSITIES BILL.
Scotland of the present,” and that "it was not at all
clear that the Scheme would tend to benefit the
cause of education in Scotland.' But, as the
clause was merely a permissive one, and as it was
felt that no one in authority in connection with
either of the four Universities would have the
slightest inclination to take advantage of it, it was
allowed to pass without discussion, and it accord-
ingly stands as part of the Universities (Scotland)
Act of 1858.
In other points the Peers did not leave the Bill,
when it came to them, without alteration. They
resolved to strike out Mr. Dunlop's clause, and to
retain the office of Principal in Edinburgh, Glasgow,
and Aberdeen as clerical appointments for members
of the Church of Scotland. They also introduced
words which would associate Professors with Students
in the election of the Rector. When the Bill
returned to the Commons with these amendments
Mr. Inglis was no longer in his former place to give
his opinion with regard to them, as he had been in
the meantime removed from Parliament, to the great
regret of both Houses, by promotion to the Bench.
But the other Scotch Members were firm in adhering
to their former views as to the office of Principal,
and it was pointed out that "to make Professors
co-electors of the Rector with their Students, would
place them in a position hurtful to their dignity and
influence.” The Lords' amendments were rejected
by the House of Commons without a division, and
the Upper House, rather than lose the Bill, agreed
a
I00
[1858.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
to abandon them. The Universities (Scotland) Bill
was then passed, and on the 2d August 1858 it
received the Royal assent, and became law.
The first thirteen sections of the Act prescribed
the future constitution of the Universities of Scot-
land, as above indicated (see p. 92). The four-
teenth section nominated and appointed an Executive
Commission to carry out the views of the Act into
detail, and to frame Ordinances for the regulation
of the revenues, studies, degree-systems, elections
of officers, and all other important features in the
life of the four Universities. Of course everything
depended on the personnel of this Commission, to
which such wide powers were entrusted.
The Commissioners, though their decisions were
subject to the review of Parliament and appeals to
the Privy Council, might evidently do much either
to make or mar the Universities. As it turned out,
they acted with the greatest wisdom and sagacity,
and also with great energy, and they produced a
system under which the Universities of Scotland,
and especially the University of Edinburgh, sprang
into new life and development.
The Commissioners named and appointed by the
Act were—the Duke of Argyll, the Earl of Aberdeen,
Earl Stanhope, the Earl of Mansfield, the Lord
Justice General (Duncan M'Neill), Sir William
Gibson-Craig, the Lord Justice Clerk (Inglis), Lord
Ardmillan, William Stirling of Keir (afterwards Sir
William Stirling-Maxwell), the Dean of Faculty
(afterwards Lord Moncreiff), Alexander Hastie,
1
1858.]
IOI
THE EXECUTIVE COMMISSION.
}
M.P., and Alexander Murray Dunlop, M.P. The
Commissioners held their first meeting on the 27th
August 1858, and immediately proceeded to elect
the Lord Justice Clerk (Inglis), the author of
the Act, to be permanent Chairman of the Com-
mission. Athenian Aberdeen ” was the only
person who was Member of both the Commis-
sions, — 1826 and 1858, and he evinced great
interest in the work now to be done, correspond-
ing with his colleagues frequently in regard to it;
but he was unable, from infirm health, to attend
any of their meetings, and he died before their
labours were completed. Lord Stanhope, finding it
inconvenient to come to Edinburgh, -- where the
meetings were held at 36 Moray Place,-resigned
his Commissionership, and the Earl of Haddington
was appointed to supply his place. The Commission
continued in office more than four years, till the 20th
December 1862. During that time they held one
hundred and twenty-six meetings, at every one of
which, without missing a single occasion, the Lord
Justice Clerk presided. He was, in fact, the soul of
,
the Commission, and the excellent Ordinances which
resulted from their labours may be regarded as
especially the product of his judgment, and of his
untiring attention to the mass of details with which
the Commission had to deal. Several of the other
.
Members, particularly those resident in Edinburgh,
were more or less assiduous in attendance. And
great praise was acknowledged to be due to the
lucid ability of Mr. Robert Berry, Advocate, now
102
[1858.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
Professor of Laws in the University of Glasgow,
who acted as Secretary to the Commission.
With the Universities Act passed, and with such
a Commission sitting to carry it out, the Senatus
Academicus of Edinburgh must have felt a sense of
relief from all their troubles ; they must have felt
that they were at last entering into the Promised
Land. It is no wonder that in December 1858 they
sent diplomas conferring the honorary degree of
Doctor of Laws on the Lord Justice Clerk (Inglis)
and the Dean of Faculty (Moncreiff), in gratitude to
these gentlemen for their services in bringing about
this consummation. The Act, however, could not
at once come
come into operation ; the Commission
ordained that it should do so from and after the 15th
October 1859. And they issued rules for the first
and subsequent meetings of the University General
Council, and for the election of the Rector and the
Chancellor. In the meantime the Principalship
became vacant by the death of Dr. Lee, and so it
curiously happened that the Town Council were able
to exercise their powers of patronage for the last
time, on the 28th October 1859, that is to say, after
the Act depriving them of those powers had come
into force. For the Board of Curators, who were to
supersede the Town Council, had not come into
existence, and could not do so because the formation
of the Board required the previous existence of a
fa
University Court, comprising a Rector, a Rector's
Assessor, a Chancellor's Assessor, an Assessor
appointed by the General Council, and the Principal
1858.]
103
ORDINANCES OF THE COMMISSION.
>
himself ; as yet neither Rector nor Chancellor
existed,—the latter had to be elected by the
General Council, at the first meeting of which a
Principal ought to preside. So the Town Council
issued their last Commission, and in so doing they
did not belie their traditions as enlightened patrons,
for they appointed Sir David Brewster, the most
eminent man of science in Scotland, to the Principal-
ship. Perhaps, however, it was fortunate that Sir
David's ecclesiastical principles coincided with those
of the majority in the Town Council, he being a
Free Churchman. Oddly enough the usual clause
was put into his Commission, binding him to obey
“all regulations made or to be made” by the Town
Council, though the power of making any such regu-
lations had now passed from them.
It had been one of the chief objects of the Act
to institute a "General Council" in each of the
"
Universities, so as to give certain powers to Gradu-
ates, and to incorporate them into their own Uni-
versities. But Arts graduation had fallen out of
fashion, and graduation in Laws or Divinity had
not yet been introduced, so that, if the new General
Councils were to consist of Graduates alone, they
would, in all the Universities except that of Aber-
deen, have consisted almost entirely of Doctors of
Medicine. To obviate this an indulgence was
granted at the outset, and the Commissioners were
empowered to admit to registration in the General
Councils persons who should have given regular
attendance as matriculated Students for four com-
104
[1859
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
plete sessions,--at least two of these sessions having
been devoted to studies in the Faculty of Arts.
The Commissioners were a good deal occupied with
investigating the claims of applicants for registration
under this clause. Out of 1964 persons who applied
to be made Members of the General Council of the
University of Edinburgh the Commissioners admitted
altogether 1862.
The General Council having been thus con-
stituted, the first duty performed by Sir David
Brewster after his appointment as Principal was to
preside over its first meeting, which, since the Uni-
versity of Edinburgh possessed no Academical Hall
of Assembly, was convened in a hired concert-room,
called the “Music Hall,” on the last Friday of
October 1859. Here a number of Graduates, who
under the old system had by their graduation only
been disconnected with the University, and a crowd
of others, who, without having graduated, carried
about the results and the recollections of early years
spent in attending the University classes (altogether
1075 persons), met to perform the corporate and
novel function of electing a Chancellor for the Uni-
versity of Edinburgh. There must have been in
that Assembly some sense that they were living in
the dawn of a new day. The Council on that
occasion showed themselves alive to the great
1)
1
1 At the close of the meeting the Lord Provost moved that a Com-
mittee of gentlemen be appointed to take steps for providing the
University with a Hall. It was easy to appoint the Committee, but at
the present day, twenty-four years later, the University is still solicit-
ing a Hall.
1859.] FIRST MEETING OF GENERAL COUNCIL.
105
a
principle that in all elections, even for Academical
offices, if a Whig is proposed a Tory should be set
up against him, and vice versa. This principle has
always been subsequently observed in the elections
for Chancellor or Rector in the University of Edin-
burgh, but it has by no means been the case that the
votes have all been given or the elections determined
on grounds of party politics.
In October 1859,
Lord Brougham having been proposed for Chan-
cellor, His Grace the Duke of Buccleuch was put up
as an opposing candidate by the Tories. In all
probability there was a majority of Whigs in the
Council ; but, independently of this, Brougham's
reputation for a quasi- omniscience in scientific
matters gave him a great claim to election as the
head of a University, and he was elected accordingly.
On the 12th November 1859 the second act in
the new order of things took place, the Students
being called upon to elect a Rector, or, as he is called
by courtesy, a “ Lord Rector,” for the University.
The polling was conducted in the class-rooms, and
the Students, divided alphabetically,' recorded their
votes, which were taken by the Professors in an
hour or two.
The candidates proposed were Mr.
Gladstone (then a Whig) and Lord Neaves, a Judge,
a wit, and a most accomplished man of letters (Tory).
Whatever may have been the distribution of political
votes on this occasion, there could be no compari-
I When the Students of the University of Edinburgh were thus for
the first time enfranchised, they were not divided, according to the
mediæval system which still prevailed at St. Andrews, Glasgow, and
Aberdeen, into “nations.”
1
a
106
(1859.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
1
son between the public eminence of the two candi-
dates, and this probably decided the election. The
number of Students was low at the time ; only 1170
voted, of whom 643 were for Mr. Gladstone, and
527 for Lord Neaves. Mr. Gladstone thus became
the first elected Lord Rector of the University of
Edinburgh.
The formation of the University Court soon
followed ; this body was to consist of the Lord
Rector and his Assessor, the Chancellor's Assessor,
the Principal, the Lord Provost, and the Town
Council's Assessor, the University Council's Asses-
sor, and an Assessor to be elected by the Senatus
Academicus.
The Assessors nominated were as follows:
By Lord Brougham, Sir John Melville.?
By Mr. Gladstone, Dr. John Brown.
By the Town Council, Bailie Grieve.
By the University Council, Mr. Edward Mait-
land.4
By the Senatus Academicus, Professor (after-
wards Sir Robert) Christison.
These five persons, together with Mr. Gladstone,
Sir David Brewster, and the Lord Provost (Francis
Brown Douglas), constituted a Court whose func-
2
3
1 We have seen above that previous to 1858 the Lord Provost was ex
officio Rector of the College of James VI. (p. 32, and Vol. I. p. 211).
2 Ex-Lord Provost of Edinburgh, after whom the “Melville Drive”
round the Meadows is named ; an able man, and a leading member
of the Whig party in Edinburgh.
3 The kindly humourist, and by all beloved author of Rab and his
Friends.
4 Solicitor-General, afterwards Lord Barcaple.
1859.]
107
FORMATION OF UNIVERSITY COURT.
tions were to revise, on appeal, the acts of the Senatus,
to sanction the expenditure by the Senatus of Uni-
versity funds, and generally to take a supervision of
the Professors. After the Ordinances of the Com-
missioners should have become law this Court would
be the sole body having power, with the consent of
the Chancellor and of the Privy Council, to change
those Ordinances. In the meantime, while the
Commissioners continued to sit, many of the func-
tions proper to the University Court were performed
by them. And as, by an omission, the Universities
Act had not transferred the buildings and other pro-
perty of the University to the Senatus, these con-
tinued for two years more to be administered by the
Town Council, until at last in 1861 another Act
effected the transference.
Before the end of 1859 the University's new
constitution was completed by the appointment of a
Curatorial Board for the administration of the patron-
age of the University, formerly in the hands of the
Town Council. It had been arranged that this
Board should consist of seven persons, four to be
appointed by the Town Council, and three by the
University Court. Accordingly Bailie Johnston, and
Councillors Fyfe, Peat, and Mood were appointed to
be Curators by the Town Council, and Mr. Gladstone,
Mr. E. Maitland (afterwards Lord Barcaple), and Mr.
David Mure, M.P. (now Lord Mure) by the Univer-
sity Court. The first appointment made by this body
was in May 1860, when they appointed Mr. P.
Guthrie Tait to be Professor of Natural Philosophy,
108
(1859.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
a
a
in room of Professor Jas. D. Forbes, who had
migrated to St. Andrews.
The general framework of the machine having
been prepared for future working, the Commissioners
had now to legislate upon the details which had been
entrusted to them, and more especially to regulate
studies and graduation, and the distribution among
the Universities of the Parliamentary grant. They
began with the subject of Medical graduation, a sub-
ject most important for the University of Edinburgh,
and which had hitherto been found to be productive
of “burning questions.” By the end of July 1859
the Commissioners had completed a draft of revised
Medical regulations for Edinburgh, which they sent
to the Senatus for their consideration. The reply
consisted in a deputation of Professors, who waited
on them to represent “the difficult and anomalous
position in which these altered statutes will place
the University.” The Commissioners, however,
could not be persuaded that any danger was to be
apprehended from their proposed regulations for
degrees in Medicine, which they embodied in an
Ordinance (called Ordinance No. 5), and published
in the Edinburgh Gazette. Ordinance No. 5” was
in effect merely a modification of the Statuta Solen-
nia adopted by the Senatus in 1833 (see Vol. I. p.
333); it prescribed a preliminary examination in sub-
jects of general education, the amount of attendance
necessary on the different departments of Medical
science, and the different professional examinations
to be passed. Its chief feature was that it subdivided
a
1859.]
109
ORDINANCES OF THE COMMISSION.
the examinations to a greater extent than had before
been done, and made them more practical. The
examinations in Scientific subjects were to be." as far
as possible by demonstrations of objects placed before
the candidates; and those on Medicine and Surgery
in part by Clinical demonstrations in the hospital.”
A Thesis was still to be required from each candi-
date. On the whole, it is difficult to see what the
Senatus found objectionable in this Ordinance. It
did not, however, become law immediately; time
was left for the hearing of all that could be said
against it, and the result of much discussion was
that the Commissioners themselves changed their
mind on the subject, not at all in the direction of
making concessions to the views of the deputation,
but as adopting an improvement upon their original
plan. In March 1860 they produced “Ordinance
“
No. 8 for Degrees in Medicine, supplementary to
Ordinance No. 5." Hitherto they had spoken of
"
"a degree in Medicine," as if the old custom were
to be followed, according to which the University of
Edinburgh gave only one degree, that of Doctor of
Medicine. They now divided Medical degrees into
three classes : Bachelor of Medicine (M.B.), Master
in Surgery (C.M.), and Doctor of Medicine (M.D.).
All the examinations prescribed in Ordinance 5 were
now said to be applicable only to the two lower
degrees, whereas the degree of M.D. was to be
obtainable without further Medical examination by
a Bachelor of Medicine of two years' standing,
not less than twenty-four years of age, and who
N
host
IIO
[1860.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
had shown himself to know Greek and either
Logic or Moral Philosophy, and who had passed
in at least one of the following subjects, viz. :-
French, German, Higher Mathematics, or Natural
Philosophy. The Commissioners' idea, then, of a
Doctor of Medicine was that he should be a qualified
Medical practitioner of some little standing, and with
more general cultivation than the majority of his class.
This new arrangement evoked opposition from
the Medical Corporations of Great Britain (among
which were the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons
of Edinburgh) who wished to prevent degrees in
Surgery being granted by the Universities. Their
opposition was really of a very selfish character; it
was an attempt to stamp University degrees as an
insufficient qualification for general Medical practice,
which they would have been under the terms of the
Medical Act of 1858, if the Universities, though
examining their Students in Surgery as well as
Medicine, gave them nominally only a degree in
Medicine. The Corporations were heard on the
subject before the Privy Council, but their repre-
sentations were set aside.
On the other hand, another clause in Ordinance
8 produced an expression on the part of the Senatus
of their jealousy of the extra-mural teachers. To the
extent of one year's attendance, or of four of the
departments of Medical study, “the lectures of such
Teachers of Medicine in Edinburgh, or elsewhere,'
as should be "recognised by the University Court, ”
were to reckon as part of a Student's regular course.
1)
1860.]
III
ORDINANCES OF THE COMMISSION.
This was the old point on which the Senatus had
fought the Town Council through the Courts of
Law and in the House of Lords. In April 1860
they adopted a "protest” against the regulation.
The same thing had indeed been forced upon them
by the Town Council, and they had lived under the
system for five years. But from other causes this
had been a time of depression in the University
Medical School, so they attributed bad effects to a
rule which in all probability had been rather bene-
ficial to them than otherwise.
Professor Syme
dissented on this occasion from their protest as
“opposed to the spirit of the age,” and because
"efficient Professors need not fear the recognition
of four extra-mural classes.” The protest had no
effect, Ordinances 5 and 8 being confirmed by Her
Majesty in February 1861. It may be mentioned
here that in 1866, after the Commission had ex-
pired, an improvement was made in these Ordi-
nances by the University Court, with the sanction of
the Chancellor of the University and of the Privy
Council. It was laid down that Theses should no
longer be demanded from candidates for the lower
degrees of M.B. and C.M., and, on the other hand,
that the degree of M.D. was not to be conferred on
persons not showing any evidence of Medical study
after leaving the University, but that every candi-
date for the M.D. degree must submit a Thesis on
"some branch of medical knowledge, which he may
have made a subject of study" since graduating as
M.B. With this and other slight modifications the
hold
I I2
[1860.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
Ordinances have continued in force, and under them
the number of the Medical Students in the Uni-
versity has increased from about 500 as in those
days, to over 1700, and the number of Medical
Graduates from 62 in 1859 to an average of at least
150 per annum at the present time.
The Commissioners next proceeded to legislate
for graduation in Arts, and in doing so they pro-
ceeded cautiously. They adopted scarcely any of
the recommendations of the Royal Commission
(1826-30), and indeed they exhibited a contrast to
that Commission such as will naturally emerge be-
tween a body of men whose function is to give
opinions, and another body who have the responsi-
bility of taking action. The Commissioners of
1858 paid no attention to the recommendation
that there should be a compulsory Entrance Ex-
amination, for all “public students,” in Greek
and Elementary Mathematics ; they contented
themselves with instituting a Voluntary Examina-
tion in Classics and Mathematics which Students
might pass at entrance, and so shorten their
curriculum to three years by escaping attendance
on the junior classes, while all other candidates
for an Arts degree would have a four years' course.
The Commissioners supplemented this provision by
another very judicious one, namely, that "no Student
should be permitted to pass from the junior to a
higher class in any department unless the Professor
should be satisfied of his fitness to enter the higher
dáss." This was in accordance with the opinion
1860.]
113
ORDINANCES OF THE COMMISSION.
a
expressed on a former occasion by some of the most
able of the Professors (see above, p. 80), that a strict
examination for passing from the junior to the senior
classes in Latin, Greek, and Mathematics would be
more useful to the University than an examination
for entrance into the junior classes. It would, how-
ever, have been better had the Commissioners
ordained that a regular examination should be held
for promotion into the upper classes, instead of
leaving it to each Professor to pronounce that he
was not "satisfied of the fitness" of such and such
Students to go on to his senior class. This would
be an invidious thing to do, and Professors might
apprehend that Students thus pronounced to be in-
competent would resent the stigma and leave the
University; whereas if an annual examination for
promotion had been ordained for all the Scotch
Universities, there would have been no feeling
of individual hardship. As it is, the provision
has really been a dead letter, and every year
Students find their way into the senior classes who
ought still to be among the juniors, or perhaps even
at school.
We have seen (p. 45) that the Commission of
1826 proposed that there should be two degrees in
Arts: that of Bachelor of Arts, attainable after a full
curriculum, and that of Master of Arts, attainable a
year later, after studies in Science and the exhibi-
tion of high special attainments in Literature. The
Senatus Academicus, as a quite late innovation, did
introduce of their own authority, in 1842, a B.A.
VOL. II.
I
114
[1860.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY,
degree, but it was very different from what the
Royal Commission had intended. Instead of being
a degree after a full curriculum, and in fact the old
M.A. degree under a different name, the degree
instituted by the Senatus was the old M.A. minus
some of its subjects ; it was thus a mutilated M.A.
degree, and a concession to the want of zeal in the
Students of those days. From 1843 to 1858 from
half-a-dozen to a dozen B.A. degrees were conferred
each year by the University of Edinburgh. Some
of the recipients went on to graduate afterwards as
M.A., but the majority did not do so.
The Commissioners of 1858 proceeded to knock
on the head both the ambitious proposals of the
Royal Commission, and the inferior form of degree
introduced by the Senatus. They ordained that
there should be one degree only, namely, the old
M.A. of the Scottish Universities. They at the
same time very properly forbade the conferring of
honorary M.A. degrees, which had been frequently
practised in the University of Edinburgh since the
middle of the eighteenth century (see above, Vol. I.
It was a bold measure on the part of
the Commissioners to cut off the existing B.A.
degree, but it had not been a great success, and the
Commissioners probably considered that no degree
ought to be conferred by a University except for a
complete course of study.
The question now was, What was to be considered
a complete course of study for the M.A. degree in
the Universities of Scotland ? The Commissioners
p. 265).
a
1860.]
115
ORDINANCES OF THE COMMISSION.
were very conservative on this point; they could
not find it in their hearts to dispense with any of
the seven subjects of the time-honoured Arts curri-
culum-Latin, Greek, Mathematics, Natural Philo-
sophy, Logic, and Moral Philosophy and Rhetoric ;
so much might be said for each of them. Nor could
they see their way to adding much to this list, as
the burden would then have been too great. They
contented themselves with adding on English
Literature to the seventh compulsory subject; and
they made it permissive to the University Courts
to require Natural History or Botany also from the
candidates for an Arts degree. But this in the
case of Edinburgh was never done. The Com-
missioners divided the Arts course into three
departments (1) Classics ; (2) Mathematics, in-
cluding Natural Philosophy ; (3) Mental Science
and English Literature. In each department they
ordained that there should be an additional examiner
besides the Professors of the different subjects, so
that the candidates would not be entirely examined
by their own teachers.
The Commissioners appointed that, instead of
one examination for the degree at the end of a
Student's course, examinations in each of the depart-
ments might be passed separately. Thus a Student
who had qualified himself for a three years' course
might at the end of his first year pass his examina-
tion in Classics and be done with them; at the end
of his second year pass in Mathematics; and at the
end of his third year have only Logic, Moral Philo-
a
116
(1860.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
j
sophy, and English Literature to get through. The
reason which the Commissioners gave for this
arrangement was perhaps not very happy; they
said that they thought that “the best security
for a lasting acquaintance with each subject is the
thorough and accurate study which the division of
examinations prescribed in the Ordinance is cal-
culated to insure.” Really to study a subject for
”
one year, for the purposes of an examination, and
then to dismiss it from the mind and take up another
subject in the same way, partakes of the nature of
cram," and is a system far from likely to secure
permanent acquaintance with or fondness for any
one subject. The object of University teaching is
that the mind should be thoroughly imbued, moulded,
and changed by familiarity with one or more of the
branches of the higher learning. And anything like
temporary acquirement of a subject for the purposes
of examination should as far as possible, though this
is very difficult, be eschewed.
But it must be remembered that the Commis-
sioners had peculiar materials to deal with, owing to
the imperfect character of the Schools from which
the majority of Students would come to the Uni-
versities of Scotland. In England a large number
of young men annually joined the Universities who
were already fair classical scholars, and were pos-
sessed of a good deal of general culture—the result
of desultory reading, mixing in society, and a certain
amount of travel, at home if not abroad. Therefore
it was natural in Oxford and Cambridge to begin
1860.]
117
ORDINANCES OF THE COMMISSION.
from this starting-point, and to provide specialised
courses—schools and triposes in Modern History,
Natural Science, and other branches, in addition to
a complete bifurcation of Classics from Mathematics.
But in Scotland of yore the Student frequently
brought to the University no such previous general
education ; with “little Latin, and less Greek,” and
only the experiences of his native parish, he had
everything to learn. Therefore the Commissioners
were perhaps right in those days in providing, under
the guise of a degree-system, a general culture for
Arts Students. This is, at all events, what they
,
did; they secured that each M.A. should have
been initiated and made some progress in each
of the seven subjects prescribed. Had they or-
dained the final degree examination to include
all these subjects, probably Students would have
found the burden too great,—they could not have
brought all the subjects up.
Hence the device
resorted to, which, while beneficial in one way,
has, on the other hand, tended to prevent the
development of high special attainments, either
Classical or Mathematical, in the University of
Edinburgh.
But the Commissioners had another object in
view, namely, to revive the custom of graduating in
Arts, which had fallen into abeyance in the latter
half of the eighteenth century. About the second
decade of the nineteenth century a change began to
take place in the public mind, and a certain amount
of desire for the M.A. degree began to manifest
118
[1860.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY. .
I
itself, as we see from the increased numbers of
Graduates annually recorded in the lists. But the
degree had now come to be conferred without
examination on the recommendation of the Faculty
of Arts. The discussion of University matters, to
which the events related in the last chapter partly
gave rise, and the appointment of the Commission
of 1826, doubtless stimulated an interest in the Arts
degree, and in the year 1828 we find the compara-
tively large number of twenty-two graduations in
Arts recorded; but we have already seen (above, p.
39) that three of these degrees were awarded to
Students without examination, as a prize to them for
having each composed a good English Essay, and
probably the rest of the degrees were more or less
loosely conferred. In 1835, however, the Faculty of
Arts, chiefly at the instance of Professor J. D. Forbes,
seem to have taken the matter into their own hands,
and to have laid down pretty strict rules, on which
they acted henceforth, that degrees were not to be
conferred without an examination in each of the seven
subjects of the curriculum. The result of the stricter
system adopted by them, which restrained, as we
may suppose, to some extent the then nascent desire
for the M.A. degree, was that in the twenty years
ending with 1863 (after which the Ordinances of the
Commissioners were in force) 250 such degrees were
conferred, or, on an average, rather more than 12
per annum.
The Act of 1858 held out a substantial induce-
ment to graduate. The Master of Arts would be
1860.]
119
ORDINANCES OF THE COMMISSION.
a
entitled not only to affix certain letters to his name,
but also to become a Member of the General Uni-
versity Council, to take part in its debates, and to
vote in the election of the Chancellor, of an Assessor
to sit in the University Court, and ultimately of a
Parliamentary Representative of the Universities of
Edinburgh and St. Andrews. The Commissioners
had not put any formidable obstacle in the way of
obtaining these privileges. Any Student of intelli-
gence, though beginning at zero, might, by reason-
able diligence during a four years' course, arrive at
the degree. Still, reasonable diligence, and a certain
amount of regular drill under the Professors and
their Assistants, would certainly be necessary. And
it has been remarked that one of the first results of
Ordinance No. 14 was to diminish the proportion
of idlers in the Arts classes. For instance, it is
stated by the Professor of Logic and Metaphysics
that, whereas formerly only about one half of his
class took part in the examinations and other class-
work, more than eighty per cent do so now. Of
course example is contagious, and a spirit of work
diffuses itself as well as a spirit of idleness. And
the result of the new spirit of work in the Uni-
versity, under the inducements offered, has been
that, in the twenty years beginning with 1863,
1400 M.A. degrees have been conferred, as against
250 in the twenty years preceding; thus the
average number of Arts degrees has risen from 124
to 70 per annum.
The number of Students has indeed been steadily
1
I 20
[1860.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
I
going up with the wave of prosperity which the
Commission of 1858 set in motion, but not suffi-
ciently so to account for the increase of degrees. In
the twenty years before 1863 there were altogether
11,873 matriculations in the Arts Faculty, and
degrees were to matriculations as about one to forty-
seven; in the twenty following years there have
been 15,892 similar matriculations, to which the
degrees have been as about one to eleven. Ma-
triculations, however, are not synonymous with
persons matriculating,” as the same person may
matriculate two, three, four, or five years consecu-
tively. Perhaps out of the whole number of
Students joining the Arts Faculty the average
length of attendance of each Student at the Uni-
versity did not exceed two years. Thus the pro-
portion of Arts Students graduating would be, up to
the present day, about one to five or six. This
proportion may seem inadequate, but several peculiar
circumstances have to be borne in mind. According
to the tradition of the Scottish Universities, a con-
siderable number of Students matriculate in the Arts
Faculty who are, so to speak, not Academical
Students at all; they do not come with a view to
graduation ; they perhaps cannot afford the time, or
the money, for a four or even a three years' course;
it suits them to attend a few classes, and it is an
advantage to them on leaving School to be under
Professorial teaching for a year or it may be two;
perhaps they take only English Literature and the
classes in Philosophy ; perhaps they take Chemistry
1860]
I 21
ORDINANCES OF THE COMMISSION.
in conjunction with Mathematics, or some other com-
bination outside the Arts curriculum. Such Students
are not University failures, nor do they prove any
failure in the degree-system ; they take what they or
their friends think most useful for them in reference
to professional objects. This " non-Academical”
class of Students has always been relatively smallest
in Aberdeen, and largest in Glasgow ; in Edinburgh
it would be seen to be decreasing were it not that
its number is swelled by those who, while only
attending the class, say of Agriculture, or one of the
recently-established classes of Geology, Engineer-
ing, Political Economy, Fine Art, Sanskrit, or the
Theory of Education, are all enrolled as Students
in the Faculty of Arts. Probably a degree-system
offering some option in the choice of subjects, and
bringing some of the Chairs just mentioned within
the Arts curriculum, would have the effect of
diminishing the proportion of non-graduating
Students.
The Commissioners not only provided for a pass
degree in Arts, but also for a degree with honours;
a candidate for the M.A. degree was allowed to offer
himself to be specially examined in any one or more
of the three departments—Classics, Mathematics,
and Philosophy—or in Natural Science, which for
the purpose of honours alone was added on to the
curriculum. The result of this latter part of the
Commissioners' scheme does not seem to have been
quite so successful as the former one. Out of the
1400 who have graduated under the Ordinance
I 22
[1860.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
Honours
22
during twenty years only 176 have taken honours,
namely-
In Classics—First Class .
35
Second Class
In Mathematics and Experimental Physics—First Class
23
Second Class 19
In Philosophy-First Class
34
Second Class
34
In Natural Science in which there is only one class)
9
176
On the whole, Ordinance 14 appears to have
been more favourable to the discipline of the average
Student, than to the increase of high culture or the
development of genius. Probably the number of
subjects which were made compulsory for the pass
degree has in many cases prevented a Student with
special proclivities for some one subject from dis-
tinguishing himself in it as much as he might other-
wise have done. Thus the pass-degree system of
the Commissioners was perhaps an obstacle to the
success of their system for honours.
But there are indications that the University of
Edinburgh has, during the period which commenced
with 1863, been making progress not only in the
drill of pass Students, but in the work of producing
Students of a higher calibre, and that she has im-
proved her position relatively to the other Univer-
sities of Scotland. One great test of this point is to
be found in the award of the Ferguson? Scholarships,
1 Mr. Ferguson, a wealthy Glasgow merchant, left a will “among
the minor public legacies,” in which was one of £50,000 "to, or for
the benefit of, and among such charitable, educational, and benevolent
institutions in Scotland," as his Trustees might select. After satisfy-
1
1861.]
123
THE FERGUSON SCHOLARSHIPS.
years, in
open annually, one in Classics, one in Mathematics,
and one in Mental Science, to the Students of the
four Universities. A report on the operation of
these Scholarships during the twenty-one years since
they were founded has recently been published by
the Ferguson Trustees. This report says, compar-
ing the Universities, “the greatest and most con-
spicuous progress has been made by Edinburgh,
which, while unrepresented in the first three
the next eleven years took ten Scholarships, as
against thirteen taken by Aberdeen and seven by
Glasgow; and in the last seven years took twelve of
the Scholarships as against four taken by Aberdeen
and three by Glasgow. The principal difference,
therefore, lies between Aberdeen and Edinburgh,
between which the case stands thus : of thirty-eight
Scholarships competed for in the period 1861 - 74,
Aberdeen carried off forty-two per cent, and Edin-
burgh twenty-eight per cent; while of twenty-one
ing the claims of other institutions that came within these terms, the
Trustees had about £13,000 or £14,000 unexpended, and they very wisely
decided to apply this money for the benefit of the Universities, not in
the way of bursaries to aid poor boys in commencing their career, but
in Scholarships to reward high attainment in those who had completed
their University course. Nothing was more wanted than something
of this kind, as no such encouragement for the higher learning pre-
viously existed in Scotland. The Ferguson Scholarships were to be
open to graduates of all the Scottish Universities. At first there were
two each year, one in Classics and Mathematics, the other in Classics
and Philosophy. But this was not found to work well, as the require-
ment of Classics in each case restricted the number of candidates.
In 1864 the scheme now in use and above mentioned was adopted.
The Scholarships are of only £80 a year each and are tenable for two
years. But a Ferguson Scholarship is “the blue ribbon” for its own
department in Scotland, and almost all the Ferguson Scholars have
turned out distinguished men.
124
(1861-81.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
Scholarships competed for in the period 1875-81
Aberdeen took nineteen per cent and Edinburgh
fifty-seven per cent.” During the first three years
of the competition Edinburgh did not gain a single
Scholarship ; at the end of the whole period of
twenty-one years the reckoning stands as follows :
Scholarships in Mental
Philosophy.
In Mathematics. In Classics.
Total.
6
•
22
18
00 N
ΙΟ
-
Edinburgh
Aberdeen
Glasgow .
St. Andrews
9
4
4
I
AWAV
7
4
3
4
3
لا 0
IO
5
售
​During two of the competitions (1866 and 1876)
Edinburgh carried off all the three Scholarships,
which none of the other Universities has ever done.
The remarkable change of position between Aber-
deen and Edinburgh in this great inter-University
race is said by the Trustees to be attributable “to
various causes, such as improvement in secondary
education in the South, or improvement in the
Southern University in respect to teaching and ex-
amining." No doubt both these causes were at
work : we have already adverted to the improved
spirit of work in Edinburgh under the Ordinances of
the Commission, and the Professoriate of the Arts
Faculty in Edinburgh has been stronger since 1863
than it ever was before. We shall show reason to
believe that the Schools, too, have been sending
better-prepared Students to this University than they
used to do. But, besides all this, the Ferguson
1861-81.]
125
THE FERGUSON SCHOLARSHIPS.
Scholarship lists show that the University of Edin-
burgh has of late been fortunate in securing the
attendance of several Students of exceptional ability.
There is a good deal of luck in this sort of thing, for
everything depends on the ability of the Student-it is
he and not the Professor who has got to win the race.
And it would seem a lottery as to which University
the clever Student might go. But the University of
Edinburgh has been in vogue of late, and the large
preponderance of its Arts Students, in point of
number, over those of Aberdeen or St. Andrews,
gave it a better chance than they had of securing
ability, just as he who has most tickets is likeliest
to win the raffle. Glasgow has had more Arts
Students than Edinburgh, but also far more of the
“non-Academical” kind who could never think of
competing for “the Ferguson.” On the whole, in
this matter the University of Edinburgh has shown
increased efficiency, accompanied also by good
fortune.
The state of the Schools from which Students
come to the University is important for the success
of the Arts Faculty, but not perhaps as much affecting
the chances of the Ferguson Scholarship, for a very
able youth might come very unprepared, and yet
at the end of four years might distance all his com-
petitors in some one department of the Arts curri-
culum (see above, p. 50). But while unprepared
genius may be no disadvantage to the University,
unprepared mediocrity, especially in large numbers,
,
is fatal to the Professorial system, for it turns the
$$
126
(1861-81.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
Professor into a schoolmaster, and sets the race-
horse to draw a cart.
The device of the Commissioners to stimulate the
Schools to prepare Students for the University was
to allow those entrants who should pass a moderate
standard in Greek and Latin to graduate within
three years, and those who should pass an examina-
tion in Elementary Mathematics to dispense with
attendance on the junior Mathematical class. The
result of this experiment shows that the number of
those entering with some modest preparation is
steadily on the increase. In the first ten years after
this provision had been made only 170 passed the
Classical examination for a three years' curriculum,
and about 140 the Mathematical examination. In
the subsequent ten years nearly 500 have passed the
Classical, and about the same number the Mathemati-
cal examination. The examiners do not seem to
have been very lenient to the candidates, since it
appears that about twice as many were rejected as
passed. This progressive improvement in the pre-
paration of entrants to the University is quite solid,
and is due to the excellent administration of the
Merchant Company's Schools, to Fettes College, the
High School, the Edinburgh Academy, the Ayr
Academy, and a few other Schools. It remains to
be seen whether the Endowments Commission, at
present sitting, may not succeed in enabling every
district in Scotland to send up Students at least
moderately prepared to the Universities.
In arranging for degrees in Law the Commis-
1862.]
127
ORDINANCES OF THE COMMISSION.
a
sioners must have gone to work con amore. At all
their meetings the legal element predominated, as
fully half their number consisted of leading mem-
bers of the College of Justice (the Lord Justice
General, the Lord Justice Clerk, another Judge, the
Lord Advocate, and another Advocate of eminence),
while their Secretary was also an Advocate. No
degrees in Law, except honorary ones, had probably
been given by any of the Universities of Scotland
since the Reformation, and certainly none by the
University of Edinburgh, while in Edinburgh the
Law School of the University was almost complete
in its teaching apparatus, and was attended, at that
time, by about 260 Students. So the Commissioners
had a fair field for introducing graduation in Law,
and they were determined to make a good thing of
it. They took the advice of the Faculty of Advo-
cates and other legal bodies in Scotland, and most
carefully considered the various questions that arose.
On the 12th July 1862 they produced Ordinance
No. 75, in which were contained regulations based
on the principle that there should be only one
degree in Law attainable by examination, and that
this degree was to be considered as a mark of
academical, and not professional distinction, and
therefore was to include a wider range of legal
study, and imply higher attainments, than would be
ordinarily required for professional purposes. The
title of the degree was to be Bachelor of Laws
(LL.B.), and it was to be open only to those who
had previously graduated as M.A.
128
[1862.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
The Faculty of Advocates had advised that
courses of International Law and of Constitutional
Law should be made part of the necessary curri-
culum. And the Commissioners, acting upon this
suggestion, revived the Chair of Public Law and the
Law of Nature and Nations, which had fallen into
abeyance in 1832, and they changed the title and
character of the Chair of "Universal Civil History
and Antiquities” (see Vol. I. p. 287); they ordained
this Chair, under the title of the Professorship of
History,” to belong to the Faculty of Laws as well
as to the Faculty of Arts, and they directed that the
Professor should in each winter session deliver a
course of forty lectures on Constitutional Law and
Constitutional History. They also formally at-
"
tached the Professorship of Medical Jurisprudence
to the Faculty of Laws as well as to that of Medicine.
They then prescribed a curriculum of three years
for the LL.B. degree in the following subjects :-(1)
Civil Law; (2) Law of Scotland ; (3) Conveyancing;
(4) Public Law; (5) Constitutional Law and His-
tory; (6) Medical Jurisprudence. The examiners
were to be the Professors of these six subjects,
except in those Universities where the full comple-
ment of Chairs did not exist, and then a Professor
1
а.
1 The Commissioners by this procedure weakened the Faculty of
Arts, while they strengthened that of Laws. For they diverted the
attention of the Professor from Civil History, which is an Arts sub-
ject, to Constitutional Law and Constitutional History. However,
unless Civil History could be made one of the qualifications for a
degree in Arts, which the Commissioners did not see their way to, a
Professorship of the subject would be sure to remain nearly useless.
By their scheme the Commissioners turned the Chair to some account.
1862.]
129
ORDINANCES OF THE COMMISSION.
from some other University, or a Bachelor of Laws,
was to be appointed examiner. In fact no Uni-
versity in Scotland, except that of Edinburgh,
possessed all the requisite Chairs, so that every
candidate for the LL.B. degree would have to come
to Edinburgh for part of his course.
The degree
of Doctor of Laws was left, as heretofore, a purely
honorary degree.
The degree of LL.B., seemingly so well devised,
did not suit the circumstances of the Law Students,
and was very sparingly sought by them ; during the
nine years after its establishment (1864-1872) only
twenty-four persons, or less than three per annum,
took the degree, and in 1873 no one at all. The
reason of this was obvious; the great mass of the
Students attending the Law classes were persons
with strictly professional objects in view who had
not previously graduated in Arts, and as the M.A.
degree was a necessary preliminary to the degree in
Law, as ordained by the Commissioners, almost all
the Law Students were disqualified from taking it.
And indeed there was no professional advantage
offered by any department of the College of Justice
to Bachelors of Laws which might induce Students
to make an effort to obtain the degree. All this
was taken into consideration in 1874 by the Uni-
versity authorities, and it was determined to institute
a lower and more easily obtainable degree in Law.
This was accordingly done by the University Court,
with the sanction of the Chancellor (Lord Justice
General Inglis) and of the Queen in Council. The
VOL. II.
K
130
[1874.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
new degree was to be styled “Bachelor of Law”
(B.L.), in distinction from the Legum Baccalaureus
(LL.B.) The candidate for it was to be exempted
from the requirement of graduating in Arts, pro-
vided that he attended one course of lectures in the
Faculty of Arts, and passed a preliminary examina-
tion in (1) Latin ; (2) either Greek, or French, or
German ; and (3) any two of the following subjects,
namely, Logic, Moral Philosophy, and Mathematics.
The candidate was to attend lectures and pass an
examination in Civil Law, Scots Law, and Convey-
ancing, and, at his own option, either Public Law,
Constitutional History, or Medical Jurisprudence.
Thus the B.L. degree-which under the Scottish
Reform Act of 1868 would give a seat in the General
Council and the University franchise--was offered
after a two years' attendance at the University, in-
stead of the six or seven years' attendance required
for LL.B., and after an examination in four instead
of six Law subjects. But even these concessions
have proved insufficient. The number of Students
attending the Law classes has gone on increasing
since the days of the Commission, and in the session
1882-1883 there have been 489 Law Students en-
rolled, so that persons intended for the different
branches of the legal profession find it worth their
while to seek teaching in Law from the University,
but they do not consider it profitable to graduate
in Law. The minor degree of B.L. has only been
taken during eight years by twenty-two persons, or
less than three per annum. And the higher degree
1874.]
131
THE B.L. DEGREE.
of LL.B. remains at about the same average. The
higher degree may indeed be stimulated in the
future by a change in the rules of Arts graduation,
making the Arts degree more accessible and attrac-
tive. The lower degree in Law can only be stimu-
.
lated by professional inducements. Something in this
direction was very nearly effected by the Law Agents'
Act (1873), which reduced the years of appren-
ticeship for Writers in the case of any person who
should have taken the B.L. degree; but unfortu-
nately this inducement was neutralised by the offer
of an alternative, giving the same privilege to any
person who should have attended (without passing
any examination) three classes in the Arts Faculty.
And of course the latter, and far easier alternative
is preferred.
Having now made regulations for degrees in
Medicine, Arts, and Law, the Commissioners ap-
proached the subject of graduation in Divinity.
Curiously enough they found themselves unable to
deal with it. Thirty years earlier there would have
been no difficulty about the matter, but the Disrup-
tion had intervened, and everything relating to
ecclesiastical matters was a sore subject in Scotland.
Proposals had been made as early as 1855 for the
introduction of the degree of Bachelor of Divinity
into the Universities of Scotland, and from that
time till 1862 a good deal of discussion on the sub-
ject had taken place. The Test Act of 1853 had
left the Divinity Faculties in all the Universities
strictly denominational. Each Professor in those
132
[1862.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
Faculties must be a member of the Established
Church of Scotland. It was then doubtful, to say
the least, whether Free Churchmen or members of
other Nonconformist Churches would accept the
teaching of these Professors belonging to the
Establishment. There was, in truth, no difference
of doctrine between the Free Church, the United
Presbyterian Church, and the Church of Scotland;
but there was a difference of ecclesiastical feeling
which could not be got over.
The Free Church
and the United Presbyterians had already set up
their own Divinity Halls, and the question now was
whether the Universities should examine and confer
degrees upon the Students of those Halls, or whether
they should require candidates for degrees to accept
the teaching which they (the Universities) offered.
On this point there was a difference of opinion
between the Universities themselves; Glasgow and
Aberdeen took the more liberal view, while St.
Andrews and Edinburgh held to the view that every
candidate for a B.D. degree must have studied
Theology for one year in the University in which
he wished to graduate. There was doubtless also a
difference of opinion among the Commissioners ;
they, like other bodies, found themselves divided
into two sections on Church matters as a result of
the Disruption. They concluded, therefore, that, “in
a matter of acknowledged difficulty and delicacy," it
would be better for them “to abstain from issuing
an Ordinance which would interfere with the free
action of the Universities themselves." In short,
1862.]
133
ORDINANCES OF THE COMMISSION.
they left the Universities to fight out the question
as best they could.
The remaining arrangements which the Com-
missioners had to make for the University of
Edinburgh were easily disposed of by them. Of
the £10,000 a year to be voted by Parliament
for the improvement of the four Scotch Univer-
sities, they allotted £3345 to Edinburgh, whereof
£2405 was applied to augmenting the salaries
of Professors, £ 540 for the payment of Examiners,
and £400 for Class - Assistants. The Commis-
sion of 1858-62 supplied, so far as the means at
their discretion would permit, that subsidy which
the University of Edinburgh sorely needed, and
which the Royal Commission of 1826-30 forgot even
to ask for (see above, p. 47).
The Commissioners found the bursaries in Edin-
burgh comparatively few. Those that were petty
in value they increased by the reduction of their
number, and in some cases they altered the condi-
tions which had been prescribed by the founders.
They had also the agreeable duty of framing Ordi-
nances for the regulation of several valuable new
Scholarships, funds for which were presented to the
University while the Commission was sitting. In
fact, the new era of life which was now opening for
the University of Edinburgh seemed to attract the
interest and sympathy of the outside world.
And a
series of benefactions commenced soon after the
passing of the Act of 1858 which has continued
uninterruptedly to the present day.
The most
134
[1862.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
1
2
important of the early benefactions was the pre-
sentation by Dr. John Muir of £4000 (subse-
quently increased by him to £6965) towards the
foundation of a Chair of Sanskrit in the Uni-
a
versity, for the regulation of which the Commis-
sioners framed an Ordinance, allotting £ 200 a year
from public funds towards the salary of the
Professor
For the administration of the valuable Library
of the University of Edinburgh, the Commissioners
made a careful and judicious Ordinance. They con-
firmed the order of the Town Council (above, p. 83),
by which Graduates were to be admitted to Library
privileges; and they made various other rules which
need not here be enumerated.
They had been directed to inquire and report
“how far it might be practicable and expedient that
a new University should be founded, to be a national
University for Scotland.” This was Mr. Glad-
stone's contribution to the Act of 1858 (above, p. 98).
The four Universities of Scotland were to be asked
severally whether they wished to efface themselves
a
a
1 John Muir, D.C.L., LL.D. was one of the best friends the Univer-
sity of Edinburgh ever had. He was celebrated for his knowledge of
Sanskrit, and in 1854 retired from the Indian Civil Service to devote
his life to study and to the promotion of higher learning and of
scientific theology. He was very generous and philanthropical. He
not only founded the Sanskrit Chair, but also provided a course of
lectures on the Science of Religion, which were delivered 1880-82
by the Rev. Principal Fairbairn. He was author of an important
work in five volumes, entitled Ancient Sanskrit Texts. Also of
a number of Metrical Translations from the Sanskrit. He died
in 1882.
2 See Appendix 0. LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF EDIN-
BURGH.
1862.]
135
ORDINANCES OF THE COMMISSION.
as Universities and become Colleges under the
“ National University for Scotland” of the future.
The Commissioners with all gravity made the en-
quiry, and the result was that “the University Court
and Senatus Academicus of St. Andrews; the Chan-
cellor, University Court, and Senatus Academicus
of Glasgow; the Chancellor, University Court, and
Senatus Academicus of Aberdeen ; and the Senatus
Academicus of Edinburgh, all expressed as their
opinion that it was inexpedient that a new Univer-
sity should be founded to be called the National
University for Scotland. The reply of the Univer-
sity Court of Edinburgh” (in which it must be
remembered that Mr. Gladstone himself was sitting
as Lord Rector) “alone, among the replies received,
evinced the existence of any doubt on the subject,
intimating that within that body there was a differ-
ence of opinion.” So the Commissioners came to
the conclusion that they could not recommend that
the ancient Universities of Scotland should be
swept
away.
The Commissioners of 1858-62 left the Univer-
sity of Edinburgh in the possession of constitutional
autonomy, with its studies and degrees regulated
by Ordinances, and, should any change in those
Ordinances appear desirable, with the power, under
due checks, of revising them. All was prepared for
the peaceful career upon which the University then
entered, and which was a great contrast to the
storms which its Senatus Academicus had before
gone through. But while allotting to the Univer-
136
(1862.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
sity an equitable portion of the funds at their dis-
posal, the Commissioners still left it with the bare
necessaries of existence, and in its normal state of
poverty. The Professorships and other offices were
still inadequately endowed, and there were absolutely
no encouragements to Students to aim at distinction
in learning, like those which are so plentiful in the
English Universities. The Town Council, with all
their services to the University, had never dreamt
of enriching it; it did not occur to their imagina-
tions that a great University requires large resources.
Else some of the too numerous hospital foundations
round Edinburgh might have come to the Univer-
sity. General Reid's and Sir Joseph Straton's
bequests during this century had just raised the
University above pauperdom. To meet this state
of things the “Association for the better endowment
of the University of Edinburgh" was instituted in
1864, chiefly by Dr. Muir, the founder of the San-
skrit Chair. This Association has collected funds,
not of any great amount, with which it has from
time to time provided certain useful scholarships and
bursaries, but its chief function has been to make
known by annual meetings and reports the wants of
the University, and thus to aid in enlisting the sym-
pathy of the public.
The efforts of the Association, no doubt com-
bined with many concurrent causes, and following
up the interest which surrounded the University of
Edinburgh in the commencement of its new life,
resulted in the most extraordinary efflorescence of
1863.]
137
UNIVERSITY ENDOWMENT ASSOCIATION.
1
gifts, of a kind which was most wanted, namely, en-
a
couragements for the higher learning in Students.
Down to the date of the foundation of the Ferguson
Scholarships (1861), all benefactions for Students
had been in the shape of bursaries to help them to
get through their course whether well or ill. But
now there came a series of rewards provided for
those who at the end of their course could show
distinction above their fellows. Taking first the
Faculty of Arts in Edinburgh, we find the following
remarkable list of successive benefactions to it, being
all foundations of Scholarships open to M.A.s of
not more than three years' standing :
1861. Pitt Club 1 Scholarship of £60 a year for three years.
1862. Mackenzie Scholarship of £120 a year for four years,
founded by James Mackenzie, Esq., W.S.
Both these Scholarships were regulated by Ordinance of the
Commissioners; they were each intended by their donors to
encourage the study of “Classical Literature," but in each case
the Commissioners added on English Literature to the subjects of
competition.
1863. Sir David Baxter of Kilmaron, Bart., one of the greatest
of the University's benefactors, now came forward to
encourage the other departments in the Arts curriculum,
and founded a Scholarship in Mathematics, and one
in Mental Philosophy, each of £60 a year for four
years.
1865. Miss Drummond founded, in memory of her brother,
Captain Drummond, R.E., Under Secretary for Ireland,
a Scholarship in Mathematics of £100 a year for three
years.
1865. Mrs. Tyndall Bruce of Falkland founded a Scholarship in
a
1 On the dissolution of the Edinburgh Pitt Club in 1861, some of its funds
were handed over for the assistance of the University.
138
(1865-76.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
1
I
Classics, one in Mathematics, and one in Mental Science,
each of £ 100 a year for three years.
1866. James Guthrie, Esq., of London, founded what he called
a Fellowship 1 in Classics of £100 a year for three years.
1866. The Subscribers of a Fund for a Memorial to Sir William
Hamilton founded a Fellowship in Mental Science of
£100 a year for three years.
1867. Similarly, as a Memorial to Sir James Shaw, Bart., of Ayr-
shire, Lord Mayor of and M.P. for London, the Shaw
Fellowship, in Mental Philosophy, was founded, of £172
a year for five years, open to M.A.s of all the Scottish
Universities of not more than five years' standing, and
under the condition that the Shaw Fellow, during his
tenure, shall deliver two or more lectures on a philo-
sophical subject. This Fellowship, three times com-
.
peted for, has on each occasion been gained by a Student
of the University of Edinburgh.
1871. In memory of Charles Maclaren, Esq., the eminent
geologist, the Trustees of his widow founded a Scholar-
ship in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, of £ 100
a year for three years.
1875. In accordance with the Will of A. H. Rhind, Esq., of
Sibster, a Scholarship in Classics and one in Mental
Philosophy was founded, each of the value of about £95
a year for three years.
1876. Three Scholarships of £100 a year each for three years,
one in Classics, one in Mathematics, and one in Mental
Philosophy, were founded by John Edward Baxter, Esq.,
of Craigtay.
Now when we reflect that up to 1861 there was absolutely no
pecuniary encouragement for Arts Students in the University of
Edinburgh to endeavour to distinguish themselves, the above list.
showing what was done in the subsequent fourteen years, must
1 Several donors at this time called their foundations “Fellowships,” though
these differed in no way from Scholarships. The idea was that, as at Oxford
or Cambridge, a prize for Graduates, as distinct from a prize for Undergraduates,
must be a Fellowship. But a Fellowship implies participation in the annual
revenues of a College. Such a thing was an impossibility in Edinburgh.
a
1882.]
139
FOUNDATION OF SCHOLARSHIPS.
a
seem remarkable. For now there was provided at least one
valuable prize each year, to be competed for by distinguished
Graduates in each of the three departments of the Arts Faculty.
But this was not nearly all, for the other Faculties also
received encouragement.
We may first mention foundations in
what would be called the Faculty of Science, if the University
recognised such a Faculty, but which have at present to be placed
on the outskirts of the Faculty of Arts.
1865. Sir David Baxter of Kilmaron founded two Scholarships,
of about £70 a year each for two years, to be awarded
to the most eminent of the Bachelors of Science, in
Physical Science (including Experimental Philosophy
and Chemistry) and in Natural Science (including
Botany, Zoology, Physiology, and Geology) respectively;
with the condition that the Scholar should at the end of
his first year of tenure proceed to the degree of Doctor
of Science.
1869. A Memorial to Dr. Hugh Falconer, Superintendent of the
Botanic Gardens at Calcutta, took the form of a Falconer
Fellowship of about £107 a year for two years (which
may be extended to three or four with the sanction of
the Senatus and University Court), in Natural History
as applied to Geology and Paläontology.
1874. Dr. Neill Arnott bequeathed £1000 that the annual inter-
est might be given as a reward each year to the most
distinguished Student in the Physical Laboratory of the
University
1882. The Misses Steven of Bellahouston, in memory of their
brother, founded a Scholarship or Prize in Agriculture of
about £80, to be awarded yearly.
1882. R. Mackay Smith, Esq., founded two Scholarships, one
in Natural Philosophy and one in Chemistry, of the
annual value of £50 each for two years, to be awarded
alternately by the Universities of Edinburgh and
Glasgow.
For Students in the other Faculties also numerous encourage-
ments were successively provided. Thus for Divinity :
.
140
[1875.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
1862. The Pitt Club Trustees, besides their Arts Scholarship,
furnished funds for another, open to Students in the
Divinity Hall. It was regulated by the Commissioners,
who appointed a competitive examination in Evidences,
Systematic Theology, Hebrew, Church History, and
Biblical Criticism, for M.A.'s being Divinity Students of
three years' standing. It is now worth more than £ 100
a year, and is tenable for three years.
1867. By the Will of the late John Maxton a scholarship
of £40 a year for three years was founded. It is
open to Students who have completed their Divinity
course.
1875. A Memorial Fund, subscribed in honour of Dr. W. Glover,
assumed the form of a Divinity Scholarship of about
£30, tenable for three years.
1875. By bequest of Dr. David Aitken, formerly rninister of Minto,
a Scholarship of about £100 a year for two years was
founded for Divinity Students of the University of Edin-
burgh, the object being that the successful candidate
should study Church History and Biblical Criticism in
one or more of the Universities of Germany.
The last four Prizes are confined to Students belonging to the
Established Church of Scotland. But in 1879 and 1882 Dr.
Gunning of Rio de Janeiro founded three Scholarships of £40,
£30, and £20 respectively, for two years, and one Fellowship of
£100 for two years, which are all open to Students of any
Scottish Church holding the Westminster Confession of Faith.
Dr. Gunning's object was to encourage a knowledge of Science
among the Clergy. The subjects of competition for his Scholar-
ships are Natural History, Botany, and Geology, and some depart-
ment of Natural Theology or Christian Apologetics, having special
reference to the connection between Religion and Science. They
are open to Students beginning their course of Divinity. The
Fellowship is for Students who have completed their course.
The subjects are the same three branches of Natural Science, and
Theology in all its departments.
The Faculty of Laws still remained without encouragement,
in the way of Scholarships, for its Students to graduate with dis-
1880.]
141
FOUNDATION OF SCHOLARSHIPS.
.
1
I
tinction, though graduation in this Faculty (as we have seen
above, p. 131) needed a stimulus. In 1878 the Edinburgh Uni-
versity Endowment Association came to the rescue, and presented
a Fellowship of £100 a year for three years, open to LL.B.s and
B.L.s of not more than five years' standing; and this was to be
competed for by a Thesis on some subject of legal study. This
was done out of the annual funds of the Association, and was not
a foundation. But the first experiment was so successful that the
Association, in 1882, presented a second Fellowship on the same
terms.
The Faculty of Medicine has been much enriched of late
years by gifts of Prizes and Scholarships for its successful and
promising Graduates. The most important of these are:--
1868. A Prize of about £40, founded by Miss Mary Ettles of
Inverness, to be awarded annually to the most dis-
tinguished Medical Graduate of the year.
1872. A Prize, founded in memory of Professor Goodsir, of £60
for Graduates in Medicine of not more than three years'
standing, which is awarded to the best essay contain-
ing original research in Anatomy or in Experimental
Physiology.
1872. A Fellowship founded in memory of Professor Syme, of
about £110 per annum for two years, for the best Thesis
on a Surgical subject.
1876. The Leckie - Mactier Fellowship of £80 per annum for
three years, awarded for excellence of Infirmary reports
and commentaries, and in oral examination on Medical
subjects. The three last - named prizes are open to
M.B.s of not more than three years' standing.
1876. A Prize of about £40, founded by J. G. Beaney, Esq., of
Melbourne, for the Graduate in each year who gets the
highest marks in Anatomy, Surgery, and Clinical Surgery.
1880. A Prize of £40, founded by Mrs. James Buchanan, for the
Graduate in each year who shows the highest proficiency
in Midwifery and Gynecology.
* In 1876 an annual prize of £10 was founded by the Forensic Society, for
the Graduate in Law who passes with most distinction in four subjects of the
curriculum.
142
(1879.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
1883. A Prize of £40, founded by Mrs. Scott for proficiency in
Midwifery.
And there have been several other valuable Prizes founded in
the classes of Chemistry, Physiology, etc., but not confined to
Graduates; and several Medical Scholarships (so called) which
are rather of the nature of valuable bursaries, being open to
Medical Students at the commencement of or in the earlier part
of their course, and being tenable for three or four years each.
Such are some, though by no means all, of the
gifts for encouraging the higher learning in each
Faculty which have flowed into the University of
Edinburgh since the Commission of 1858-62. The
list is very striking when we consider that before
1862 not one of the Faculties was provided with
single substantial reward to be competed for by its
Graduates.
But the greatest gift of this kind has yet to be
named, one that was nearly all-embracing in its
scope, and which places its founder in the highest
rank of the benefactors of the University. In 1879
Dr. Vans Dunlop, a retired physician resident in
Edinburgh, bequeathed the residue of his estate,
which has already amounted to a sum nearly equal
to that which the University derived from General
Reid, to found Scholarships of £100 a year each,
tenable for three years, in all the main departments
of University study, except, indeed, Theology. At
present eighteen of these Scholarships have been
established, nine in the Faculty of Arts, eight in the
Faculty of Medicine, and one in the Faculty of Laws.
The Scholarships in the Arts Faculty are for the
greatest merit in (1) English Literature and Poetry,
1879.]
143
THE VANS DUNLOP SCHOLARSHIPS.
(2) Classical Literature, (3) Engineering and the
Useful Arts, (4) Commercial and Political Economy,
(5) Logic and Metaphysics, (6) Natural Philosophy,
(7) Mathematics, (8) History, (9) Oriental Lan-
(
guages and Comparative Philology. The rules laid
down by the Senatus generally make these Scholar-
ships open to Students of not less than two and not
more than six years' standing, without reference to
whether the candidate may have graduated or not.
Such prizes, so open, have given a great stimulus to
all the Arts classes, and have produced higher work
in some of them than was before known in the
University. The successful candidates are required
to produce evidence during their tenure of Vans
Dunlop Scholarships that they are worthily pro-
secuting their studies or professional work.
The Vans Dunlop Scholarships in the Faculty of
Medicine are (1) for the Student who passes the
best preliminary examination in general subjects
for entering the curriculum; (2) for the Student who,
at the end of his first year, does best in Botany,
Zoology, Chemistry, and Anatomy; (3) for him who
at the end of his second year is best in Physiology
and Surgery ; (4) for the best Student at the end of
the third year in Anatomy, Physiology, Materia
Medica, and Pathology. Three Scholarships of the
last kind have been provided, so that one is open
every year.
In addition to the above a Vans
Dunlop Scholarship has been founded for proficiency
in Chemistry and Chemical Pharmacy; and another
in Natural History, Botany, and Geology.
>
144
[1882.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
a
In the Faculty of Laws the Vans Dunlop
Scholarship is for knowledge of all the subjects in
the curriculum, supplemented by a Thesis showing
special research and ability.
The University should certainly honour the
name of Dr. Vans Dunlop, for he has done more
than any one else ever did to encourage high attain-
ment in the several branches of its teaching.
In 1882 a new kind of encouragement for re-
search in connection with the University was intro-
duced by a generous, but hitherto anonymous donor,
who presented a sum of money to provide what are
called “ Elective Fellowships” of £100 a year each.
The idea is that Graduates of the Scottish Univer-
sities are to apply for these Fellowships, announcing
a desire to prosecute research in either (1) Mathe-
matics, (2) Chemistry, (3) Biology, (4) Mental Philo-
sophy, (5) History, or the History of Literature.
There is to be no competition, but the Senatus, after
getting as full information as they can about the
antecedents and capacities of each applicant, are to
elect a Fellow to prosecute research in each of the
specified departments. The whole thing is as yet
an experiment, and if not thought successful may be
dropped ; if, on the other hand, the Elective Fellow-
ships should be permanently founded, the University
of Edinburgh will be provided to some extent with
that which has been so much called for elsewhere,
“the endowment of research."
The sums which have been bequeathed, pre-
sented, or subscribed during the last twenty years
.
1882.]
145
FOUNDATION OF BURSARIES.
for establishing Scholarships in the University of
Edinburgh are quite understated as follows :-
For Scholarships in Arts
£40,900
in Divinity
I 2,200
in Medicine
9,850
in Science.
9,500
0 0
O
0
0
O
99
0
O
Total
£72,4000
To which has to be added, not being included in the
above, the amount of the Vans Dunlop bequest,
which already has yielded over £70,000; and this
brings up the total amount presented to the Univer-
sity within a very short period for the encourage-
ment of higher learning to something considerably
over £ 142,000.
But the kindness and generosity of private indi-
viduals and of Associations has been manifested
towards the University in other ways also. Since
1862 there have been no less than forty-nine distinct
foundations of new bursaries in the different Facul-
ties. The total amount “mortified” for this pur-
pose has been close on £90,000,—that is to say,
£52,000 for Bursaries in Arts, £ 12,250 for Bursaries
in Divinity, £ 17,000 for Bursaries in Medicine, and
£8,725 for Bursaries in Law. A good many of the
£
Bursaries in Arts have been founded by County
Clubs or Associations existing in Edinburgh, and
are for assisting youths from particular districts to
join the University. As soon as an entrance exam-
ination has been established to test the fitness of
such youths to profit by University teaching, these
VOL. II.
L
146
[1867
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
foundations will be of unmixed advantage.
But
with all that has been done, the University of Edin-
burgh is not yet adequately provided with open
bursaries to be competed for by boys coming to enter
from the various schools of the country.
One of the recent bursary foundations, which
was made quite open to all comers, has a peculiar
interest attached to it, and many persons may like
to see some of the terms in which it was made.
This was the bequest to the University of Edin-
burgh, by one of its greatest pupils, of the small
estate bearing the now historic name of Craigen-
puttock, being the first piece of landed property that
ever came into the possession of the Senatus Aca-
demicus. The Will, of which the draft
may
be seen
in the University in Carlyle's handwriting, carefully
worded and with many corrections, speaks as
follows:
"I, Thomas Carlyle, residing at Chelsea, presently Rector of
the University of Edinburgh, from the love, favour, and affection
which I bear to that University, and from my interest in the
advancement of education in my native Scotland as elsewhere;
for these, and for other more particular reasons, which also I wish
to put on record, do intend, and am now in the act of making, to
the said University, bequest as underwritten, of the estate of
Craigenputtock, which is now my property. . . . Craigenputtock
was for many generations the patrimony of a family named Welsh
—the eldest son generally a 'John Welsh'-in series going back,
think some, to the famous John Welsh, son-in-law of the Reformer,
Knox. The last male heir of this family was John Welsh, Esquire,
surgeon, Haddington (born at Craigenputtock in 1775, died at
Haddington in 1819, a highly honoured, widely regretted man,
and is buried in the Abbey Kirk of that town); his one child and
heiress was my late dear, magnanimous, much-loving, and to me
1867.]
147
THOMAS CARLYLE'S BEQUEST.
6
inestimable wife; in memory of whom, and of her constant noble-
ness and piety towards him and towards me, I now, she having
been the last of her kindred, am about to bequeath to Edinburgh
University, with whatever of piety is in me, this Craigenputtock
which was theirs and hers, on the terms and for the purposes
underwritten. Therefore, I do mortify and dispone, etc., for the
foundation and endowment of ten equal bursaries, to be called
the 'John Welsh Bursaries,' in the said University, all and whole
the twenty-shilling lands of Upper Craigenputtock, etc. ... More
especially, I appoint that five of the John Welsh Bursaries shall
I
be given for best proficiency in Mathematics (I would rather say
'in Mathesis,' if that were a thing to be judged of from competi-
tion), but practically, above all, in pure geometry, such being
perennially the symptom, not only of steady application, but of a
clear, methodic intellect, and offering, in all epochs, good promise
for all manner of arts and pursuits. The other five bursaries I
appoint to depend (for the present and indefinitely onwards) on
proficiency in classical learning—that is to say, in knowledge of
Latin, Greek, and English, all of these or any two of them. This
also gives good promise of a mind; but as I do not feel certain
that it gives perennially, or will perennially be thought in uni-
versities to give the best promise, I am willing that the Senatus
of the University, in case of a change of its opinion on this point
hereafter in the course of generations, shall bestow these latter
five bursaries on what it does then consider the most excellent
proficiency in matters classical, or the best proof of a classical
mind, and directs its own highest effort towards teaching and
diffusing, in the new generations that will come. ... Bursaries to
be always given, on solemnly strict and faithful trial, to the
worthiest. : . Under penalties graver than I or any highest
mortal can pretend to impose, but which I can never doubt-as
the law of eternal justice, inexorably valid, whether noticed or
unnoticed, pervades all corners of space and of time—are very
sure to be punctually exacted if incurred, this is to be the per-
petual rule for the Senatus in deciding. Bursaries to last till
the usual term of admittance to trial for graduation as Master of
Arts
and so may a little trace of help to the young heroic
soul struggling for what is highest, spring from this poor arrange-
ment and bequest; may it run, for ever
run, for ever if it can, as a thread of
148
(1871.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
pure water from the Scottish rocks, tinkling into its little basin by
the thirsty wayside, for those whom it veritably belongs to. Amen.
Such is my bequest to Edinburgh University.” Dated 20th June
1867.1
But it has not only been by gifts of Scholarships
and Bursaries that “favour and affection” have been
manifested to the University of Edinburgh during
the remarkable period which the Act of 1858 in-
augurated. Several important additions have been
generously made to the teaching power of the Uni-
versity. The first of these was the Chair of San-
skrit, already mentioned (p. 134), which in 1862 was
endowed by Dr. Muir with 40,000 rupees, then
yielding £ 200 a year interest, to which an annual
Parliamentary grant of £200 was added. Secondly,
in 1868 Sir David Baxter, of Kilmaron, Bart.,
founded a Chair of Engineering, and endowed it
with the sum of £6000, to which H.M. Treasury
added a yearly grant of £200. Thirdly, in 1871
Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, Bart., founded a
Chair of Geology with a mortification of £6000,
supplemented by £200 a year from the public funds.
In the case of each of these three Chairs, the first
appointment of a Professor was placed in the hands
1 This Will, which was made by Carlyle during his tenure of office
as Lord Rector of the University, and shortly after the death of Mrs.
Carlyle, came into effect at his own death in 1881. Perhaps no docu-
ment of the kind was ever composed in higher literary style, or was
more imbued by the philosophy of the testator. From it we learn
Carlyle's theory of education -- that mathematics must perpetually
hold their place among the most important instruments of cultivation;
but that Latin and Greek may very likely be superseded, in favour,
perhaps, of the modern languages of Europe.
1871.]
149
NEW CHAIRS FOUNDED.
of the private founder, on the understanding that
the subsequent patronage was to revert to the
Crown. Fourthly, in 1871 a Chair of Commercial
and Political Economy and Mercantile Law was in-
stituted by the Merchant Company of Edinburgh,
who, acting under the enlightened guidance of their
then Master, Mr. Boyd, subsequently Lord Provost
and now Sir Thomas Jamieson Boyd, availed them-
selves of the Permissive Act of 1869 for the im-
provement of endowed institutions, and redistri-
buted the funds attaching to George Watson's,
Daniel Stewart's, Gillespie's, and the Merchant
Maidens' Hospitals, which were under their control.
By a bold and able settlement, made under the Act,
the Merchant Company created out of these insti-
tutions a splendid set of graded schools, of which
the secondary schools for boys have been of special
advantage to the University, while those for girls
have been models of their kind, and have proved a
great benefit to the community of Edinburgh. In
addition to these educational achievements in the
more general department of public instruction, the
Merchant Company resolved to apply some of their
surplus funds to the appropriate object of founding
a Chair in the University, the teaching from which
would be valuable for future merchants. They
accordingly "mortified” a sum of £10,000 for this
purpose, and with the view of adding a practical side
to the scientific and abstract theories of Political
Economy, they required their Professor to include
Mercantile Law among the subjects of his Chair.
a
150
[1876.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
Unfortunately, as before mentioned (Vol. I. p. 301),
they declined to give the Professor a life-tenure
of his office, which renders the appointment pre-
carious, and which might deter the best men
from applying for it. But hitherto no inconveni-
ence has been felt.
The patronage of the Chair
is given to the Board of Curators, with the addition
of the Master of the Merchant Company for the
time being
Fifthly, in 1876, for the first time in Great
Britain, a Chair of “Pædeutics," or, as it is actually
styled, of “The Theory, History, and Practice of
Education," was founded by the Bell Trustees.
The circumstances were these : the Rev. Dr.
Andrew Bell of Egmore, who was celebrated as an
educational theorist, had in 1831 bequeathed the
residue of his estate in trust to the then Lord Leven
and Melville and others, for the purpose of promot-
ing the so-called Madras or Monitorial system
throughout the elementary schools of Scotland. In
1876 the Trustees were Lord Leven and Melville,
his son Lord Kirkcaldie, and John Cook, Esq.,
W.S., the respected Factor to the University. At
that time the Education (Scotland) Act of 1872 had
come into full operation, and elementary schools
throughout the country were amply supported by
local rates. Therefore the Bell Trustees, who had
previously expended the trust-fund in subsidies to
such schools, found their vocation gone. They very
appropriately determined to found Chairs of Educa-
tion in honour of Dr. Bell; they placed one in St.
I
1882.
151
NEW CHAIRS FOUNDED.
Andrews with an endowment of £4000, and one in
Edinburgh with an endowment of £6000. And
thus persons intending to become schoolmasters
may, while pursuing general studies in the Univer-
sity, learn within the University walls all that has
hitherto been arrived at as to the philosophy and
technique of their profession.
Sixthly, Henry George Watson, Esq., and Miss
Frances Watson, jointly assigned certain policies of
assurance on the life of the former to the Senatus
Academicus to found a Chair of Fine Art in the
University, in memory of their brother, the late Sir
John Watson Gordon, President of the Royal Aca-
demy of Scotland. In 1880 these policies emerged
by the death of Mr. H. G. Watson, and the Watson-
Gordon Chair was then established, with an endow-
ment of about £ 12,000, and with instructions to the
Professor to lecture “on the History and Theory
of the Fine Arts, including Painting, Sculpture, and
Architecture, and other branches of Art therewith
connected.”
Seventhly, this varied list of new Professorships
was completed in 1882 by the foundation of a Chair
of the Celtic Languages, Literature, History, and
Antiquities. This foundation removed a reproach
from the Universities of Scotland, which, as repre-
sentatives and repositories of the national learning,
should certainly have possessed such a Chair before.
It was also the fulfilment of a desire which, more or
less strongly, had been long previously felt. In
1807 the Highland Society addressed a letter to the
a
a
a
152
[1882.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
Town Council of Edinburgh, recommending the
establishment in the University of a “ Professorship
of Celtic Literature and Celtic and Scottish Anti-
quities.” This letter having been referred to the
Senatus for their opinion, Principal Baird wrote a
sensible report upon it, to the effect that the establish-
ment of a Regius Professorship, such as had been
recommended, would be very desirable, provided
that it were adequately endowed, as next to nothing
could be expected from the fees of such a class.
He suggested that the Chair should deal with
“ British” and not merely “Scottish ” Antiquities.
In 1808 the Town Council petitioned His Majesty's
Ministers to found a Regius Professorship of Celtic
Literature and Celtic and British Antiquities,-- from
which no result ensued.
Sixty-two years later, in April 1870, it was moved
in the General Council of the niversity by Mr.
Alexander Nicolson, a man of letters and an accom-
plished Gaelic scholar, now Sheriff - Substitute in
Kirkcudbrightshire, “that it is desirable that there
should be a Chair of Celtic Literature and Anti-
quities in this University, and that it be remitted to
a Committee of the Council to consider and report
on the subject.” The motion was seconded by Pro-
fessor Blackie, and carried unanimously. The Com-
mittee, of course, reported in favour of the Chair,
and the report was sent up as a representation to the
University Court, which body pronounced that the
object was doubtless desirable, but that it depended
on private liberality for its realisation. The Com-
1882.]
153
THE CELTIC CHAIR.
mittee was reappointed again and again, till in April
1874 they reported that they had sent out 1500
circulars of appeal for subscriptions, but without
much result. Mr. Nicolson then moved that Pro-
fessor Blackie be appointed Convener of the Com-
mittee. From that moment the project sprang
into
life. Professor Blackie, full of enthusiasm for the
cause, threw himself into it with the greatest ardour,
and, not trusting to circulars, made personal appeals
to all the Highland chieftains so successfully that at
the end of one year he was able to report more than
£4000, and at the end of two years more than
£8000 subscribed ; in October 1877 the subscrip-
tions amounted to over £ 10,000, but Professor
Blackie set down £ 12,000 as the endowment to be
obtained before the Chair should be founded. In
October 1878 close on £12,000 was reported, but
the Celtic Chair Committee recommended still
further delay for augmentation of the funds. At last
in April 1882 Professor Blackie reported that the
subscriptions with the accumulated interest amounted
to €14,000, and this being the state of things, he
said, “the Celtic horse has now been provided, and
it only remains to find a rider.” The Council were
unanimous in agreeing that during his lifetime Pro-
fessor Blackie should be added to the Board of
Curators as one of the patrons of the new Chair.
They also resolved that, in addition to scientific
lectures on Celtic Philology and Antiquities, the Pro-
fessor, when appointed, should provide instruction
in "the uses and graces” of the Gaelic tongue.
It
i 54
[1882.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY. .
was a great feat that Professor Blackie had accom-
plished in collecting the funds for their endowment.
Doubtless there was a feeling of enthusiasm for
their race and its history and its poetry, among
the
Highland gentlemen, which might be successfully
appealed to. But everything depended on how the
appeal was made; no mere circulars, however well
drawn, would have sufficed; and as to personal
applications— Qui rogat timide docet negare. It
required Professor Blackie's boldness and ver-
satility and grace of manner to accomplish what
was done.
Probably no other man could have
done it.
During the 280 years which ended with the year
1862 only two Chairs were established in the Univer-
sity by private foundation—those of Agriculture and
of Music; in the twenty years subsequent seven
Chairs have been founded through private liberality,
and the total endowment of these Chairs from
private sources amounts to £58,000. The Univer-
sity of Edinburgh cannot yet vie with that of Berlin
and other great Continental Universities in the roll
of its Professoriate. But, as compared with other
Scottish Universities, it is now rich in this respect ;
it has altogether thirty-eight Professors—seventeen
attached to the Faculty of Arts, twelve to that of
Medicine, five to the Faculty of Laws, and four to
the Faculty of Divinity.
Other gifts, which have swelled the tide of muni-
ficence flowing in to the University of late years,
must not be here omitted. Chief of these was a
1870-83.]
155
RECENT BENEFACTIONS.
а.
1
munificent bequest by Sir David Baxter of £20,000
(reduced by legacy duty to £18,000) for augment-
ing the salaries of Professors in the Arts Faculty.
And during his lifetime (in 1870) the same generous
benefactor had presented £4000 to provide an
official residence for the Principal. Gifts or bequests
of a general kind to assist the University in meeting
the cost of education and research are comparatively
rare, but are highly valued ; of this kind was a grant
of £ 2000 made in 1879 by the Trustees of the Gil-
christ Fund, the interest whereon is annually to be
applied to the purchase of scientific instruments.
In 1872 the late Robert Cox, Esq., W.S., be-
queathed £ 3000 to increase the General Fund of
the University, and out of Dr. Vans Dunlop's
splendid bequest a sum of £ 3000 was devised for
the same object. Mr. Robert Cox also left £2000
for the purpose of completing Adam's original design
for the east front of his University Buildings by
placing a dome over the entrance.
This object
will be carried out when the money bequeathed for
it has sufficiently accumulated. In an Appendix
we shall relate more particularly the munificent
bequests and subscriptions which have been made
(1874-1883) for the new buildings of the University.
Suffice it here to say that they amount to over
£ 130,000. The total amount of the benefactions
received by the University of Edinburgh from
1 This was a Fund bequeathed by Dr. Gilchrist, a well-known and
learned physician of Calcutta, for assisting educational institutions
throughout the world.
156
[1883
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
private sources during the last twenty years is con-
siderably understated as follows :-
0
O
.
For Scholarships
For Bursaries
For Professorships
For increasing Professors' salaries
For Buildings.
For Miscellaneous Purposes
£ 142,000
90,000
58,000
18,000
130,000
14,000
o o o o o o
O
O
O
Total .
£ 452,000
O
In addition to which the University has received a
1
subsidy from Government of £80,000 for its new
buildings. And, as since 1862 the number of
Students attending the classes has increased from
about 1500 to over 3300, we may truly say that since
the Commissioners of 1858-62 left the University
settled under its new constitution its prosperity has
been constantly advancing" by leaps and bounds.
We may conclude the history of the develop-
ment of the University of Edinburgh down to the
present day by noting some of the changes and im-
provements introduced of late years by the autono-
mous action of the University itself. The General
Council, though it has no legislative or executive
powers, has been found to play a very useful part.
We have seen how it furnished the impulse which
ultimately led to the creation of the Celtic Chair.
It has originated other important movements. At its
second meeting, in April 1860, when Mr. Gladstone,
as Lord Rector, presided over it, it agreed to re-
present to the University Court “that it is desirable
1883.)
157
UNIVERSITY LOCAL EXAMINATIONS.
that an examination for certificates of merit to be
granted annually by the University to candidates
from the Middle and Upper Schools of Scotland
(similar to the English ‘Middle Class Examina-
tions') should be instituted.” The University
Court concurred in this view, and the Senatus pro-
ceeded to carry it out by establishing “University
Local Examinations,” “ to supply a common test of
attainment both for pupils of public schools and
for those privately educated.” It was arranged that
the examinations should be conducted by means of
papers sent down from the University to various
local "centres.' Certificates of different grades,
pass and honour, were granted; prizes were awarded
to candidates who did well; and even a few bursaries
were established for those who should be most highly
distinguished.
Under the able management of
Professor Calderwood, who undertook the duties of
Secretary to the Local Examinations Board, these
examinations became very popular, and they have
now apparently taken a firm hold on the country.
So much so, that the system of Local Examinations,
first started by the University of Edinburgh, has
now been adopted by all the other Universities of
Scotland. The system has proved a welcome
stimulus not only to schools, but to many private
Students, especially of the female sex. In fact it is
remarkable, as results show, that the Edinburgh
University Local Examinations have been chiefly
useful in promoting the solid education of girls.
During the present year the University has sent
158
[1883
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
down its examination papers to 47 centres.
The
total number of candidates was 891, of whom 746
were girls.
In 1867 another movement was started, if not
by the University, at all events under encouragement
of the Professors, and especially of Professor Masson,
who took a warm interest in the cause.
This was
for carrying on the education of young women after
the secondary stage, that is, after the period of school
and Local Examinations. An “ Association for the
Higher Education of Women” was started in Edin-
burgh, of which the idea was that certain Professors
should give every winter a course of lectures, each
on his own University subject, for ladies. The same
sort of thing has been started in many other places
and has often broken down, but in Edinburgh it has
stood the test of time; and now the Association
have a building of their own, with commodious
lecture - rooms and library, and the classes now
taught in them, by the Professors or their Assist-
ants, are those of English Literature, Latin, Greek,
Biblical Criticism, Logic, Moral Philosophy, Political
Economy, Theory of Education, Fine Art, Mathe-
matics, Experimental Physics, Botany, Zoology,
and Physiology. The attendance at each of these
different classes varies from a small number up to
seventy or eighty lady-Students. The University
awards a “Certificate in Arts” to any lady who,
having previously passed in the Local Examina-
tions, passes in any three of the above-named sub-
jects. There is a further and special examination
1883.] THE UNIVERSITY EDUCATION OF WOMEN. 159
for an “Honour Certificate" in any one of the
specified subjects.
It must be mentioned that the Association now
styles itself the “Association for the University
Education of Women," and in fact it has always
been the object of some leading spirits in the
Association to obtain the admission of women to the
classes within the University walls, and the opening
of degrees to women on the same terms as those on
which they are open to men. As long as the Uni-
versity is overflowing with male Students, and every
class-room is overcrowded, it is of course impossible
to think of admitting a number of ladies in addition.
But, waiving this, the whole policy which aims at
such a thing seems mistaken,
.
“For woman is not undeveloped man,
But diverse,"
and therefore, though undoubtedly women should
have facilities for obtaining a University education,
it should probably be one cast on different lines from
the present University system for men. What the
Woman's University of the future will be, time and
experience have yet to determine.
There was another step generously, but impru-
dently, taken by the University of Edinburgh which
led to disastrous consequences. In 1869 a lady,
,
belonging to the old Norfolk family of Jex-Blake,
applied to the University authorities to allow her,
“as an experiment,” to attend some of the Medical
classes. The Senatus, by a majority, expressed
160
[1869-72.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
themselves in favour of granting what she asked.
The matter was referred to the University Court,
who decided (1) that for one lady alone no change
could be made in the University custom ; (2) that
ladies could not be admitted to study Medicine in
the same classes as the Students ; but that, if a
sufficient number of ladies could be got together,
and if any Medical Professors would give them
lectures at separate hours, there could be no objec-
tion to this course.
Miss Jex-Blake then collected some half-dozen
other ladies with the same views as herself, and
renewed her application. It was now found that a
few of the Professors in the Medical Faculty were
willing to give separate lectures for ladies; the
number of Medical Students was then low, and some
of the Professors were not so fully occupied as they
are now. The majority of the Faculty, however,
declined to teach the ladies. This was attributed
to jealousy, trades'-unionism, fear of the rivalry of
women, etc. ; but many of the Professors who re-
fused were men in large practice, or whose time
was otherwise engaged, and it would not have been
remunerative to them to give up their time to the
laborious task of repeating all their lectures to half-
a-dozen pupils.
-
The ladies, looking to a Medical degree, were
entitled to learn four of their subjects under extra-
mural teachers. And they found no difficulty in
doing this. One of the extra-mural teachers to
whom they went made his class a mixed one, of
1869-72.] THE MEDICAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN. 161
male and female Students, and this gave rise to bad
feeling. When the ladies had taken all the extra-
mural courses which the Statutes permitted, and
could get no more teaching within the University,
they found themselves brought to a stop. They
therefore petitioned the Senatus to take measures
for procuring an alteration of Ordinance in their
favour, so that they might complete their curriculum
extra-murally, and then be examined for their
degrees. The Senatus took the opinion of Counsel
at this point, as to whether they could legally do
what the ladies desired. The Solicitor-General for
Scotland (now Lord Rutherfurd-Clark) and Mr.
(now Lord) Watson gave a very decided opinion
that the University had no power of conferring
degrees upon women, and therefore that any steps
in that direction would be incompetent. Of course
it would have been competent for the Senatus, with
the concurrence of the University Court, the Chan-
cellor, and the Privy Council, to get the constitution
of the University changed, and to make it come
forth as the first University in Great Britain that
conferred degrees upon women.
But the Senatus
were not in a mood to do this; they had learnt by
experience that there were great practical difficulties
in the way of carrying out the medical education of
women within the University ; had met with un-
reasonable obloquy on account of those difficulties ;
and the majority of them were only too glad to
be done with the whole business, and they replied
that they could take no further action. The real
VOL. II.
M
162
[1872.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
mistake which the Senatus committed, and which
did amount to a certain injury to Miss Jex-Blake
and her friends, was that they did not from the
very first ascertain what were the legal powers of
the University with regard to conferring degrees
upon women.
Had they done so, the ladies might
or might not have accepted the teaching of a few
Medical Professors on the distinct understanding
that they could not be graduated. And then there
would have been no cause of complaint.
As it was, the ladies naturally felt that they were
aggrieved, having been led on to disappointment;
and, having numerous backers in Edinburgh,—for
the question became one which excited the greatest
interest, and on which society was divided,--they
raised an action to compel the University to graduate
them. The Lord Ordinary (Gifford) before whom
the case of Jex-Blake versus the Chancellor and
Senatus Academicus of the University of Edinburgh
came in the first instance, decided in favour of the
pursuer ; but, on appeal to the Court, this judgment
was reversed by a majority of the whole Bench of
Judges (with the exception of the Lord President,
who as Chancellor of the University had been made
a defendent in the case, and therefore gave no judg-
ment) on the ground that the University had no
power of admitting women to its degrees. And so
1 It may be observed that in this action Counsel on one side pleaded
that the University of Edinburgh had been founded on the model of
the University of Bologna, in which University some women had been
made Professors ! Counsel on the other side pleaded that the College
of Edinburgh down to 1858 had no degree-giving powers at all. Both
pleas were, of course, historically incorrect.
1
1864.]
163
THE BACHELOR OF DIVINITY DEGREE.
I
terminated this unfortunate episode, which, however,
had the good effect of exciting a strong sympathy
for the ladies who were concerned in it; and this
resulted in legislative enactments enabling Uni-
versities to admit women to degrees, and also in the
creation of a separate Medical School in London for
the training of women.
But to return to the management by the Uni-
versity of Edinburgh of matters more strictly within
its own province. In 1864 the Senatus Academicus
took up a question which the Commissioners had
left unsettled (see above, p. 132), and laid down
regulations for the Bachelor of Divinity degree.
The point at issue with regard to this degree had
been, whether Free Churchmen and other Dissenters
should be obliged, in order to obtain it, to have
received any portion of their theological teaching
from the Professors of the University, who belonged,
of course, to the Establishment. In 1864 the
Senatus determined that they must do so; they
ruled that "candidates who are not members of the
Church of Scotland must have attended, during at
least one session, two at least of the classes of the
Theological Faculty of the University.” The
degree was awarded on these conditions, which
virtually excluded Free Churchmen from seeking it
for about five years, and then the General Council
of the University intervened, and appointed a large
and influential Committee of their number to con-
sider the subject. This Committee recommended
that all reference to Church membership should
164
[1864.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
be struck out of the regulations, and that the rule
should simply be that “candidates who are not
Masters of Arts of the University of Edinburgh
must have attended two classes in one or more of
the Faculties of this University.” They also recom-
mended that in conducting the examinations the
Theological Professors should be assisted by two
additional examiners, being B.D.s of one of the
Universities of Scotland, to be appointed by the
University Court. These recommendations were
approved of by the Council, and subsequently were
adopted by the Senatus, and, with the sanction of
the Court and the Chancellor, they became law.
The degree in Divinity is therefore now open to
persons who have had all their theological training
in extra-mural and dissenting Schools, and of late
years Free Churchmen have been frequently ap-
pointed as additional examiners.
In 1864 the Senatus, having established a degree
in Divinity, proceeded without further ceremony to
establish degrees in Science also. They issued regu-
lations for a double degree of Bachelor of Science and
Doctor of Science in the following departments :
(1) The Mathematical Sciences;
(2) The Physical Experimental Sciences;
(3) The Natural Sciences;
(4) Engineering ;
and for a Doctor's degree in—(1) Mental Science;
(2) Philology. Speaking generally, the introduction
of these degrees was an advantage ; and it was in
accordance with the genius of the University, which
3
a
a
1864.]
165
DEGREES IN SCIENCE.
had always been prone to distinguish itself as a
Scientific School. But it must be remembered that
there is as yet no Faculty of Science in the Uni-
versity, and there was certainly something informal
in the way in which these degrees were established
proprio motu by the Senatus, without reference to
the University Court, the Chancellor, or the Privy
Council. Probably at some future date there will be
a revision of this matter. A Faculty of Science will
be created, and the regulations for degrees in Science
will be more carefully adjusted in some of the depart-
ments than they have hitherto been.
In
many ways the Senatus Academicus have gone
on, under control of the University Court, improving
from time to time the institutions of the University.
Of late they have been working in the direction
of increasing the teaching power of the Univer-
sity by the introduction of lectureships. In the
Faculty of Medicine they have established a lecturer
on Mental Diseases and one on Diseases of the Eye
and in the Faculty of Arts they have appointed a
lecturer on Philosophy. There is one matter, how-
ever, in which the autonomy of the Universities of
Scotland seems powerless to act, and which can only
be regulated by an external authority, and that is the
general reform of the Arts Faculties.
It has long
been felt that these Faculties need some reform, for
two reasons : first, because, while the Arts Pro-
fessors in all the Universities are men of the highest
calibre, they are set to do a vast amount of work
which is unworthy of them, owing to the number of
a
166
[1876.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
unprepared Students that are admitted to their
classes ; secondly, because, while in the other Uni-
versities of the world candidates for a degree in
Arts have some choice and option as to the subjects
in which they shall graduate, in Scotland alone the
aspirant for an Arts degree is bound down by a hard
and fast rule to seven subjects, all of which he must
take
up
without reference either to his proclivities
or to his professional objects in life. Obviously the
system requires changing, but it cannot be changed
by the Universities themselves, owing to the diver-
sities of view entertained, and the serious interests of
Professors which are involved. The Universities
must move altogether in such a matter, else one
University might undersell the others, and there is
not the faintest chance of getting all the Univer-
sities to agree upon a scheme embodying any sub-
n
stantial reform. Therefore this question remains to
be externally determined. The expression of public
opinion on this matter caused the Government in
1876 to appoint a Royal Commission, in general
terms, to inquire into and report upon the institu-
tions of the Universities of Scotland. That Com-
mission was presided over by the veteran lawyer
and educationist, the Right Hon. John Inglis, Lord
Justice General, and it contained several eminent
personages, notably Dr. Lyon Playfair, M.P., and
Professor Huxley. It was thought that the two last
named gentlemen gave too strong a bias to the re-
commendations of the Commission in the direction of
encouraging Science in the Universities, to the ex-
)
1868.] ENFRANCHISEMENT OF THE UNIVERSITY.
167
tinction, it might alınost be said, of classical studies.
Whatever may be the case in a more or less remote
future, Scotland has for the present much to gain by
an increased attention, and much to lose by a dim-
inished attention, to classical studies. And it is to
be hoped that the University of Edinburgh, when a
new Executive Commission comes to deal with it,
may be developed not in one direction alone, but in
all, and that the new Commission may be as judicious
in dealing with the questions submitted to it as was
the Commission of 1858 - 62 in dealing with the
questions of that day.
In the previous enumeration of the good fortunes
of the University of Edinburgh one has been omitted,
and must here be mentioned, which was not only an
accession of dignity, but also a solid boon. By the
Representation of the People (Scotland) Act of 1868,
the Universities of Edinburgh and St. Andrews
were empowered to return jointly a Member to the
House of Commons. The two Universities have
been during three Parliaments, and are still, repre-
sented by the Right Hon. Dr. (now Sir) Lyon
Playfair, whose election has rested not so much on
political, as on Academical and scientific grounds.
The University of Edinburgh has found it a great
advantage to have a representative in the House of
Commons cognisant of its circumstances and watch-
ful over its many important interests.
The gradual transformation of the small “Town's
College" in the Kirk-of-Field into the University of
Edinburgh of the present day has been traced in
168
[1584
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY,
outline in the preceding pages. But to fill in that
outline
many
details are still requisite, and especially
some account of those persons who, working from
age to age within the institution, gave it its strength
and its fame, and made it the school which it has
grown to be. To supply information on such points
the following Appendixes are added.
APPENDIX O. THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF
EDINBURGH.
I
:
I
I
The foundation of the University Library was anterior to that of
the College of Edinburgh. In 1580 Clement Little----one of
the City Commissaries above mentioned (Vol. I. p. 105)-
bequeathed his books of Theology, estimated to be worth 1000
merks, “to the Town of Edinburgh, to be used by the Ministers,
Elders, and Deacons thereof," " Item, his Law books, and other
books for scholars," estimated at £140: 18:8 (Scots). The
Town Council, accepting this gift, ordered that for its reception
a house or library be made at the end of Mr. James Lawson's
study,” that is to say, as part of the Manse of St. Giles' Church
(see Vol. I. p. 106). The work was rapidly carried out, and on
the 14th October 1580 the books were presented by William
Little, each volume being stamped with the arms of his brother,
and with the words: “I AM GEVIN TO EDINBURGH AND KIRK OF
GOD BE MAISTER CLEMENT LITIL THAR TO REMAN.
1580."
James Lawson having died in 1584, the Town Council, on
the 18th September of that year, ordained “the Town's Library,
shelves and boards thereof, to be transported forth of the lodging
some time occupied by Mr. James Lawson, Minister, and set up
in the Town's College, in a house convenient, at the sight of
William Little, Bailie, and to be delivered to Mr. Robert Rollock,
Master of the said College, and he to be obliged to the custody
thereof, like as the said Mr. James was obliged of before.” Thus
there was as yer no College Library, but "the Town's Library”
1626.]
169
THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY.
ފު
was deposited in charge of the Principal of the College. Still, it
became very soon the custom that Graduates should pay tribute
to this Library, either in the shape of books or money, as if it
belonged to their Alma Mater. And, on the other hand, being
considered the City Library, and being the only public library in
this part of Scotland, it was augmented from time to time by
gifts and legacies of books from the citizens and neighbours of
Edinburgh.
Among the early benefactors of the Library are mentioned :
William Rig of Mortoun; James Heriot; Thomas Fisher ;
Archibald Douglas of Whittinghem; Thomas Hope of Craighall,
Lord Advocate; David Williamson ; James Raeth of Edmonston;
.
and Dr. Robert Johnston. And to this list has to be added an
illustrious name, that of the poet and scholar Drummond of
Hawthornden, who, having been educated first in the High
School and afterwards in the College of Edinburgh, where he
graduated in 1605, retained a great regard for the scenes of his
early training. After leaving the College Drummond seems at
once to have commenced collecting books, both during three
years of travel and residence abroad, and also when, on his
return, he had “retired to his own house at Hawthornden, a
sweet and solitary seat, and very fit and proper for the Muses."
In 1626, when Drummond was forty-one years old, there appears
to be some reason for conjecturing? that he contemplated
breaking up his establishment at Hawthornden, being called to
go abroad for some time on business connected with the registra-
tion of a patent which he was taking out for military machines.
Before leaving his studious retreat for an indefinite time he
presented his books to “the Library of Edinburgh.”
On the 26th November 1626 Principal Adamson appeared
before the Town Council and produced an inventory of “a
number of books given and devoted to the Library within the
College by Mr. William Drummond of Hathrindaill" (sic). The
Council ordered that the books should be “put into the
Library with the rest,” and that the inventory should be printed
at their expense. Adamson, who was an accomplished scholar,
produced accordingly a printed Latin catalogue, which he
1
See Professor Masson's Drummond of Hawthornden.
Life and Writings (1873), p. 171.
The Story of his
170
[1627.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
entitled Auctarium Bibliothecæ Edinburgena, sive Catalogus
Librorum quos Gulielmus Drummond ab Hawthornden, Biblio-
theca, D.D.Q., Anno 1627.1 To this catalogue Adamson
prefixed a Latin Preface, which was in fact a translation of a
paper which Drummond of Hawthornden had previously written
Of Libraries. In it the importance of great Libraries is declared,
and their founders eulogised. Among them is specified “the
most worthy Bodley," who in 1602 had presented a collection
of about 3000 volumes to the University of Oxford.
Shortly afterwards there was published a tract, which is
generally attributed to Drummond, but may have been by Adam-
son, entitled Bibliotheca Edinburgena Lectori, in which the Library
was supposed to have addressed people, and invited them to
increase its stores. Such appeals almost always produce some
fruit in the course of time, if not immediately; they sink into
people's minds and bring, if not gifts, then legacies.
Drummond's auctarium or addition to the Library consisted
of “about 500 volumes, in various languages, with some MSS.,
most of them with Drummond's name written on them, and some
of them with his marginal markings and underlinings of passages
as he had read them."2 This collection was, on the whole, a
literary rather than a scientific one, and it probably brought to
Edinburgh some specimens of modern and elegant literature
which had not previously reached this remote Metropolis. But
it strikes one on reading the catalogue that the collection is
desultory and slight. For instance, of Shakespeare's plays there
are only Love's Labour Lost (1598), and Romeo and Juliet
(1599); of Spenser's works not the Faery Queene, but the
Epithalamium; of Bacon only The Wisdom of the Ancients,
etc. Drummond afterwards presented a few other books and
some papers of interest. 3
1 The date appears to refer to the time when the catalogue was printed,
not to that, some months earlier, when the books were actually given.
2 Masson's Drummond, p. 166.
3 It so happened that thirty or forty years ago Bower, then Assistant
Librarian, took away to his own house a packet containing some of the Drum-
mond Papers in order to sort and catalogue them. While he had these in his
possession, Bower died, and the papers were removed with his other effects to
his daughter's house in London. In 1875 Mr. Marshall, Bower's son-in-law,
thinking that these papers might belong to the Edinburgh University Library,
then restored them. Mr. Small, the present Librarian, found amongst them a
3

Es
SAM
NERELT
IN
MINTE
THE OLD LIBRARY (1823) FROM THE WEST.

be
Bum
1
TIE
Juma
THE OLD LIBRARY (1823) FROM THE SOUTH.

1626.]
171
THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY.
Even before Drummond's contribution had been received the
Town Council had felt the Library to be of sufficient importance
to require extended accommodation beyond what had been
originally allotted to it in the College. In 1616, as we shall see
more particularly elsewhere, they built a Hall for Academical
purposes, 120 feet long by 30 broad, and the room over this
of the same size was appropriated to the reception of the
Library. But the upper Hall appears to have been ill-built and
not weather-tight. So in 1642 another edifice was erected for the
.
College Library adjacent to the former one; but in 1753 the
Upper Hall was renovated, and restored to its original function,
and it continued to hold its ground as the University Library till
1825, long after the rest of the old College buildings had been
demolished to make way for the new University quadrangle
designed by Adam and modified and completed by Playfair.
How the old College Library looked when it was left standing in
its original homeliness surrounded by stately architecture we may
judge from a sketch judiciously made by Playfair to commemorate
the contrast between the old and the new.
At first, and indeed for fifty years, the Library was under the
sole charge of the Principal, and for his guidance the Town
Council in 1621 passed the following Act :—“They forbid the
Principal to suffer any books in their Library or pertaining to the
Good Town to be lent out of the same to any person or persons
whatsoever; and that none be suffered to enter into the Library
but those who shall be sworn that they shall neither steal nor take
away any books forth of the said Library, rive, or blot, or misuse
any of them, which Act the Council intimate to the Principal,
being present.” In this Act we observe that the Town Council
were particular not to call the Library “the College Library,"
but to speak of it as the property of the Town.
In 1626 Principal Adamson, on representing to the Town
1
very curious document, being a statement in the handwriting of Leslie, Bishop
of Ross, of the occurrences at Jedburgh in 1566, when Queen Mary was severely
ill
, and gave what she supposed to be her dying instructions to her nobles. Mr.
Small has published this hitherto unknown episode in Mary's life, which cer-
tainly shows her under a favourable light, though it is true that her enemies
may quote the old saying: “When the devil was sick, the devil a saint would
be," etc.
1 This was Patrick Sands, who only held office two and a half years.
a
172
[1637
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
Council the injury which the books were sustaining from damp, was
allowed 180 merks per annum (£10 sterling) for a servant to
attend to the state of the volumes, and for coals to heat the
room.
:
In 1635 it was resolved that it would be better to appoint a
Librarian who should attend at stated hours for the convenience
of readers, which the Principal could not do. A Mr. Kenneth
Logie, who had already given assistance to Principal Adamson,
was chosen Keeper of the Library with a salary of 400 merks
(£22: 3:4). In 1636 a more detailed set of rules was drawn
up by the Town Council to be observed by those who should use
the Library. It is noticeable that in the preamble to these Rules
the Town Council ignored Mr. Clement Little, and gave a some-
what fanciful account of the origin of the Library; for they said :
“Whereas the Provost of this Burgh for the time having at the
foundation of the College within this Burgh caused a Library to be
kept for gathering of books for the use of Students and advance-
ment of learning,” etc. And they proceed to ordain that the
Library shall be "made patent to all Students who shall be
immatriculate and make faith in manner underwritten” (i.e. swear
that they will neither steal nor deface the books). This Act then
gave a special interest in the Library to matriculated Students,
which had never been done before. The Library henceforth
ceased to be “the Town's Library," and became definitely " the
College Library." Still outsiders were to be allowed, after taking
the oath, to have the privilege of reading in the Library; but the
T
quaint order was made that the Keeper should "admit none to
their oath who has not been educate within the said College before
first they give in some new book to the said Library.” The oath
appears to have been taken before certain of the Bailies during
the session 1636-37 by forty-two persons, among whom were
Hannay, the Dean of Edinburgh,1 Ramsay, formerly Rector of
the College, the Principal and Regents, and of the rest perhaps the
majority were Students. In the following year, amongst others,
Drummond of Hawthornden took the oath, and thus was again
able to consult his own books. It was ordered that the Keeper
should “not suffer any students to take down any books at their
own hands that shall not be chained ;” which shows that a few,
1 At whom Jennie Geddes was said to have flung her stool.
1
1667.]
173
THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY.
a
2 till 4.
at all events, of the books were so secured, though Morer in 1688
praised the Library for having bookcases closed in with wire
instead of a multitude of chains. The Library was to be used
solely as a reading-room ; the books were never to be lent out.
In summer the Library was to be open six hours a day, except on
Sundays—from 7 to 9 A.M., from 10 to 12 A.M., and from 2 to
4 P.M. ; in winter it was to be open from 10 to 12, and from
Minute regulations were added for preventing the
damage or destruction of books.
With so many hours of attendance required for so small a
salary it is not to be wondered at that neither Mr. Logie nor his
immediate successors continued to hold office long. Between
1635 and 1667 there was a succession of no less than ten
Librarians; probably none of these persons had a peculiar vocation
for the employment. But in 1667 the Town Council found out
a born Librarian in the person of Mr. William Henderson, who
showed great zeal and fidelity in his office, so that after he had
held it for seven years his salary was augmented from 400 to 600
merks yearly in consideration of his great diligence. Besides
fulfilling his duties towards the books, he acted also as Secretary
to the College, an office which was henceforth combined with that
of Librarian. Such minutes, however, as W. Henderson kept of
the Meetings of "the Faculty" of the College, were contained in
that “Old College Register" which was seized by the Town
Council in 1703, and is now unfortunately lost (see Vol. I. p. 245
note). We possess his handwriting, however, in an accurate
register of the books 2 and other objects presented to the Library
during his term of office, preceded by a complete catalogue of
former benefactors of the College; also in the Graduation Book
where for a series of years he entered the laureations; also (and
for this particular gratitude is owing to him) in a complete MS.
2
1 Morer's Short Account, p. 87.
2 Among the benefactions of that day was a bequest of 2000 volumes made
in 1678 by Mr. James Nairne, Minister of Wemyss. This collection was a more
solid and valuable one than that of Drummond. Nairne had graduated in 1650
under Thomas Craufurd as Regent. After he had been many years in charge of
the parish of Wemyss he was afflicted with the stone, and came to Edinburgh to
be near the physicians of those days. He was accommodated with lodgings
within the College, and dying there, bequeathed £4000 (Scots) to found some bur-
saries in Theology, and also left his library to the College.
174
[1763.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
copy of Craufurd's Memoirs of the College from its origin down
to 1646.
After holding the Librarianship for eighteen years William
Henderson resigned it in favour of his son, Robert Henderson,
who had graduated M.A. in 1684, and who was appointed
Librarian in 1685. He was the first person to introduce
Bibliotheks - wissenschaft into the management of the College
Library. For this purpose he got leave to travel and inspect the
modes of arrangement and cataloguing adopted in foreign libraries.
During his absence his father was allowed to officiate for him
as Librarian. On his return he arranged the books in presses
according to the subjects of which they treated, and he made a
catalogue of them in that order, which still exists in his hand-
writing with a Latin dedication to the Lord Provost, Magistrates,
and Council, and to Dr. Gilbert Rule, Principal of the College.
It is curious that while making this catalogue it should not have
occurred to him to make it in double form. When it was finished
he started afresh to make an alphabetical catalogue : but, though
he continued as Librarian till 1747, altogether sixty-two years --
a longer period of office than any one else connected with the
University of Edinburgh has attained, he never succeeded in
accomplishing this object.
After Robert Henderson's long incumbency a succession of
Professors held the office of Librarian. These were :
(1) 1747-1763. George Stuart, Professor of Humanity, who
appears to have been inefficient in his management of the
Library.
(2) 1763-1785. James Robertson, Professor of Hebrew, who
at once engaged as Assistant, at £15 a year, with board, a Mr.
Duke Gordon, and he proved to be a most valuable person.
Three or four Students, at 5s, a week, were also enlisted ; and,
with the aid of this staff, a catalogue was finished in two years,
and this being written only on one side of the page was readily
cut up into an alphabetical catalogue, which in two years more
was all copied out again, occupying four volumes folio. Thus in
1 According to Dalzel's account Robert Henderson must have been a quaint
and eccentric character. Meagre and emaciated in figure, he was full of self-
satisfaction ; used to show off his powers of speaking Latin, and to avow his
fear of approaching a certain ruinous wall in the old College, which, it had
been prophesied, would fall on some very learned man.
1854.]
175
THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY.
1767 the problem was solved of giving the Library an alphabetical
catalogue. 1
(3) From 1785 to 1806, Andrew Dalzel, Professor of Greek;
(4) from 1806 to 1809, George Dunbar, also Professor of Greek ;
(5) from 1809 to 1822, Andrew Duncan, secundus, Professor of
Medical Jurisprudence, and afterwards of Materia Medica; and
l
(6) from 1822 to 1854, Alexander Brunton, Professor of Hebrew,
were successively Librarians. They had extremely small salaries
in that capacity-£30 per annum ; but some of them held also
the office of Secretary of Senatus, and drew certain fees for the
issue of diplomas, amounting perhaps to £ 150 per annum. The
custom of appointing Professors to the Librarianship had begun
when the University was at an early stage of its development, and
did well enough. But, in proportion as both the Library and the
rest of the University system developed, it became more and more
improper that a Professor should undertake the charge of the
Library in addition to the duties of his Chair. So the Town
Council acted very wisely when, in 1854, they put a stop to the
system, and appointed as Librarian Mr. John Small, who had been
long connected with the University as a Student, and who had
in 1847 succeeded his father in the office of principal Assistant
Librarian.2
Having sketched the history of the Librarianship of the Uni-
versity to the present day, we may now turn back to trace the
growth of the Library itself. For a hundred years 3 it was the
I
I
1 Professor Robertson's catalogue, with additions and insertions, served
as the catalogue of the library until 1812, when its transcription, incorporating
all the additions, was begun by the Rev. Mr. Morison, and finished after
twelve years' labour. This transcription forms in the main the catalogue now
in use, though several volumes have of late been re-written. It is now
complete to the present date, bound in twenty-five volumes folio, with spaces
left for additions. The idea of printing it was suggested twenty years ago,
but rejected on account of the great expense.
2 After the appointment of Mr. Duke Gordon as his Assistant, by Pro-
fessor Robertson, there was always a principal Assistant Librarian, and this
functionary often did the whole work, leaving the office of Librarian nearly
honorary. Among the Assistant Librarians were some distinguished names,
as for instance, that of the Rev. Hew Scott, author of the Fasti Ecclesiæ
Scoticanæ, and Mr. Alexander Bower, author of the History of the Uni-
versity of Edinburgh.
3 The Advocates' Library was founded in 1682 by Sir George Mackenzie,
Lord Advocate for Scotland.
176
[1763
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
sole public Library in Edinburgh, and, though we find occasional
notices in the City Records of small purchases of books made by
the Town Council, its chief source of increase during that period
continued to be donations and bequests by private individuals.
But by the Act of Queen Anne of 1710 the University of Edin-
burgh, in common with the other Universities of Great Britain,
obtained the right to claim a copy of every book registered in
Stationers' Hall, and this, of course, produced a constant influx
of contemporary literature and printed matter, whereby the bulk
of the Library at all events was considerably increased, and many
valuable works, amid a heap of lumber, were obtained. The
University had, however, frequently to assert itself in order to
prevent its privilege from being evaded. Thus in 1733 we find
Principal Smith waiting on the Lord Advocate, Solicitor-General,
and Mr. Dundas of Arnistoun, to ask them to take care of the
interest of the University with regard to published books.
In 1737 there came the first beginning of an internal fund for
the support of the Library. In that year Dr. William Wishart,
having been admitted as Principal, declared that, "in lieu of any
entertainment usual at admission of Masters, he proposed to make
a compliment of some money (£10 sterling) and a parcel of
curious books to the Library."1 This was done, and it became
henceforth the custom that Professors, on their admission, instead
of giving a dinner to the rest of the Senatus, should present £ 5
to the Library. The development of a Library Fund of a sub-
stantial character dates, however, from the year 1763, which was
indeed the commencement of a new era for the Library in many
ways. The books had been some years before replaced, as before
mentioned, in the Upper Hall; Professor James Robertson, with
his able Assistant Duke Gordon, was undertaking to arrange and
catalogue them; and his illustrious namesake, William Robertson
the historian, had just been made Principal. One of the first
acts of Dr. Robertson's Principalship was to propose new rules
for the Library : all Professors who had not hitherto subscribed
were to pay £5 each, and all Students (except the Divinity
Students, who had a separate Library of their own) were to pay
half-a-crown each. This was to be collected in December of each
»
:
1 The names of these books are unfortunately not recorded in the minutes
of Senatus.
1764.)
177
THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY.
year, and each Student, on payment, was to “receive from the
Librarian a ticket entitling him to all the privileges of a Civis for
one year.” Thus the first form of matriculation tickets was a
ticket admitting to citizenship, not of the University in general,
but of the Library.1 At the same time it was laid down that all
persons receiving honorary degrees in Law or Divinity should pay
£ 10 each towards the Library.
Under these regulations a solid fund was provided, though
not of very large amount. A statement of the receipts from 1762
to 1787 shows those of the first year to have been the largest.
They are entered as follows :-
"1762-63. Collected for the General Branch. £132 13
Medical Branch.
O
126 5 9
£258 18 9."
The remainder of the years nearly averaged this, but never
came up to it, though the Students, in the meantime, under Prin-
cipal Robertson had nearly doubled in number. The reason is
plain ; at first the thing was a novelty ; “Matriculation,” as it
came to be called, was quite voluntary, and the Students soon
found out that they did not get very much for their money, for Ma-
triculation did not commence till the roth of December, and thus
the first six weeks of the session were lost, and then the Library
was only open for four days a week. The Town Council, as we
have seen above (p. 12), afterwards took the regulation of the Ma-
triculation Fund into their own hands, and made a better thing of it.
Principal Robertson doubtless introduced a liberal spirit into
the administration of the Library, so as to extend its usefulness
as much as possible. But in 1764 he was betrayed into a bad
bargain, which he, as head of the University, and George Drum-
mond, as Lord Provost, both accepted. This was an offer from
the College of Surgeons to make over their own Library to the
University, and to pay £5 per annum, on condition that each
Fellow of the College of Surgeons should have equal privileges
with a Professor, in respect of consulting and borrowing books.
The Surgeons' Library was said to consist of three hundred
It is probable, though not certain, that at this period the custom of
lending books out of the Library first commenced.
VOL II.
a
N
178
[1806.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
volumes, mostly antiquated, on Surgery and Pharmacy, and £ 5
per annum was a very inadequate contribution. In course of
time the Senatus felt quite aggrieved at the result of the bargain,
and Professor Leslie stated to the Commission of 1826: “Thirty
was the number of Surgeons when this wretched contract was
made; but they now amount to ninety, of whom above sixty are
in the daily habit of frequenting the Library; they roam about
the different rooms, distracting the attention of the under Librar-
ians, and they borrow more than six hundred volumes of all kinds
for themselves and their apprentices.” The Commissioners of
1858-62 made an equitable adjustment of the relations of the
College of Surgeons to the University Library. They ordained
that the annual payment of £s should be continued, and that
any Fellow of the College, resident in or near Edinburgh, might
be allowed to borrow ten volumes at a time from the Library on
a payment of £r a year.
In 1794 the Senatus resolved that of the four days a week
during which the Library was open two should be set apart for
issuing and two for receiving back books. This arrangement
shows what limited facilities were afforded to the Students in those
days, for making use of the Library. Books might be taken out,
indeed, but only during two hours on two days in the week. This
is a great contrast to the present system, under which a Student
can take out books during six days in the week, and can every day
sit in the reading-room consulting the books of the Library.
In 1806 the Matriculation fee was raised to 5s., by which
the Library Fund was increased from an average of £250 to
about £400 per annum. Matriculation being still voluntary,
about half the Students in the University declined to matriculate.
This last fact was brought out in a Memorial to the Treasury from
the Senatus Academicus, submitted in 1808, when the Govern-
ment had actually proposed to levy a tax of ios. a head on
Students matriculating in the Universities of Great Britain. The
Senatus pointed out that in Edinburgh “Matriculation implied
simply the enrolment of the name of a Student in the Album of
the University, and conferred no immunity, emolument, or
privilege, civil or political, whatever, except the right of borrowing
books for perusal from the University Library, and of obtaining
at any future period a certificate of enrolment." In 1812 the
a
a
1827.]
179
THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY.
а.
I
Matriculation fee was raised to ros., and in 1826 it was reported
to the Royal Commission that the income of the Library from
this source, plus payments on diplomas for degrees and a few other
small items, amounted to £1150. This income, however, was sub-
ject to deductions not only for payment of Library Assistants, but
also for the wages of Janitors; for the Matriculation Fund was
now treated as a fund for “ Library and Police." So that out of
the £1150 only about £400 nett was available for buying books.
In 1825 the present fine building for the Library was in
course of erection, and a Committee of the Senatus reported that
a great portion of the books in the old Upper Hall were in such
a condition that they could not be removed into their new quarters
without previous renovation. On minute inquiry they found that
there were about 70,000 volumes altogether, and they estimated
that of these 1500 must be bound, and 8500 repaired, before the
Library could be moved ; and altogether that at least £2000
would be required to meet the cost of removal. The Senatus at
once took vigorous action on this report; they obtained a cash
credit of £ 2500 at Messrs. Forbes and Co.'s Bank on the secur-
ity of General Reid's legacy; they retained the services of Mr.
David Laing, the great antiquarian and bibliophilist, to superin-
tend the arrangement and binding of the books, and they set up
a binder's establishment of their own in apartments on the base-
ment story of the north side of their new quadrangle. In No-
vember 1827 the Committee reported the completion of the
arduous task. The work had been directed with loving zeal and
great discretion by David Laing ; 13,000 volumes had been re-
paired, and 3000 rebound, at a total cost of £2060; and the
Clement Little and Drummond-of-Hawthornden Collections, "the
one the nucleus, the other the chief ornament of the Library,"
had each been clothed in handsome and appropriate bindings.
The books had been removed by stages to the new building, and
the old College Library had been condemned to demolition.
This was indeed a production of order and symmetry out of
chaos. In its former inconvenient apartments the Library, under-
manned in officers and unprovided with sufficient funds for keep-
ing the books in repair, had run to seed, and confusion had got
the upper hand. But now, like the snake in spring, positis novus
exuviis nitidusque juventa, whatever of worth that Library con-
180
[1827.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
tained was to come forth new-organised, trim, and available.
The Senatus expressed, as they well might, their great gratitude
to Mr. Laing for his skill and perseverance.
More than half a century later David Laing 1 laid the University
1 The name of this incomparable scholar in Scottish history, literature,
and antiquities, is a household word in Edinburgh. But it is a name that
should always be commemorated in special connection with the University of
Edinburgh. Therefore it is fitting to set down here some brief notices of him,
in case that this book should come into the hands of any one who has lived
beyond the reach of David Laing's fame. Son of an antiquarian bookseller in
South Bridge Street, close to the University, he was bred up in a shop which
became the haunt of men of letters, and thus was from an early age associated
with Walter Scott, Allan Cunningham, and other celebrities. He was soon
master of his trade; but he not only knew all about books and their value
from a professional point of view; he became a profound student of their
contents, and then applying his stores of ever-accumulating knowledge, and
pursuing a career of calm and unremitting labour during a life which was pro-
longed, without a day's illness, for eighty-five years, he became the greatest
editor of the monuments of a national literature that has ever been seen.
From 1821 to 1878 (when he died) he is said to have edited, or assisted in
editing, no less than two hundred and fifty volumes. His most important
production was his Works of John Knox, now first collected and edited, in
six volumes (1846-1864). He produced admirable editions of the early
Scottish poets, such as Henrysón, Dunbar, Sir David Lyndsay, etc. He
unearthed all sorts of curious records and brought them to light, as for in-
stance the notes made by Drummond of Ben Jonson's visit to Hawthornden,
and of his conversations with him. Owing to David Laing's unsparing
activity in this way, an eminent English historian recently complained, after
searching the Advocates' Library, that "in Scotland nothing had been left
unprinted.” He threw immense light on the History of the Church of Scot-
land, both in præ-Reformation and post-Reformation times, and also on the
development of Scottish art, on which, as Professor of Antiquities to the Royal
Academy of Scotland, he delivered an admirable set of lectures. Nothing old
and Scottish came amiss to him. He was for thirty-eight years Honorary
Secretary to the Bannatyne Club, founded by Sir Walter Scott, and, working
without stipend, edited for them about forty volumes, mostly in quarto. As
fellow of the Antiquarian Society he constantly contributed papers to their
Transactions, and he was for twenty-four years their Foreign Secretary.
Amongst his other works he did the University of Edinburgh the service of
printing its catalogue of Graduates (1858), and editing Dalzel's History of the
University (1861). In 1837 he was made Librarian to the Society of Writers
to the Signet, and their Library under him grew to be a collection of peculiar
value for historical research. In 1864 the University, as in duty bound,
bestowed on him the honorary degree of LL.D. ; but he always requested
his friends to refrain from calling him “
In 1865 he had another
and closer connection with the University conferred upon him, for Thomas
Carlyle, when elected to be Lord Rector, appointed him to be his Assessor in
the University Court, which office he held for three years.
Such are some
;
“Doctor.
1837.]
181
THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY.
under additional obligation by bequeathing to its Library—towards
which, perhaps, he had that affection which arises from il grande
studio ed il longo labore—the valuable collection of MSS. and of
written documents bearing on the history and biography of Scot-
land which during a long life he had got together.
Not long after its new start the Library, as some say, sustained
a loss, but more probably made a gain, by the Act of 1837, which
withdrew from the Scottish Universities the privilege of receiving
copies of all works entered at Stationers' Hall, and in lieu thereof
granted to each of them a compensation in money. In 1826 the
Senatus stated to the Royal Commission that the average number
of volumes received under the Stationers' Hall privilege was about
850 per annum, and they estimated the value of these volumes,
at trade price, to have been £300. In 1837 they made a return,
after more particular inquiry, to H.M. Treasury, estimating the
average annual value of the books at £718; whereon the
Treasury, deducting from this amount 20 per cent for cost of
carriage, booksellers' discount, etc., set down the annual value to
the University of the Stationers' Hall privilege at £ 575, and
agreed to grant that sum yearly as compensation.
Down to the present day this £ 575 has continued to form
the main part of the amount expended annually in buying books
for the Library. In 1846 the sum of £400 per annum was set
apart from the Reid Bequest for making additions to the Library,
and this amount was treated as a fund for creating a memorial to
General Reid. It was laid out on fine and costly books, under
the advice of Principal Lee, who was a great bibliophilist; and
these, being handsomely bound and placed in a separate apart-
ment called the “Reid Room," constitute a notable feature in the
Library. After some years, owing to the disputes about the dis-
tribution of the Reid Fund (to be related hereafter), this definite
allotment was withdrawn. The Commissioners laid down no
injunctions as to the expenditure of University funds on the
slight indications of the career of a man who, while he has left so much of
his life-work behind him, has taken away with him what can never be restored.
As Professor Cosmo Innes said of him in presenting him for his degree, “No
wise man will undertake a literary work in Scotland without taking counsel
with Mr. Laing." And the writer of these pages feels that they were begun
too late, having been deprived of the advantage they might have derived from
the counsel of so great an oracle.
а.
182
[1862.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
а
2
Library, but it has been the practice for a long time for the
Senatus, under sanction of the University Court, to vote £225 a
year for the purchase of books, making up, with the £ 575 from
Government, £800 a year for this purpose. This amount is
£
expended under the direction of a large Library Committee, on
which all the Faculties are represented, which Committee has
taken the place of the Library “Curators,” who used to be eight
Professors, four for the “Medical Branch," and four for the
“General Branch," and who performed similar functions for
nearly one hundred years previous to 1862.
The salaries of officers and other expenses of the Library
amount now to about £1200 a year, so that the total outlay on
the Library, including the Government Grant, is about £2000 a
year. And this is perhaps as much as the present state of the
University funds will admit. But £800 a year for buying books
is inadequate to put the University Library anything like within
the first rank of public Libraries, and the amount should, when
possible, be increased. On the other hand, the Library contains
140,000 volumes, and every Professor on application gets added
to it whatever new books relative to his own science or subject he
may require. Thus as a practical, working, educational Library, ,
it is perhaps unsurpassed, especially when we consider the great
facilities for its use that are afforded, and the great number of
persons who daily avail themselves of those facilities. The ideal
of a library, according to some, is a collection of fine copies of
books, complete in various departments, rich in unique specimens,
—all beautifully arranged, without spot or blemish, and reposing
undisturbed in serene dignity. But a truer conception of wealth
tells us that it consists εν χρήσει, ουκ εν κτήσει,--in use, rather
than in possession. And to this latter conception the University
Library corresponds : there is an immense wear and tear of its
books, but after all it was their raison d'être to be worn out by
reading, that the ideas contained in them might take a fresh start
in the minds of men. If we regard a Library, as we surely ought
to, as a means and not as an end, the Library of the University
of Edinburgh certainly performs in an admirable way its proper
function.
But besides sufficing for the ordinary needs of Students work-
ing in different departments, the Library has its own specialities
EV
1883.)
183
THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY.
I
1
I
and matters for boasting. Chief among these is the Halliwell
Collection of Shakespeareana munificently presented by Dr. J.
0. Halliwell-Phillipps to the University some years ago, and sub-
sequently augmented by him from time to time. This collection
contains, either in original or in facsimile, every edition of Shake-
speare's plays issued before the Restoration, and its completeness
in this respect is unique. The Laing Collection of MSS. draws
many scholars and bookmakers to the Library. Then there is
the Baillie Collection of Persian and Arabic MSS., and the rich
Collection of Works on Political Economy collected by the late
Professor Hodgson, and presented by his widow. There is much
to show the visitor in the way of illuminated missals; and the
Library is opulent in splendidly illustrated works on Botany,
Zoology, and other Natural and Medical Sciences.
The Library has also its curiosities. The most famous of these
is the original parchment of the Bohemian Protest (1415) against
the procedure of the Council of Constance in burning John Huss,
with a hundred seals of the Bohemian nobles attached to it.
According to Morer, who saw the document in 1688, it was
borrowed by a Scottish gentleman from the Library at Dantzic,
and then, under some misunderstanding, carried off by him.
However this may be, the City Records for 15th January 1658
tell us that it was bequeathed to the College of Edinburgh by
Dr. Guild? of Aberdeen. They ordered Professor Craufurd to
copy and translate it, but he does not seem to have done so, as
two years later a "translation of the Bohemian Covenant from
Latin into Scots” by Christopher Irving (afterwards historio-
grapher for Scotland) came down from London and was paid for
by the Town Council. When Morer visited the College Library
he saw there a skull of remarkable thinness, said to have been
that of George Buchanan. But this quondam receptacle of wit
and Latinity, if the tradition about it be true, has subsequently
been removed to the Anatomical Museum.
Some faint interest attaches to a relic of a different kind. At
i Short Account, p. 80.
2 Dr. Guild had been made Principal of King's College in 1640, and in
1651 had been deposed as a royalist. He left his library to the University of
St. Andrews, and the above MS. to the College of Edinburgh. See an inter-
esting paper by Mr. John Small in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries
of Scotland, Vol. III. p. 408.
I
2
a
184
[1583
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
the entrance to the noble Hall of the Library-one hundred and
ninety feet in length, and decorated along both its sides with the
busts of former Professors--stands an octagon table, which served
as the dining-table of Napoleon Buonaparte during his captivity
in St. Helena. It was bought by Mr. Robert Mayne, H.E.I.C.S.,
who happened to touch at St. Helena on his way home from
India just after Napoleon's death, and was presented by him to
the University. We can tell where Napoleon used to sit, for a
circular hole has been burnt into the table by the pastiles which
the ex-Emperor used daily to light at the conclusion of his repast.
APPENDIX P. THE HISTORY OF THE BUILDINGS OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH,
1
I
I. PORTIONS of the old College buildings have been seen still
standing by many men now alive, and we have prints to show
what the old Library, the Principal's house, and part of the south
side of the College looked like. But there is no print of the
buildings collectively, nor any such record of the north front with
its gate-tower, which must have been the most striking feature of
the whole. The Bird's-eye View of Edinburgh, by Gordon of
Rothiemay (1646), is evidently very inaccurate, for it represents
the College as consisting of complete and regularly-built courts,
whereas at that time the enceinte of the College was still incom-
plete, and its buildings were straggling and irregular. Edgar's
Plan of Edinburgh (1742) 1 is more instructive; it carefully marks
out the different blocks of buildings, but it is on too small a scale
to assist the fancy. It shows the old College occupying the same
site as the present University quadrangle, and divided into three
courts,-two small ones to the north, and a larger court to the
south. This state of things, however, was not arrived at till near
the middle of the seventeenth century.
When the Town Council opened the College in 1583 its only
buildings were Hamilton House and the “Reid chambers," run-
ning off from its northern corner to the east (see above, Vol. I. p.
128). The ground, which is now level, then rose considerably to
the south. Some few years afterwards the Town Council bought
out one Fenton, a comptroller's clerk, who held the Provostal
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From Edgar's PLAN OF EDINBURGH, 1742,
1616.]
185
THE UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS.
-
.
Manse of the Kirk-of-Field on a feu granted him by John Gib
and turned this into chambers for Students. At a later period
this house became the official residence of the Principal of the
College. At the end of the sixteenth century the College build-
ings consisted of Hamilton House and its wing, and, removed
from it by some rough steep ground, probably still encumbered with
the ruins of the church, the Provostal Manse, standing at what is
now the south-east corner of the University. These very un-
academical-looking buildings, though within the Flodden wall, were
still virtually in the country. There was nothing beyond the College
to the south except, perhaps, a few houses in Potterrow. To reach
the City from it the ravine of the Cowgate had to be crossed, into
which descended what was afterwards called the College Wynd.
Hamilton House afforded a tolerably large hall, which was used
for the Magistrand class, and for meetings of the whole College,
and also class-rooms for the Bachelors, the Semies, the Bajans,
the Humanity class, and the Divinity Students, besides three
sleeping apartments. The Reid building contained fourteen
sleeping chambers, and the Manse four.1 Early in the seven-
teenth century the number of the Students had risen to over
three hundred, and it was then found that the hall in Hamilton
House was too strait for the public meeting of all the five classes
and students of Divinity.” This caused "the first visitation of
the College" in May 1614, the visitors being sixteen of the Town
Council, the five City Ministers, and three Advocates as assessors.
Their “visitation ” was a mere inspection of the premises, and
" the result of their consultation was to resolve that a common hall
for public assemblies and acts (i.e. graduation ceremonies), with a
hall for keeping economy above it, should be built, 120 feet long
and 30 feet broad.”? In a subsequent Act of the Town Council,
however, dated 29th December 1615, this resolution was modified,
and it was resolved that the upper hall in the building to be
erected should be laid out as a Library, and not as a common
dining-hall for the College. The work was vigorously begun in
February 1616, and a building of the dimensions before-mentioned
66
2
а.
1 Whether the Manse in those days served for any other collegiate purpose
besides affording sleeping accommodation, Craufurd, from whom the above
particulars are gathered, does not mention.
2 Craufurd, p. 80.
186
[1626.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
was erected, running from west to east, to the south of Hamilton
House, and somewhat removed from it to the east.
Class-rooms, Graduation Hall, and Library having been thus
provided, the next want that was felt was for more
elt was for more "chambers.
Craufurd says that “diverse good citizens were ready to help this
defect, save that always some particular men of the Council
hindered the granting of liberty to them to build on the ground
of the College." It is difficult to understand the feeling which
can have induced Town Councillors to oppose the granting
of leave to persons who wished to become benefactors of the
College and to enlarge its fabric. However, in 1625 Principal
Adamson "prevailed that Sir Thomas Hope, then entered to be
King's Advocate, should have liberty to build two chambers;
which favour shortly thereafter was extended to William Rig of
Atherney, who lately had been Bailie of the city."
In the City Records of 4th May 1625 we find a statement of
the intentions of Sir Thomas Hope of Craighall (the founder of the
Hopetoun family). He says that as "for advancement of learning
there is nothing more expedient for youth than fit occasions of study,
and convenient places whereunto young students may for their better
exercise retire themselves, the more easily to apply their mind to
their books, and seeing that in King James' College within this
burgh there is nothing more lacking than chambers, and that
there are sufficient and fit bounds to build therein, he has there-
fore declared that for beginning and encouraging others well
disposed to the like work, he is willing to build within the said
College, upon his own charge, two chambers in such place as it
shall please my Lord Provost and others to design unto him ;"
under the condition that “the children? procreate of the said
Mr. Thomas' body shall occupy and possess the said chambers,
one or both, as they shall need during their course in the said
College rent-free if they please.” And also that there shall always
be a preference to his lineal descendants in claiming the chambers.
On the 23d June 1626 two more chambers were provided for by
William Rig, in precisely similar terms to the foregoing.
This record throws a new light upon the character of the
e
1 Sir Thomas Hope himself graduated at the College in 1592. His second
son, Thomas Hope, afterwards Lord President, graduated in 1625. Five
years later there was an Alexander Hope among the graduates.
1640.]
187
THE UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS.
.
a
intended “chambers.” They were not to be sleeping apartments,
but rather "studies," to be occupied in the intervals of class-
teaching by youths resident in the town. Probably Sir Thomas
was thinking of his own family, who would not want to sleep in
the chambers, but would only use them as “convenient places of
retirement,” though poorer Students might use them as lodgings.
The block of building which contained the four chambers
provided for by Sir Thomas Hope and Bailie Rig (1625-26) was
of sufficient extent to constitute the south side of the first or
westmost small close” and the boundary between it and the
larger quadrangle, afterwards made, to the south. Owing to the
rise in the ground, a great deal of underbuilding was found
necessary in erecting these chambers.
In 1636-37 "the new great gate of the College, looking to the
north, was built, and a wall drawn about the new lower court,
that is to say, that the small close having previously got two sides
in the shape of Hamilton House and the Hope and Rig Cham-
bers, the commencement of a third side was made in the shape of
a main portal for the College, about the middle of what is now
Chambers Street, and opposite the College Wynd. And then the
square was completed by a wall on its northern and western sides.
There was in the Town Council at this time a very zealous
promoter of all the interests of the College-John Jossie, who in
1640 was made the first College Treasurer (see following Appendix),
and who, besides taking charge of the College revenues and trust-
funds, appears to have obtained several grants of municipal money,
as well as several contributions from private individuals, for the
extension of the College buildings. He first built a flight of
.
steps leading from the lower or northern into the higher or
southern court. Then he greatly improved the means of access
to the different class-rooms. Then “he built at his own charge
the chamber above the great gate," and several citizens, 1 following
his example, provided funds by donation or bequest with which a
series of chambers were built, completing the north front of the
then College, and answering to the western half of the north front
of the present University quadrangle. “There was a considerable
1 The names of John Trotter, Robert Ellis, Robert Johnstone, Robert
Fleming, Laurence Henderson, George Suttie, William Thomson, James Murray,
Andrew Simpson, Archibald Synserf, and James Monteith, are recorded, and
were given to their respective chambers. Most of them were Town Councillors.
$
188
[1656.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
number of honest and bountiful citizens," says Craufurd, "resolute
to continue the work of building along the west wall, as far almost
as the latrines, and from thence eastward to the Provost's lodging ;
but at first the charges of building, becoming exorbitant, stumbled
them; afterward the great troubles that ensued did outwear the
1;
most part of them.” So that at this time (1640-45) the west side
of the College courts was nearly but not quite built in with a
series of chambers. The south-west corner and the south side
(all but the Provost's Manse) remained open.
The Upper Hall, built in 1616, seems not to have been found
convenient as a Library, and in 1642 Jossie began to build a
new Library in the space between Hamilton House and the
College Halls. Bailie John Fleming had bequeathed 4000 merks
for this purpose, and a sum of money placed by Lady Foret in
the hands of Mr. Robert Douglas, Minister of Edinburgh, "for
some public use," was also applied to it. Jossie gave, indeed, a
very great stimulus to the extension of the College fabric, and his
name deserves to be commemorated in the list of those who were
most prominent in making the College what it grew to be in the
second period of its development.
In 1641, during the time of Jossie's Treasurership to the
College, the Town Council set themselves to carry out the wishes
of Bartholomew Somerville, who had provided 6000 merks " for
building a house for the Professor of Divinity ;-the said house to
bear the ensign, name, and arms of the said Mr. Bartholomew, in
his remembrance.” They resolved, however, that 6000 merks
(£333:6:8) would be “insufficient to erect a house of any
competency; and that opportunity offered to buy the house of the
late Sir James Skene for 7000 merks." They accordingly ordered
Somerville's bequest, with the interest which had accrued upon
it, to be applied to the purchase of Sir James Skene's house, and
that this should be fitted up "for two dwelling houses for the use
of the College.” This was probably done, though there is no
record of the occupation of the house by College Professors.
But fifteen years later, in 1656, the Town Council “find Sir
James Skene's house, which they had purchased, altogether
ruinous and defaced ; that it cannot be repaired and rebuilt
without great charges; and that a more convenient house may be
built for the said College, as cheaply, within the precinct thereof."
:
1686.]
189
THE UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS.
1
66
They accordingly sold Sir James Skene's house to the Deacon
of the Surgeons for 3000 merks, with 10 merks feu-duty. And
on the 3d September 1656 “Mylne the builder" contracted to
build for £8333:6:8 (Scots) a sufficient dwelling-house for the
Professor of Divinity, and six complete chambers for Students.
This house constituted the north-east corner of the old College
buildings, being at right angles to the old College Halls and
Library. Over its door there was an effigy of Somerville, cut in
stone, with the following inscription :-"Magistro Bartholemæo
Somervillio Urbis municipi munificentissimo Qui in pios in Urbe et
Academiæ usus 40,000 m. testamento legavit Urbs Edinburgena hoc
monumentum p. c." The Professor of Divinity's garden extended
as far as the west wall of the Infirmary; it was afterwards taken
for the site of South Bridge Street; and the house itself was the
first part of the old buildings that was pulled down in 1790 to
make room for Adam's new University.
Somewhat later than 1656 the building of the tower over the
north gate of the College was commenced. It was not finished
till 1686. In the Caledonian Mercury for the 26th April 1790,
after this most striking feature of the old College had been
sentenced to demolition, we find a graphic account of its history
and appearance. “ The steeple,” says this old newspaper, "from
the inscription which it bears, seems to have been erected at the
expense of a person of the name of Thomas Burnet. It is a tall
tower about twelve feet square and six stories high, or about
eighty feet from the ground to the top of the wall, upon which is
a pavilion roof terminated with a vane. The different small
chambers of which it consisted, and which were entered from a
turnpike stair, made a part of the house inhabited by the Professor
of Greek. The front, to the north, is of polished ashlar work,
with rustic corners. Immediately over the gate are the City arms,
but wanting supporters; and higher up, betwixt two of the windows,
are the arms, as is supposed, of the above-mentioned Thomas
Burnet. The same arms are on the south side, towards the Col-
lege, over a window; and under them the following inscription :
“Dum floret studiosa cohors, campanave pulsat,
Semper honos nomenque tuum, Burnete, manebunt.'
1 It stood in the old “High School Yards," and, having been acquired by
the corporation of Surgeons, became afterwards the site of their Hall.
190
(1709.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
а.
From which it appears that a bell was intended to be hung in
this tower; which intention however was not fulfilled, the College
bell being in a smaller tower near the upper area. High up on
the south front is a sun-dial, with T. B. inscribed on it and the
year 1686."
About the same time the long, low range of buildings on the
south side of the College, called “Earl Teviot's Chambers," was
built. Over the doorway in the centre of them the following
inscription was placed :-“Musæ hæc quater gemina, Academia
hujus Alumnus, Andreas Rutherfordiæ Regulus, Teviotie Comes,
Tangiræ Præfectus, belli pacisque artibus domi forisque clarus, testa-
mento extrui jussit. May 30, A.D. 1664." They contained a hall,
which at some time or other was used as a guard-room for the
City guard. It was afterwards appropriated to meetings of the
Principal and Professors; and thus when the present Senate Hall
was built it was at first called the “Guard Hall,” in continuance
of old associations.
The old College being thus complete, we have two separate
descriptions of its appearance from the pens of Englishmen. The
first is in the Short Account of Scotland of the Rev. T. Morer,
who saw it in 1688-89. He says : “South of the Cowgate,
and on a rising stands the College, consisting of one small
quadrangle, and some other lodgings without uniformity or
order, built at several times, and by diverse benefactors, who
thought probably to be better distinguished by this variety of
forms and situations in those buildings.”
A second and more complimentary sketch was drawn in 1709
by the eminent non-conformist Dr. Edmund Calamy, who came
to Edinburgh that year to visit his friend Carstares, and to get an
honorary degree from the University. Calamy says: “The
College is a good building, with three courts. There is a high
tower over the great gate, which looks to the city. The public
schools are large and convenient. There are also accommoda-
tions in the College for a number of students to lodge, though
they are seldom made use of but by those in meaner circumstances.
There are also handsome dwellings for the Professors and Principal,
with good gardens.” 1
We thus have Calamy's evidence to the fact that the “cham-
1 Calamy's Historical Account of My Orün Life, Vol. II. p. 175.
1733.]
191
THE UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS.
a
bers” so generously subscribed for by good citizens in the middle
of the seventeenth century were not sought after by Students fifty
years later. Evidently, from want of endowments for the support
of a common table, the original idea of a College with collegiate
life had broken down. And this is still more strongly brought
out in the following curious return extracted from the City
Records, and stating the use to which the several chambers were
applied in 1733
A List of the Chambers within the College of Edinburgh, by
whom possessed, and the Rent they pay (being a Report to
the Town Council, 19th December 1733).
I
1
Names of
Chambers.
Their
No.
Whereof, Nos, on
High. | Laigh. Doors.
The High possessed by
Pays Yearly
Rent.
High & Laigh
Trances
8
4
4
ONO
}
8
ki 6 8
9
Mr. Robt. Stewart's Class
Mr. Adam Watt's Class
Mr. Adam Watt
Mr. Robert Freebairn,
Printer
'The Library
Mr. Colin M'Lauran
Mr. Laurance Dundass, a
dwelling-house
Mr. William Scott
The Earl of
Teviot's
8
131
4
4
14
15
16
20
I
I
I
I
I
I
21
Mr. Robert Stewart
I
I
2
I
I
2
I
I
2
I
I
2
I
1
23
27
28
29
32
33
35
37
I 6 8
I 6 8
2
I
I
2
I
3
2
Mr. Colin Drummond
Mr. William Scot
Mr. William Scot
Mrs. Moncur
John Paton, Bookseller
Mr. Adam Watt
Pat. Crokat, Janitor
Mr. Wauchope of Niddrie
Mr. John Stevenson
Pat. Crokat, Janitor
The Academy for Painting
Mr. Dawson
13
I
Drummond
Dod's
Boyd's
Sandilands'
Bonnar's
Barns'
Jollie's
Lauder's
Wiseman's
Sydserf's
Monteith's
Hope's
Rigg's
Murray's
Thomson's
Henderson's
Suttie's
Johnston's
Ellis's
Trotter's
Jossie's
Burnet's
Steeple
I
11
I
I
I
I 6 8
2
I
2
1
38
42
45
46
2
I
I
I
I
11
I
I
48
4
2
2
2
I
I
I
I
2
1
I
-
Mr. Dawson
Mr. Matthew Crawfoord
Mr. Makie
Mr. Ruddiman, Printer
Mr. Lauder, a Polander,
and Mr. Rule
49
53
54
56
571
58
59
O 16 8
Wuuu
1
3
3
192
[1733
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
Numbers on
the Doors.
The Laigh possessed by
Pays Yearly
Rent.
I
2
£i 6 8
Ι Ο Ο
I
O O
O O
I
Mr. Colin Drummond
Mr. John Stevenson
Sir John Dalrymple
Gavin Hamilton, Bookseller
Mr. Munro's Class
Mr. Ronald Dunbar
Mr. Crawfoord in Glasgow
Mr. Laurance Dundass
Mrs. May Cleghorn
Mr. Robert Freebairn, Printer
Mr. J. Henderson, Merchant
Messrs. Mackenzie & Gibson, Clerks
Mr. Gavin Hamilton, Bookseller
Mr. William Ker, Teacher, French
Mr. Brown, Bookseller
Mr. Thos. Mercer, Comsr. Clerk
James and Charles Ramsays
Pat. Crokat, Janitor
James Watson, Janitor's Man
Janet or Miss Taylor
Ι Ο Ο
I 0
I O
Ι Ο
І оо
ооооо
3
4
IO
II
12
17
18
19
22
24
25
26
30
31
34
40
41
36
44
47
50
51
52
60
61
62
I
O O
O O
I
I o o
Mr. Dawson
M'Kenzie's Office
The Half-crown Vault
The Hagg House
Mr. Dawson, Coal-seller
The Great Garret above the Common
Hall, set at
5 5 5 0
1
When we analyse this list we find that there were altogether
fifty-seven chambers, and that of these about half were occupied
by Professors (for houses or class-rooms), by the Janitor and his
man, by the authorised teacher of French, by a school for painting,
and by the Library. Of the rest, we find ten or twelve given up
"
to merchants, clerks, and tradesmen. Ruddiman, the celebrated
printer, and other printers and booksellers, had, as was not inap-
propriate, quarters within the University. A coal-merchant was
there, perhaps for the convenience of the community.
Half-crown Vault” and “the Hagg house are names, the mean-
ing of which is now lost.2 Three of the chambers were inhabited
1 As the chambers were not built to be either family dwelling-houses or
class-rooms, they must have been very inconvenient for the Professors.
Possibly “the Half-crown Vault” may have been a cellar of which the
annual rent was only half-a-crown. The “Hagg House” may have been a
chamber used for storing firewood.
(6 The
2
1768.]
193
THE UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS.
by women, of whose vocation there is no record. Altogether it
seems probable that “Mr. Makie," inhabiting Trotter's chamber
rent-free, and "Mr. Lauder, a Polander," who, jointly with "Mr.
Rule," occupied three rooms in Burnet's Steeple, also rent-free,
may have been poor Students. While Mr. Wauchope of Niddrie
and Sir John Dalrymple, who had each a chamber at the rent of
£1:6:8, of course belonged to the wealthier classes. The
latter of these gentlemen was Sir John Dalrymple of Carsland,
Principal Clerk of Session from 1709 till 1743, and lineal ancestor
of the present Lord Stair. Sir John rented a chamber in College
in all probability for the use of his son, for among the graduates
of 1734 we find Dom. Hugho Dalrymple (the “Dom.” being
prefixed honoris causa). It seems likely that Hugho Dalrymple
used his chamber merely as a study, according to the ideas of
Sir Thomas Hope (see above, p. 186). Perhaps Mr. Wauchope
of Niddrie had also a son attending the College, though the name
does not appear in the list of graduates.
Altogether there was a somewhat motley population within
the College walls in 1733. But the real evil was, that almost all
the buildings had been constructed for other purposes than those
to which they were applied. An old dwelling-house and a number
of Students' chambers constituted the class-rooms. And as the
first half of the eighteenth century saw the College of Edinburgh
develope, in all essentials, into a flourishing University, this anomaly
could not but be felt. In 1768 a Memorial by Dr. Robertson
(who had been made Principal in 1762) was printed in quarto
form and gratuitously distributed, setting forth the case, and
appealing to the public for subscriptions towards providing the
University of Edinburgh with suitable accommodation.
Principal Robertson used very different terms from the super-
ficial eulogy of Dr. Calamy in describing the old College buildings
as they appeared in 1768. He said: "A stranger, when con-
ducted to view the University of Edinburgh, might, on seeing
such courts and buildings, naturally enough imagine them to be
almshouses for the reception of the poor ; but would never imagine
that he was entering within the precincts of a noted and flourishing
seat of learning. An area which, if entire, would have formed
one spacious quadrangle, is broken into three paltry divisions, and
encompassed partly with walls which threaten destruction to the
VOL. II.
o
а.
194
[1768.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
passenger, and partly with a range of low houses, several of which
are now become ruinous and not habitable. With the exception
of one large upper gallery, which has lately been repaired and
made the public Library (see above, p. 171), and of an anatomical
theatre, there is no room or building belonging to the University
that has any degree of Academical decency. The teaching rooms
of the Professors are, in general, mean, straitened, and incon-
venient; and some Professors, whose hours of teaching follow
immediately on one another, are obliged to occupy the same
rooms."
In contrast with this state of things, the Memorial pointed to
the improvements “lately made, and still going forwards in Edin-
burgh,—large buildings arising suddenly on all hands, a magnificent
bridge, and new streets and squares begun.” “The University
2
fabric alone remains in such a neglected state as to be generally
accounted a dishonour to Edinburgh and to this part of the
Kingdom.”
The Town Council, as Patrons of the University, are exoner-
ated from blame in this matter. “They have listened," says the
. .
Memorial, “to every reasonable demand. They have studied,
,
from time to time, to render the accommodation of the Professors
and Students more tolerable ; and have, for this purpose, annually
expended such sums as their public revenues would afford on these
decayed buildings. But these partial reparations can neither
remove the inconveniency, nor cover the deformity and meanness
of the whole. It has long been thought, and the opinion is now
become very general, that it is necessary to rebuild the fabric upon
a new plan.”
The number of Students for whom accommodation had to be
provided was stated as “between six and seven hundred,” 3 and
the number of Professors as twenty-one. The scheme for which
"
1 It is remarkable that the walls and ranges of chambers, which had been
built little more than one hundred years, should have become “
They must have been put up cheaply and hastily in the seventeenth century.
2 This refers to the improvements and extensions made under the Ædileship
of George Drummond : the building of the Royal Exchange and of the North
Bridge, and the commencement of the New Town of Edinburgh.
3 Of these it was mentioned that there were several of high rank :-"Of
late, several persons of very high rank and distinction in the Kingdom have
committed the education of their sons to the University of Edinburgh.” See
Memorial in Scots Magazine for 1768, p. 114.
so ruinous."
1788.]
195
THE UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS.
subscriptions were invited was, to build "a large, free, and open
square over the area of the old College buildings, which was
said to contain “above three acres," and in this square were to
be placed, first of all, sixteen class-rooms for Professors, and
secondly, a public hall, library, museum, anatomical theatre,
chemical laboratory, and public schools (or examination rooms).
The class-rooms were estimated to cost £6500, and the other
objects enumerated £8500 more. If sufficient funds could be
raised, dwelling-houses for the Professors were to be added, so as
"to complete the proposed square ;" and it was held out as an
inducement to the public that the Professors could then more
readily, and with much less inconveniency, receive young
gentlemen under their immediate care, and lodge them in their
houses.”
The subscription list was opened in March 1768, but seems
to have hung fire; though only £6500 was asked from the
public for a start, there is no trace of any response having been
made to the appeal. Five years later (August 1773), when Dr.
Johnson visited Edinburgh, things were in statu quo. Boswell
says: “We proceeded to the College, with the Principal at our
head. As the College buildings are indeed very mean, the Prin-
cipal (Dr. Robertson) said to Dr. Johnson, that he must give them
the same epithet that a Jesuit did when showing a poor College
abroad : ‘Hæ miseriæ nostræ.' Dr. Johnson was, however, much
pleased with the Library.” One of the ruinous walls referred to
in the Memorial had in the meantime been removed, and Dr.
Johnson made merry over the circumstance. “I pointed out to
him," says Boswell, “where there formerly stood an old wall
enclosing part of the College, which I remember bulged out in a
threatening manner, and of which there was a common tradition
similar to that concerning Bacon's study at Oxford, that it would
fall upon some very learned man. It had some time before this
been taken down, that the street might be widened, and a more
convenient wall built. Dr. Johnson, glad of an opportunity to
have a pleasant hit at Scottish learning, said: “They have been
afraid it never would fall.''
In 1788 some curious letters, signed “Theophrastus,"
appeared in the Scots Magazine, commenting on the changes
which had passed over Edinburgh within twenty years, and point-
6
$
196
[1788.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
a
ing out that in some respects there had been a wonderful advance
in civilisation and prosperity, and in some respects a deterioration
of manners, while in some points the City had remained stationary
and behindhand. Under the last head the writer says: “In
1788 the buildings of the University are in the same ruinous con-
dition that they were in in 1768, and the most celebrated Univer-
sity at present in Europe is the worst accommodated. Some of
the Professors have even been obliged to have lecturing rooms
without the College for their numerous students. The scheme of
a new College was vigorously promoted by a late public spirited
magistrate ; 1 but this useful and most necessary undertaking has
not yet advanced.”
In the meantime provision (though in an illusory way) had
actually been made by Parliament for the rebuilding of the
College. This was in a private Act, passed in 1785, which gave
powers for making the South Bridge over the Cowgate, and other
purposes. In the preamble it was said: “And whereas several
buildings in the University of Edinburgh are in a ruinous con-
dition, and the apartments, from the increase of students incom-
modious, which makes it necessary to rebuild the said University,
or part thereof: Therefore be it enacted that the Right Hon. James
Hunter Blair, the Right Hon. Henry Dundas of Melville, the
Right Hon. Islay Campbell, Lord Advocate, etc. etc., shall be
appointed Trustees for designing, ordering, and causing to be
erected such buildings in the said University of Edinburgh as they
shall think proper, and for making the access from the High
Street of the said City of Edinburgh by a Bridge over the Cow-
gate and by Streets from the said Bridge to the Streets, Squares,
and Buildings on the South side of the said City.” Unfortunately
no funds were provided by the Act for the University buildings ;
the Trustees were only empowered to use any surplus in their
hands after building the Bridge, "together with all sums contri-
buted and subscribed for rebuilding the said University.”
The first stone of the South Bridge was laid on the ist
August 1785, and in March 1788 the Bridge and South Bridge
Street, with its shops, were finished. The gardens of the Professor of
Divinity and of the Principal, extending as far as the old Infirmary,
had been taken for the roadway, or sold as the site of valuable
1 Probably Sir James Hunter Blair.
>
I
1789.]
197
THE UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS.
•
shops, and yet no compensation was made either to the Uni-
versity or to its Professors, and this seems a matter in which the
Town Council as Patrons of the University seem to have been
oblivious of their duty. The new body of Trustees created by
the Act of 1785, inter alia, for rebuilding the College, did nothing
at all in that direction, and things remained just as they were
when Robertson made his appeal twenty years before,—with this
exception, that the old College buildings, by losing their gardens
to the east, had lost the one feature of amenity which belonged to
them. 1 But the Town Council had been moving in the matter of
new buildings. They had obtained a design from Robert Adam,
and they now determined that the work must be begun, not with
funds for it secured, but on the faith of obtaining them. In the
Minutes of the Senatus Academicus for 19th October 1789 we find
the following entry "The Principal stated to the Meeting that
when he and several of the Professors were at breakfast at the
Lord Provost's house some days ago, his Lordship (Thomas
Elder) had informed them that the Town Council had come to
the resolution to have the foundation stone laid of a new building
for the University, designed by Mr. Robert Adam, architect,-
to which they had been encouraged by the prospect of a liberal
contribution from the public and of aid from Government, which
the Right Hon, Henry Dundas, Treasurer of the Navy, had under-
taken to use his utmost influence to obtain. Thus it was the
encouragement of Henry Dundas, first Lord Melville, which took
the long-projected scheme out of the region of words into that
of action.
After twenty-one years of expectation, on the 16th November
1789, the foundation-stone of "the New College of Edinburgh,"
as it was called at the time, was laid with great pomp and rejoic-
ing by Lord Napier, as Grand Master Mason of Scotland, in
presence of the Provost and Magistrates; the Principal, Professors,
and Students of the University; “many of the Nobility and
Gentry;" and about “thirty thousand spectators," as it was com-
puted, though this number would have exhausted more than half
the population of the City. As recorded in the pages of the Scots
1 Morer, the English Chaplain, when visiting the College in 1688-89, seems
especially to have been struck by the “spacious garden for the Professors in
common to walk and divert themselves in the evening."
198
(1789.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
Magazine, this was a great public ceremony, though, it must be
confessed, not equal to those popular rejoicings which had hailed
the foundation of the University of St. Andrews 376 years pre-
viously (see above, Vol. I. p. 7).
There was a procession from the Parliament House to the
east face of the future buildings, in what is now South Bridge
Street, in the following order :-
“The Lord Provost, Magistrates, and Council in their robes,
with the City Regalia carried before them.
“The Principal and Professors of the University, in their
gowns, with the Mace carried before them.
“The Students, with green laurel in their hats; a band of
Singers, conducted by Mr. Scherkey.
“The different Lodges of free and accepted Masons, with
their proper insignia.
" A band of instrumental music.”
With musical accompaniments this procession moved slowly
along through streets lined with soldiers of the 35th Regiment
and with the City Guard, and occupied nearly an hour on its
route. The north-east, or proper Masonic corner, having been
found unsuitable for laying a foundation-stone, a site further to the
south, one of the corners of the present entrance to the University
quadrangle, was chosen, and the scene which there presented
itself has been depicted in a contemporary caricature. The
usual Masonic rites having been duly performed, Lord Napier
delivered an address full of congratulation and high compliment,
first to the Lord Provost and Magistrates, and secondly to the
Principal and Professors. Lord Provost Elder and Principal
.
Robertson replied. The latter said : “From very humble
beginnings, the University of Edinburgh has attained to such
eminence as entitles it to be ranked among the most celebrated
seminaries of learning. Indebted to the bounty of several of our
Sovereigns ;—distinguished particularly by the gracious Prince2
1 This print, which we reproduce, shows the new South Bridge Street, which
had been completed the year before.
2 During the reign of George III. Regius Chairs had been founded in the
University of Edinburgh--of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres in 1762 ; of Natural
History in 1767 ; and of Practical Astronomy in 1786. Of previous Sovereigns,
James VI. had given the paltry endowments elsewhere mentioned ; William
III. had granted £300 a year out of Bishops' Teinds, out of which a Professor.
1
now

TALEเปนักนิด
The (cremony of Laying the Foundation Stone of the NEW COLLEGE , EDINBURGH November 10 1789.
TOHE
CIOR
2. Alle die
7" Grand Lodge of Srolland
2 land Provost: Magistrales, Counal.
59 Professors 8: Students hovedsion of the Majone. "Scuth Bridge terminated by a diftant view of the Regiſter office
1789.]
199
THE UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS.
seated on the British throne, whom, with gratitude, we reckon among
the most munificent of our Royal benefactors ;-and cherished
by the continued attention and good offices of our Honourable
Patrons, this University can now boast of the number and variety
of its institutions for the instruction of youth in all the branches
of literature and science." After dilating upon the "one thing
still wanting," and now to be supplied,---namely, sufficient and
suitable buildings, Dr. Robertson added : “I regard it as my
own peculiar felicity, that by having remained in my present
station much longer than any of my predecessors, I have lived
to witness an event so beneficial to this University, the prosperity
of which is near to my heart, and has ever been the object of my
warmest wishes."
Under the foundation-stone were deposited the usual coins
and newspapers, and together with them “ seven rolls of vellum,
containing a short account of the original foundation and present
state of the University." The account of the original foundation
appears to have been chiefly taken from Craufurd's Memoirs, and
is not very accurate. It says that “in the year 1581, a grant was
obtained from King James VI., for founding a College or Uni-
versity within the City of Edinburgh;” and “next year, a Charter of
confirmation and erection was obtained also from King James VI.,
from which the College to be built did afterwards derive all the
privileges of a University.” The person—probably Dr. Robertson
—who wrote this sentence can hardly have been acquainted with
King James's Charter of 1582, which certainly does not corre-
spond with the description here given of it. But we have before
shown reasons for believing that the real Charter of erection and
foundation of the College was at an early period lost, and this
circumstance has put historians who were unaware of it into a
false position ever since, by leading them to seek in the Charter
of 1582 what is not to be found there.
>
ship of Church History, and afterwards one of Public Law, were provided.
Queen Anne had given a bounty of £250 a year for increasing Professors'
stipends.
1 Robertson had now been Principal for twenty-seven years. Of his pre-
decessors, Charteris had held office for twenty-one years; Adamson for nine-
teen; Wishart, secundus, for eighteen ; Rollock (virtually) for sixteen; Wishart
for fourteen; Rule and Carstares for thirteen each ; the others for less than ten
years each. Robertson's successor, Baird, was Principal for forty-seven years.
200
(1789.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
>
For the rest, the vellum which lies under the University gate-
way merely states that the College was taught by Regents “till
about the year 1710, when the four Regents began to be confined
each to a separate profession," and that “under the care of the
Magistrates, new Professorships have been from time to time
instituted, as the public seemed to demand them.” It adds that
"in all its diplomas or public deeds " the College bears the name
of "the College of King James." It gives a list of the Senatus
Academicus, as constituted in 1789, containing many brilliant
names; and records, for the information of the New Zealander
who may excavate the ruins of the University of Edinburgh, that
“in processions, the Principal with the Professor of Divinity on
his right hand, and the Professor of Church History on his left,
walks foremost, preceded by the Mace. The rest of the Professors
follow according to their seniority.” It is doubtful whether this
table of precedence would be accepted at the present day. At
all events it ignores the possible presence of a Chancellor and a
Lord Rector in University processions. The buried vellum next
gives a statement of the number of Students during the winter
session of 1788-89, as follows :-
Students of Divinity
130
Law
Physic
440
General Classes 1
420
Ιοο
1090
And it ends by saying that “the old Buildings being very mean
and unfit for the reception of so many Professors and Students,
the Lord Provost and Magistrates, with the concurrence of the
Right Hon. Henry Dundas, Treasurer of the Navy, resolved to
set on foot a subscription, according to an advertisement,” of which
a copy was subjoined.
The proceedings at the foundation-stone terminated with the
a
1 This phrase marks the entire abeyance into which Graduation in Arts had
fallen; the record does not mention “Students of Arts," but speaks of “General
Classes," as if those attending the non-professional classes were all a set of
amateurs, and not the Students of a Faculty. We see, by comparing the above
statement with Dr. Robertson's Memorial of 1768, that the University had
nearly doubled the number of its Students in the intervening period.
1791.]
201
THE UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS.
singing of an anthem; then came a procession in inverse order
2
back to the Parliament House ; and afterwards an "elegant and
sumptuous entertainment” (people in Edinburgh dined about
three o'clock in those days)“ was given by the Lord Provost and
Magistrates, in the George Street Assembly Rooms” to above 500
persons, including the Grand Master of the Masons and represen-
tatives of the different Lodges, several of the nobility, and the
principal inhabitants of the City.
II. We now enter upon the second topic of this Appendix—the
process of replacing the old College by new University buildings,
which, though commenced with a light heart, took forty years in
accomplishing, during the greater part of which time the utmost
inconvenience was caused to the University.
By the terms of the published subscription-lists a large body
of Trustees for administering the subscribed funds was formed,
consisting of all the high officials of Edinburgh, and all subscribers
of £100 or over. Immediately after the laying of the foundation-
stone these Trustees were invited to meet, and, as their Minute-
Book testifies, they held constant meetings. At first these
meetings were assiduously attended by the third Earl of Hopetoun,
as a subscriber, and also by Henry Dundas. The subscriptions of
those days were not so munificent as what are often given now.
Few donors of more than one hundred guineas appear on the
lists. Lord Hopetoun, however, put down his name for £100
annually for five years, and the Faculty of Advocates did the
same. The seventh Earl of Wemyss subscribed $100 a year for
After a year and a half, in May 1791, the total sub-
scriptions amounted to £18,709; but the Trustees were looking
to receive large subscriptions from India, which Henry Dundas
had pledged himself to procure; these shortly afterwards came in,
and were found to amount to £11,000. The largest subscription
of any one individual was that of Sir Ralph Abercromby, who in
1794 sent (to the astonishment of the Trustees) a second sub-
scription of £1845, in addition to a former one of £250. From
first to last the private subscriptions for the University buildings
amounted to a little over £30,000.
It is needless to say that this amount was totally inadequate
to carry out the work on the scale upon which it had been
three years.
I
4
202
(1793.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
planned. Adam's plan was not framed with a view to economy;
it comprised two quadrangles, separated from each other by a
hall and chapel, and round these there were to be not only
class-rooms and a library, but also dwelling-houses for all the Pro-
fessors. The Trustees at once set to work, in faith of money
forthcoming, and empowered Adam to go on with his design. He
commenced at the north-east and north-west corners, pulling down
the house of the Professor of Divinity and the chambers inhabited
by the Professor of Hebrew; then he pulled down the centre
tower over the gateway, and worked along the north side. The
Trustees had large ideas; they proceeded to buy up properties
round the old College : thus they gave £ 1755 for the house at
the head of College Wynd where Sir Walter Scott was born, and
they also bought the "Relief Kirk," to the south of the College.
Nothing could have been more proper than these steps, taken with
the view of securing space and amenity round the new University,
if only there had been funds for such a purpose.
The Trustees
also paid compensation at the rate of £40 a year each to the
Professors who had been deprived of their houses. And when
Principal Robertson, who was now aged and infirm, complained
that the progress of the building was unfavourable to his health,
they granted him the rent for a house suitable to his station to be
found elsewhere.
In April 1792 the architect, Robert Adam, died suddenly,
and his brothers James and William were then appointed to carry
on his work. By this time a good deal had been done on the
north side. Prof. Monro, secundus, took possession of the Anatomy
class-room at the beginning of the Session 1792-93. By the end of
1793 the Professors of the Theory and of the Practice of Physic and
of Moral Philosophy had been accommodated, and the house at
the north-east corner intended for the Principal, and those for two
Professors adjoining, had been roofed in. But in the meanwhile
the rapid rate of expenditure had completely exhausted the very
limited funds in the hands of the Trustees.
In December 1793
the work was ordered to be stopped. For a short time afterwards
the contractors went on, at their own request, upon credit, and
then they came to an absolute standstill.
So matters stood for about seven years, when, in April 1801,
Principal Baird and Professor Dalzel drew up a Memorial to the
1
1815.]
203
THE UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS.
Right Hon. Henry Dundas, depicting the disastrous condition of
the University buildings. Considerable parts of the north and
east sides had been left unroofed, and the timber was being injured
by the weather, so that the new buildings were likely soon to
become more ruinous than the old ones had been. In the mean-
time the College court was encumbered with sheds, stones, and
other materials, which was very inconvenient for the 1300 Students
in attendance on the classes. “In short," said they, “the present
state of a building of such evident utility, and so conspicuously
begun, is already become a subject of lamentation to every inhabi-
tant of Edinburgh, to every passenger, and to every stranger who
visits this city.” They stated further that the debt upon the build-
ing was £3000, and that the creditors were growing clamorous.
This deplorable picture prevailed with Dundas to the extent of
inducing him to persuade Mr. Pitt to grant a sum of £5000 for
rescuing from ruin the uncovered parts of the building. With a
European war on their hands the Government could not be
expected to do more.
But in 1810 fresh petitions were addressed to the Treasury,
not only by the Town Council, but by the Royal Burghs of
Scotland, urging the completion of the University buildings as
an object of national importance. And these petitions convey
information as to the straits to which the Professors had been put
for sixteen years previously. It was said: "In the Old Buildings
which remain there are five class-rooms, and there are six rooms
in the New Buildings. In these eleven class-rooms twenty-four
Professors, some of whom teach two, others three, and others
even four separate hours daily, have to be accommodated. The
Professors of Divinity and of Hebrew have a class-room in
which they are obliged to teach by candle-light at noon."
The
curious thing was that through all this period of material incon-
venience the number of the Students, instead of falling off, had
steadily increased. In 1789 there were about 1ooo Students,
and in 1809 over 1900.
These petitions were, in course of time, referred to the Barons
of Exchequer in Scotland for report, and having been favourably
reported on, the Government, immediately on the conclusion of
the war in 1815, made a grant of £10,000, to be continued
annually till the buildings should be completed. But the Treasury
I
204
(1816.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
very naturally resolved to appoint a Commission, in place of the
undefined body of Trustees, to superintend the expenditure of
the public money.
The "College Commission," as it came
to be called, consisted chiefly of ex officio members, the Lord
Provost, the Lord President, the Lord Justice Clerk, the Lord
Chief Baron, the Lord Commissioner of the Jury Court, the
Principal of the College, the Secretary of the Senatus Academi-
cus, and the first Bailie of the City. To these were added the
Right Hon. W. Dundas, Sir John Marjoribanks, formerly Provost,
and Mr. Hugh Warrender.
The Commission went to work in January 1816. They were
well instructed by Sir John Marjoribanks, who had taken great
interest in the subject previously, and had studied the require-
ments of the University. Under his advice they resolved to
give up the idea of having Professors' houses; to complete
Robert Adam's external design, but to omit the cross building
by which it had been intended to divide the University quad-
rangle into two. They invited architects to send in plans;
and, out of nine competitors, of whom W. Adam was one,
they pronounced the plans of Burn and Playfair to be the
best, and ultimately selected those of Playfair, as making the
best internal arrangements with the least alteration of R.
Adam's design. . This was in December 1816, from which time
the work went steadily forward, being conducted by a very
talented and energetic architect acting under men of the highest
ability for business.
Two of the Commissioners were especially
assiduous, and were guiding spirits to the rest, namely, the
Hon. Clerk Rattray, Lord Chief Baron, and Dr. Duncan, the
Secretary to Senatus.
The Commissioners were less lavish of the building fund than
the Trustees had been. For when six Professors (Divinity, Hebrew,
Greek, Humanity, Logic, and Mathematics), besides the Principal
applied for compensation for the loss of houses, they decided that
the case was a hard one, but that they had no powers of granting
relief. However, they judiciously purchased a block of houses to
the west of their buildings in order to secure light and space in
that direction, and, having pulled them down, ordered the area
to be levelled and planted with trees. They provided all the
fittings for the classrooms and museums; but the meagre furni-
a
1823.)
205
THE UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS.
1
-
ture which they allowed for the Senate Hall 1 showed that they
kept an eye to economy. It was probably from a sentiment
of loyalty that they sanctioned the expenditure of £80 for
the illumination of the new buildings at the coronation of
George IV.
In June 1818 Playfair reported that part of the east side,
containing the Divinity Hall, the Hebrew and Church History
class-rooms, and a room for the Speculative Society, was ready;
and in January 1820 that the Chemistry, Practice of Physic, and
Natural History class-rooms in the south-west corner, and the
Materia Medica, Rhetoric, and Public and Civil Law Class-rooms
in the north-east, had been completed. In 1820 the Natural
,
History Museum, occupying the whole west side of the quad-
rangle, was finished and fitted up for the reception of Jameson's
splendid collections. In 1821 a house in the south-east corner
was handed over to the Librarian, this being the only residence,
except that of the Janitor. The Principal was accommodated
with official chambers over the new Senate Hall, but had to find
himself a house outside.
The last part of the new buildings to be undertaken was the
Library, to which the greater part of the south side had been
appropriated. And accordingly the last part of the old buildings
left standing was the old College Library, built in 1616 and reno-
vated in 1753.
Its appearance, in contrast with the new quad-
rangle which was rising round it, has been commemorated in a
print which Playfair very judiciously had done. In 1823 the
Commissioners petitioned the Treasury to obtain from Parliament
a continuation of the annual votes of £10,000. They reported
that £70,000 of the public money had been expended, and that
£30,000 more would be required, whereof they estimated
£27,000 as the cost of a new Library and Graduation Hall,
and £3000 as the sum necessary for putting up a dome over
the gateway, according to the original design of Adam. The
Memorial described the old Library as in a ruinous state, threaten-
ing to fall, and propped up by beams fixed against the new
buildings, while it blocked up “the great and only entrance."
а
1 On the 12th August 1822 the Commissioners gave orders for furnishing
“the Guard Hall” with three tables, twenty-four horsehair chairs, a gray
floor-cloth, “and no window curtains.”
206
[1828.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
Having received an assurance that the grants would be con-
tinued, the Commissioners urged Playfair to proceed with the
Library; and he at once proceeded to visit Oxford, Cambridge,
and London, in order to inspect the construction of great public
Libraries, and to get hints. In February 1824 he reported on
his plan; he found that he could make a Library Hall 190 feet
long, 50 feet wide, and 40 feet high, "an opportunity rarely to
be met with, and not to be neglected.” “Below this great room,"
'
he added, are to be the Graduation Hall and Chapel, and what
may be called the working part of the Library.” The proportions
of the Library Hall, as constructed by Playfair, quite justify the
enthusiasm of the architect, but it is difficult to understand how
the Commissioners can have accepted as a Graduation Hall a
room below it occupying only half its area. This room has long
ceased to be employed for Graduation purposes, for which it was
utterly inadequate, and it has become the Reading-Room for Uni-
versity Students, who sit there in relays of 200 at a time in the
intervals between their various classes. Practically it was found
that the site of the old College, when shorn of its gardens to the
east, was insufficient to provide space for more than class-rooms
and a Library. Not only were Academical residences for the
Professors struck out of the plan, but the hall for Academical
ceremonies and for common worship was also dropped out. And
the University was thus left singularly incomplete in its equip-
ment. An effort was made afterwards by the Senatus—when a
Music class-room was to be built out of the Reid Fund—to get
this built on such a scale as to be serviceable as a Hall for general
University purposes; but the project was resisted, and fell
through. And the University was left to hold its meetings and
ceremonies in rooms hired or borrowed from time to time in
different parts of the town.
The present Library was finished in 1827, having cost only
£23,000. In July 1827, the books having been transferred, the
old Library was ordered to be pulled down and its materials sold.
The new buildings were now virtually finished. The Commis-
sioners reported on the subject to the Royal Commission on
Universities in 1828. They stated that all which remained to be
done was to put some additional fittings into the Library; to
make those balustrades and flights of steps which now run round
2
1834.]
207
THE UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS.
the quadrangle; and to put up the dome over the entrance. But
the Commissioners had other enlightened purposes or aspirations
for the improvement of the building over the construction of
which they had watched so carefully. They wished to secure a
building belonging to the Merchant Maidens' Hospital, and stand-
ing where is now the west end of the National Museum of Science
and Art. This, with the properties before acquired by them in
that direction, would have given a permanent free space to the
west of the University, and would have compensated to some
extent for the garden ground taken away from the University to
the east. And they wished also to have an open area of 70 feet
in depth, and planted with trees, along the north front of their
building. This would have necessitated the construction of a
new street in lieu of what is now Chambers Street, and to the
north of it. But neither the Government nor the Town Council
appear to have lent themselves to the idea of providing academic
groves for the University of Edinburgh. So far from this, the
Government and the Town Council conspired a few years after-
wards to take away what little ground the University now possessed
upon the west, and to build on it a vast Museum, which effectually
shut out the light from the rooms on the western front of the
University building, and rendered these rooms almost absolutely
useless. This, however, was not resolved upon till 1854, and not
begun to be carried out till 1860, by which time modern com-
mercial views of the value of town property were too strong
to allow considerations of academic grace and dignity to be
entertained.
The foundation-stone of the new University building had
been laid with great solemnity on the 16th November 1789.
There was no corresponding ceremony to mark the conclusion of
the work. Nor do the Commissioners appear to have formally
handed over the building to the Town Council. The separate
class-rooms and departments were finished piecemeal, and, as each
was ready, it was occupied by a separate Professor, or put to use
by the Senatus. There was no particular moment that seemed
appropriate for celebrating the completion of the whole. And
-
I
1 This last object has not even yet been accomplished, but a sum of money
for the purpose has been bequeathed by a generous benefactor, the late Mr.
Robert Cox of Gorgie.
208
[1869.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
indeed, as the dome was never erected, the Commissioners may
have still considered the building to be incomplete. Their func-
tions were continued till 1834, but after that date there is no
record of their meeting.
The Adam-Playfair building cost altogether, from first to last,
in round figures, £161,000, including all incidental expenses.
Whereof above £30,000 came from private subscriptions; £5000
were granted in 1801 by a warrant from George III. ; £120,000
came by annual Parliamentary votes from 1815 to 1826; and
£6000 was from a supplementary vote passed in 1831. The
materials of the old College were sold for £4791; but nearly
the same amount was expended on the purchase of properties to
the west, which were afterwards taken from the University to form
the site of the Industrial Museum.
I
I
III. For more than a quarter of a century the teaching
accommodation of the Adam-Playfair buildings was thought to
be adequate for the wants of the University. But during that
period a great development had been taking place in the modes
of teaching Science throughout the great Schools of Europe.
Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Leipsic, Bonn, Cambridge, and other places,
had been all furnished with a system of laboratories, museums,
and theatres, upon an extensive and costly scale, and the
University of Glasgow had received new accommodation for its
Medical classes in conformity with modern ideas. In Edinburgh
the practical teaching of Medical subjects had been much stimu-
lated by the Ordinances of the Commission of 1858, but practical
teaching was carried on there under difficulties, owing to the want
of proper laboratories, theatres, and scientific apparatus. The
Medical School of the University still held its place in the first
rank of the Medical Schools of the world. But it began to be
felt that its tenure of that place would be in jeopardy unless
better appliances could be given to it. A movement with this
object in view was set on foot, and a meeting of citizens taking
an interest in the matter was held in 1869. But it was represented
by some of those present that the moment was not favourable for
making an appeal for subscriptions to the community of Edinburgh,
inasmuch as an exhausting crop of subscriptions (amounting to
some £200,000) had just been gathered in from the same ground
1874.]
209
THE UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS.
1
for the purpose of rebuilding George Drummond's Royal Infirmary.
So, though a Committee was formed, partly of citizens 1 and partly
of members of the University, to promote the design, they found
it expedient for a time to hold their hands.
The New Infirmary was to have been rebuilt on the site of
the old one, but at the eleventh hour, when all was prepared for
a commencement, Professor Syme became convinced, and suc-
ceeded in convincing others, that a more open and airy site should
be chosen ; so all the plans were changed, and the foundation of
the Infirmary was laid in the ground which it now occupies, and
which then belonged to the Merchant Company. The University's
Medical School followed the fortunes of the Infirmary. The
Senatus Academicus, encouraged by the generous Sir David
Baxter, who promised to stand by them in the matter, made an
offer for the site of the old George Drummond building as soon
as it should be vacated. Most fortunately this offer was declined,
and the Senatus, better advised, resolved that the proper course
for them would be to purchase the ground immediately to the
east of that chosen for the Infirmary, and which was then occupied
by Park Place and Teviot Row. Park Place consisted of well-
built mansions, the corner house belonging to the Campbells of
Succoth, and having been built for Lord Succoth, one of the
Scottish Judges. Teviot Row contained a number of small
dwelling-houses. Of course when it was known that these sites
were urgently required for the University, a price was put upon
them by their owners at least double of what could otherwise
have been expected. And no less than £33,000 had to be paid
for some five fairly good houses in a very unfashionable quarter,
and a dozen of citizen's "boxes," the whole covering perhaps one
acre and a half of ground.
In the meantime the good Sir David Baxter died, bequeathing
£20,000 (reduced by legacy duty to £18,000) towards the
University's new buildings. And with this encouragement the
1 The Town Council, both individually and collectively, showed as warm
an interest in the improvement of the University as if it had still been under
their administration. Successive Lord Provosts, especially Mr. James Cowan
(late M.P.), Mr. (now Sir James) Falshaw, Sir Thomas J. Boyd, and the
Right Hon. George Harrison, have shown great kindness and zeal in this
matter, and by their influence and assistance have very much contributed to
the extraordinary success of the movement.
VOL. II.
P
210
[1875.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
I
per letter.
subscription-list was hopefully floated in 1874. What most
favoured the movement, and was the greatest cause of its ultimate
success, was the princely liberality and great kindness of the Duke
of Buccleuch, who not only headed the list with a subscription of
£2000, but also undertook to come into Edinburgh and advocate
the cause at a public meeting. Circulars announcing the meeting
and inviting subscriptions were sent through town and country,
and great interest in the matter was far and wide evinced. It
was the fortune of the writer of these pages for many days to
receive about 100 letters every morning, each letter containing a
subscription of from £i to £200, the total average being £10
So that when the meeting took place, presided over
by Lord Provost Falshaw, and at which the Duke of Buccleuch,
Dr. (now Sir) Lyon Playfair, and several other distinguished
persons spoke, the Committee were able to announce subscriptions
already promised to the amount of £60,000,
The Committee thereafter invited the six chief architects of
Edinburgh to send in competitive plans and designs for the
proposed Medical School. And for guidance in making the
plans, specifications of their several requirements were furnished
by the nine Professors who were to be provided for, namely,
those of Anatomy, Institutes of Medicine, Practice of Physic,
Surgery, Midwifery, Chemistry, Pathology, Materia Medica, and
Medical Jurisprudence.
In deciding between the competitors, the Committee resolved,
in the first instance, to set aside all reference to the external
elevations, and to look solely to the perfection, as far as possible,
of internal arrangements. The course they adopted was to take
the votes of the nine Professors upon the plans sent in; each
Professor was to state which of the plans contained the most
suitable arrangements for his own department. It then appeared
that a considerable majority of the Professors preferred the dis-
position of space proposed by Mr. Robert Rowand Anderson,
who, indeed, had for the purpose made a special study of the
Scientific Schools of England and the Continent. And the
1 The Professor of Botany had his own class-room in the Botanic Garden
in Inverleith Row; and the Professor of Natural History was considered bound
to remain in the Adam-Playfair building, with a view to using the specimens
in the Government Museum of Science and Art, which, for this express purpose,
had been connected by a bridge with the University quadrangle.
1
1876.]
2II
THE UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS.
Committee, accepting this judgment, came also to the opinion
that Mr. Anderson's general treatment of the irregular piece of
ground at the disposal of the architects was the cleverest of all,
and that his elevations, in the Early Italian style, were, on the
whole, the most original and tasteful. He was therefore appointed
architect for the University's new buildings.
In addition to accommodating nine Medical and Scientific
departments, Mr. Anderson had been requested to furnish the
plan and design of a University Hall, to contain 3000 persons.
He did so, and, as an architectural centre to the whole, he intro-
duced an Italian campanile, which would have been not only
pleasing to the eye, but also practically useful as a means of
making “secular experiments” in Natural Philosophy, and of
procuring hydraulic pressure.
The question now was, how to obtain funds for this very
desirable structure. Almost at the outset £60,000 had been
subscribed, and the Committee, prosecuting their task, succeeded
in raising during the next year about £20,000 more. Mr.
Anderson's estimate for the erection of the entire buildings, as
designed by him, with cost of site and internal fittings, amounted
to no less than £230,500. The Senatus, however, nothing
daunted, applied to the Government for such a subsidy as might
enable the work to be carried out. At this juncture the Duke of
Buccleuch showed the greatest kindness, and rendered the most
important assistance; for by his influence he obtained from Lord
Beaconsfield (then Mr. Disraeli and Prime Minister) an audience
for a deputation to urge the claims of the University, which his
Grace himself supported. And thus the Government were induced
to entertain the question of giving a grant towards the University
buildings. In successive negotiations with the Treasury the
Committee reduced their scheme to what was necessary for teach-
ing purposes, and cut off the hall and tower; and this reduction
brought down the estimates to about £180,000. But still the
Treasury thought that at least £100,000 should be provided
from private liberality. That proportion being subscribed, they
engaged to provide the rest. Another public meeting on the
subject was held, and a fresh subscription list started. And the
Duke of Buccleuch still appeared as the kind and splendid leader
of the movement, for he announced that he would double his
212
[1880.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
former subscription of £2000. Numerous other persons, accord-
ing to their means, generously followed this example, and the
Committee were soon in a position to say to the Treasury that
their conditions had been complied with. A vote of £20,000 a
year for four years was then passed by the House of Commons,
and the buildings were commenced.
At the time when the Medical Professors sent in their specifi-
cations of what they would require the number of the Medical
Students in the University was about 900. But an annual
increase in that number went on without cessation, and the Pro-
fessors, who had asked for class-rooms to accommodate 200 or
300 Students, found that they might expect classes of 400 or
500. This occurred after the walls of class-rooms had actually
been built, and the Committee were reduced to great difficulties,
as the ground, as well as the funds, at their disposal were
absolutely limited. They and the architect did all that was
possible: parts of the building were taken down, and the arrange-
ments were reconstructed; galleries were added to several of the
class-rooms; and, in short, a great deal of uncontemplated
expense 1 was added to the original estimates, which in themselves,
as usual, fell short of the actual cost. So it is not
So it is not to be wondered
at that the Committee, in carrying out the erection and complete
fitting-up for scientific purposes of so extensive a group of build-
ings, found that they would require about £30,000 in addition
to the £100,000 already subscribed and the subsidy of £80,000
from Government.2
On looking back from the year 1883 to the time when,
in the spring of 1874, the Committee were starting on their
enterprise to collect the large sum that was necessary, we must
allow that extraordinary success has attended their efforts, and
that an extraordinary amount of kindness and liberality has been
shown to the University. And this will be felt especially to
* An elaborate system for the ventilation and heating of the entire build-
ings, not provided for in the estimates, was introduced, costing some £12,000.
The sum allotted for the fitting-up of class-rooms, museums, and laboratories,
was found to be too small by at least £10,000. And, as stated above, the
structural alterations made after the commencement of the work were very
costly.
? A new Medical School is in course of erection in Paris. Its total cost
is estimated at £280,000.
1883.]
213
THE UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS.
.
0
be the case when we reflect that the years during which these
rich gifts came in were all years of great commercial, and several
of great agricultural, depression. The limitations of space prevent
us from producing here the entire subscription list, but it will be
right to record the names of those benefactors who headed it :
The late Sir David Baxter, Bart.
£18,000
His Grace the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry
4,000
The Right Hon. the Lord Justice General
600
The late Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, Bart.
1,000
The late David Anderson, Esq., of Moredun
600
Charles Cowan, Esq., of Logan House
1,000
P. D. Swan, Esq., Provost of Kirkcaldy
1,000
The Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh
1,050
The Right Hon. the Earl of Stair
1,000
The Most Hon. the Marquis of Lothian
750
The Most Hon. the Marquis of Bute
1,000
Messrs. John Jeffrey and Co. .
500
The Right Hon. the Earl of Moray
525
C. Morison, Esq., of Islay
500
The Right Hon. the Earl of Derby .
1,000
Lady Campbell of Garscube
500
Charles Jenner, Esq.
600
The Magistrates and Council of the City of Edinburgh
2,050
The Goldsmiths' Company of London
500
The late Graham Menzies, Esq., of Hallyburton
500
C. A. Aitchison, Esq.
1,050
W. M'Ewan, Esq.
500
The Most Hon. the Marquis of Hartington
The late H. G. Watson, Esq.
Do., by bequest, free of legacy-duty
500
.
500
300
Other subscriptions, in sums of £400 and under
From the General Fund of the University
£39,525
56,958
4,000
Total
£100,483
80,000
Government Grant
Altogether.
£180,483
+
I
At the beginning of the present year (1883) the Committee
found that, after all that had been done £30,000 more was
214
[1883.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
required to complete and fully equip the Medical School which
had been so auspiciously commenced. As this is the 300th year
since the University, in humble form, first came into existence, it
was resolved to mark the epoch by a supreme effort to complete
its fabric, and to give it what it has so long wanted—a Hall of
Assembly. What was called "a Tercentenary Appeal” was put
forth, and in many quarters met with a cordial response. The
Earl of Rosebery, being Lord Rector of the University for the
time being, headed the fresh list with a generous subscription of
£2000. Lord Provost Harrison entered with great warmth into
the new movement, and presided at a public meeting to promote
it, at which the Earl of Wemyss, the Marquis of Lothian, Lord
Moncreiff, and other eminent persons, lent their aid. The result
has been that within four months from the issue of the “ Appeal”
the “Fund for the Completion of the University Buildings ” stood
as follows:
.
+
.
The Right Hon. the Earl of Rosebery
The Magistrates and Council of Edinburgh
The Right Hon, the Earl of Moray
The Right Hon. the Earl of Wemyss and March
The Right Hon. the Earl of Hopetoun
J. R. Findlay, Esq.
J. Fulton, Esq.
Messrs. John Jeffrey and Co.
W. M'Ewan, Esq.
The Right Hon. the Earl of Stair
T. R. Buchanan, Esq., M.P.
W. D. Menzies, Esq.
J. D. Menzies, Esq.
Messrs. Thomas Nelson and Sons
James H. Renton, Esq.
. £2,000
1,050
1,000
1,000
1,000
1,000
1,000
1,000
1,000
500
500
500
500
500
500
.
+
•
+
Other subscriptions, in sums of £300 and under
From the General Fund of the University .
£13,050
13,851
2,000
2
Total up to 25th April 1883
£28,901
The completion, then, within a few months, of the University's
Medical School is now assured. And that School will probably
be found equal to anything of its kind in the world. Nothing
1883.]
215
THE UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS.
can exceed the beauty and comfort of its bright, well-ventilated
class-rooms, or the arrangements of its laboratories, working-rooms,
and museums. There all that is repulsive in the study of Medi-
cine is mitigated and refined, and all the latest appliances of
Science are placed at the disposal of the Student. And, as is
fitting, this School of theory, experiment, and practice is placed
within a few yards of one of the largest Infirmaries in Europe, to
which the Professors and their classes have access, and where the
most varied clinical instruction is afforded.
But as yet a great gulf still separates the University from the
'fruition of its long-cherished desire for an Academic Hall—a gulf
only to be spanned by a golden bridge of £70,000. Since 1768
the University has on diverse occasions been constantly asking
for a Hall, and has always asked in vain. In course of time this
want will doubtless be supplied, but not in time for the dignified
reception of the University's guests on the occasion of its Tercen-
tenary celebration. All the ceremonies at that festival must be
conducted in some hired apartment.
Great indeed is the contrast between the present buildings of
the University of Edinburgh at the present day and those of the
old College down to the end of the last century. But there is
one charm of the old College which we miss, and which was taken
from us for ever about a hundred years ago, and that is the
amenity of the gardens and open spaces which enclosed on all
sides the plain old buildings. All the surroundings of the Uni-
versity of Edinburgh have now become hard and business-like,
and all sense of academic seclusion and repose is gone.
APPENDIX Q. THE HISTORY OF THE FINANCES OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH.
The financial administration of the College of Edinburgh by the
Town Council 1 from 1583 to 1862 is capable of being very
1 A careful analysis of the College accounts is furnished in the Report of
the Royal Commission (1826-31). See also Memorials for the opinion of
Counsel, prepared in 1859 and 1860 on behalf of the Town Council and
Senatus Academicus respectively, for the sake of ascertaining the rights of
either party to the administration of the University property and revenues after
the passing of the Act of 1858.
216
[1584.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
.
1
I
I
succinctly described. It was the management of a slender income
drawn from a few distinct sources.
The Charter of James VI. gave the Town Council liberty to
found a College, and granted them a site and some old build-
ings, which were used in starting it. For its endowment there
was made available the Church property which Mary's Charter
had granted to the town for religious, and not for educational,
purposes. At first only the ground-annuals of the Kirk-of-Field
seem to have been attached to the College, and these were esti-
mated by Craufurd 1 to have been in 1640 "something short of
£200 (Scots) a year," or £16:13:4 sterling, which was not a
magnificent endowment. But in April 1584, a few months after
the opening of the College, the King, “upon consideration that
the Magistrates and Council had bestowed great charges in erect-
ing it," granted them the Archdeaconry of Lothian, containing
the parish of Currie, with the manse, glebe, teinds, etc., "to the
use of the College and sustentation of the Rector and Regents
within the same.” Craufurd gives no valuation of the Currie
teinds in his statement of the College property, but in 1747
these teinds were said to amount to £117:9:3 sterling. From
which had to be deducted “for the stipend of the Minister of
Currie and for Communion elements, £37:10s., leaving about £80
per annum for College revenue."2 There were also the teinds of
Livingston in the Archdeaconry of Lothian; but these, after pro-
viding for the Minister's stipend, were only about £5 per annum.
The Town Council, however, had at their free disposal, be-
sides the Kirk-of-Field, all the ecclesiastical properties attached
to Trinity College Church. Among these were the teinds of
Kirkurd, a parish in Peebles-shire. Some time before 1640, as we
learn from Craufurd, the Kirkurd teinds had been settled by the
Town Council upon the College of Edinburgh, and had become
part of its patrimony, but curiously enough there appears to be no
record in the City Register of the time and manner of this being
done. The Kirkurd teinds were stated in 1747 to amount to
£91:5:11, levied on no less than 318 different articles or small
:
3
1 P. 139.
2 This was all the State aid which the College of Edinburgh received down
to the reigns of William III. and Anne, when some grants were made for Pro-
essors' salaries. Cromwell devised a grant of £200 a year, but owing to his
death this was never carried out.
1608.]
217
THE FINANCES OF THE UNIVERSITY.
pieces of property. The trouble of collecting annual dues from a
number of small tenants no doubt led to superiorities being alien-
ated in detail, as opportunities occurred, and thus the Kirk-of-
Field ground-annuals had fallen in 1747 from £16:13:4 to
£11:13:11 sterling. Looking at it broadly, we see that early
in the seventeenth, and perhaps even in the sixteenth, century,
the College revenue from Church property was at least :-
£16
80
From Kirk-of-Field
Currie
Livingston
Kirkurd
5
91
£192 sterling
1
This may seem small enough, but it was all but trebly suffi-
cient to pay Rollock's salary of £400 (Scots)—which he received
partly in the capacity of City Minister and a stipend of £100
(Scots) each to four Regents, altogether £800 (Scots), or
£66:13:4 sterling. Possibly the Kirkurd teinds were not al-
lotted to the College till after the scale of salaries had been raised.
But even deducting these, there would seem to have been a good
margin, in the early days of the College, for current expenses
(considering the value of money in those days), and also for acts
of generosity on the part of the Town Council, such as granting
a pension to Rollock's widow, and granting to the Regents in
years of dearth (1593 and 1596) "an honest subsistence beside
the ordinary stipends."2
The Town Council were perhaps satisfied with the petty scale
on which their College was being carried on during the first
quarter of a century of its existence. But the Kirk-Session of
Edinburgh took a different view, and in 1608 they came forward
to the assistance of the College (see Vol. I. p. 195) and paid over
a sum of £8100 (Scots), the interest of which, at 85 per cent,
amounting to 1000 merks, or £55:12S., was to go towards aug-
menting the salaries of the Regents for ever. But they coupled
this gift with certain conditions, and amongst these they recom-
mended that the Town Council should make over their “Mort-
I
a
1 The fifth, or Humanity, Regent was provided for by the liberality of the
College of Justice (see Vol. I. p. 189).
· Craufurd, p. 38.
218
[1609.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
dues"
cloth dues" for the support of the College. This was agreed to;
and by a formal Act of the Council in 1609 the “Mortcloth
were settled upon the College, in the revenues of which
they form a constant item down to 1861.
Some readers may require an explanation of this item :-In
Edinburgh, as elsewhere in Scotland, it had been the custom, time
out of mind, instead of having the "trappings of woe" provided
”
by a private undertaker, that public “mortcloths" or palls should
be kept, which on payment of a small due were lent out for
funerals. This service had been originally performed by the
ecclesiastical establishments, but after the Reformation it was
assumed in Edinburgh by the Municipality, especially in reference
to Greyfriars' Churchyard, the chief burying-place for the citizens
of Edinburgh, which had been established by the Town Council
in the yards and gardens of the Franciscans. The Council were
very tenacious of their monopoly of mortcloths, and their records
contain many instances of their proceeding against persons who
endeavoured to infringe the monopoly. One or two of the trade-
guilds of Edinburgh tried at different times to get private mort-
cloths of their own, but it was always put a stop to.
The dues
realised from this source were, at the instance of the Ministers,
made over to the College in 1609. The amount of course fluc-
tuated : in 1747 the mortcloth dues were calculated to average
£136:12:71 sterling ; in 1776 they were stated in the College
accounts as £118: 1os. ; in 1825 as £155:12:6.1 Thus a sub-
:
stantial addition was made in this form to the College revenues.
If we take £125 as a conjectural average of the mortcloth
dues in the early part of the seventeenth century, the settled
income of the College from 1609 onwards must have been:
from church properties, £192; from mortcloth dues, £125;
from interest on the Town Council's bond to the Kirk-Session
£55; altogether, £372 sterling. Therefore the Town Council
1 Public mortcloths are still used in Edinburgh at the humbler class of
funerals. On application, a heavy velvet pall is sent to the house whence a
s walking funeral” is to start, and it is placed over the heads of the coffin-
bearers, who are thus nearly suffocated during their march. But comparatively
few burials now take place in the Greyfriars' Churchyard, and during the year
1881 the mortcloth dues paid to the Municipality amounted to only £25: IOS.
By the Act of 1862 the proceeds of these dues were transferred from the Uni-
versity to the High School of Edinburgh.
1620.]
219
THE FINANCES OF THE UNIVERSITY.
S
made use of a very false plea when they told Principal Charteris
in 1620 that “the present state of the College patrimony'
prevented their being able to raise his salary. As soon as they
had got rid of Charteris they reorganised the whole College staff
(see Vol. I. p. 204) on a more liberal footing, thus :
For a Rector and Professor of Theology £500 (Scots)
For a Principal
House rent for ditto
Two Senior Regents at £333:6:8 each
4
Two Junior Regents at £166:13:4 each 333
6 8
666 13 4
IOO
O
O
666 13
£2266 13
4
I
This in sterling money would amount to about £188: 18s. per
annum, or little more than half the actual College revenue.
But at the same time they gave Charteris a gratuity of 1000
merks (£55: 12s.), and they had a Janitor's wages to provide,
besides the various expenses of coals, candles, and repairs of the
College buildings. And it must be remembered that the mort-
cloth dues were no trust-fund held for the College, but a direct
subsidy out of the “Common Good” of the Town.
The sources
of College revenue were at first so few and simple that it seemed
hardly worth while to keep a separate account of them, and for
some time the church rents and mortcloth dues continued to be
mixed up with the general accounts of the Town, and the Council
paid out what they deemed fitting for the maintenance of the
College, keeping, as we have seen, well within the bounds of the
funds at their disposal for this purpose.
But soon the College began to gather gear” from other
sources, namely, from the bequests and mortifications of private
benefactors. And this necessitated a change in the system of
accounting. Craufurd in his Memoirs commemorates the first
private benefactor of the College, "Mr. James Bannatine, brother
to Mr. Patrick Bannatine, Justice-Clerk depute," who in 1598
“left by testament 100 merks (£5:11 : 1) to the College."
“This was the first 1 private benevolence,” adds Craufurd, “be-
stowed in so long a time upon so good a work." And it is
Previously to this there had been the settlement by the College of Justice
and the Town Council of £3000 (Scots), which provided a Regent of Humanity
and six Bursars, but Craufurd does not consider this a private gift.
+
I
1
220
[1656.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
T
:
remarkable that at first the College did not attract the liberality
of those who might have assisted it. The Nobility of Scotland
then (very unlike the Nobility of the present day) did nothing
for it. To this general statement, however, there is one honour-
able exception. In 1589 the Master of Lindsay assigned to the
Town Council for the use of the College the proceeds of the
crops raised from the nunnery of Haddington. And in 1600
the same person, now become Lord Lindsay of the Byres, granted
£80 (Scots) per annum out of the teinds of Crail for maintaining
two Bursars. This sum was paid for eight years, but then Lord
Binning, Lord Clerk Register, who had married his daughter into
Lord Lindsay's family, procured the annulment of this mortifica-
tion. And at the same time (1609) the Town Council were induced
to resign the benefice of Haddington for a sum paid down of
£1333:6:8 (Scots), or £111:2:3 sterling And thus the
II
name of Lord Lindsay of the Byres does not remain among those
of the permanent contributors to the College revenues.
The tide of private benefactions was first set flowing by the
Ministers of Edinburgh, who gave an example by their own
donation in 1608, and then used their influence with the com-
munity to procure additional contributions. There is no doubt
that the College is under great obligations to the City Ministers
of the seventeenth century for their zeal in its behalf. Between
1609 and 1640 no less than twenty-five different donations or
bequests came to the College, chiefly from merchants, some for
general purposes, others for bursaries, but the most valuable of
them including a gift of 26,000 merks (£ 1444 sterling) from
Mr. Bartlie Sommerville," portioner of Sauchtonhall” --for the
endowment of a Chair of Divinity (see above, Vol. I. p. 202).
The greatest of the Presbyterian Ministers of those times, Alex-
ander Henderson, had a large share in procuring these and other
benefactions; and as soon as he had been made Rector of the Col-
lege in 1640 the Town Council resolved (doubtless by his advice)
to separate the College accounts, which now contained many
distinct trust-funds, from the general accounts of the Town.
John Jossie was “elected Treasurer of the College, and a
Committee set a-work to take perfect information of all which
belonged to the College."1 Sixteen years later, in 1656, “the
i Craufurd, p. 138.
n
I
1656.]
221
THE FINANCES OF THE UNIVERSITY.
a
most narrow search that can be” was made, and a list of thirty-
nine benefactions was drawn out, and they were shown to amount
to £71,000 (Scots), or £5916:13:4 sterling. And the Town
Council then bound themselves “to pay to the Treasurer of the
College and his successors in office yearly, in all time coming,
the ordinary annual rent of the aforesaid stock.” Thus the
College accounts were started in simple form, with three heads
on the side of “charge" : kirk-annuals; mortcloth dues; and
consolidated mortifications to the amount of £5916 sterling,
bearing interest at the current rate. It must not be sup-
posed, however, that the “College Treasurer” was an officer
belonging to the staff of the College itself, like the Rector of
those days, or the Principal and Regents; he was invariably a
Member of the Town Council, and merely acted, within their
offices, as clerk in charge of a particular department of accounts.
In order to estimate the contribution made to the resources
of the College by private benefactions, we must separate these
into sums devised for special, and sums devised for general,
purposes. We find that out of the £5916 of consolidated
mortifications £2039 were for a Professor of Divinity, £ 1093
for Bursaries, and £2784 for the maintenance of Regents and
general College purposes. I The interest on the last-named
item at 8) per cent would be about £237, which, so long as the
rate remained unaltered, would be available towards carrying on
the College. But one disadvantage of a perpetual City bond as
a form of investment for the College trust-funds was that the
rate of interest was always tending to diminish : in 1695 it had
fallen to 6 per cent; in 1741 to 5 per cent; and in 1801 to 4
In the meantime the number of mortifications was
continually increasing: in 1741 these were found to amount to
£11,451 sterling, and in 1825 to £13,604, whereof no less
than £8604 had been specially devised for Bursaries, so that
adding to this the £2039 appropriated to the Chair of Divinity,
1
per cent.
1 This proportion is remarkable, since benefactors generally prefer to define
and prescribe particular objects on which the interest of their money is to be
expended. Hence Bursaries connected with family names or localities have
always been the favourite form of benefaction. The large proportion of
bequests for general College purposes in the seventeenth century must be
attributed to the advice of the City Ministers of that time, who knew what was
most wanted.
4
222
[1776.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
we see that between 1656 and 1825 hardly any addition had been
made from private sources to the General Fund of the College.
As the purchasing power of money was constantly on the
decrease, the Town Council could not keep the salaries of College
officers in statu quo. In 1620 the Principal's salary and allowances
amounted to about £62 sterling ; in 1675 Andrew Cant received,
as Principal and City Minister, £200 a year. In 1620 the total
College salaries amounted to about £190; a century and a half
later they were stated at £621. In a Rent Roll furnished by the
Town Council for the year 1747 the following appears as, in round
numbers, the income of the College (or University, as it now vir-
tually was) :
(1) Interest on consolidated mortifications at 5 per cent £ 57.2
(2) Teinds and Ground-Annuals
175
(3) Mortcloth dues
1 26
(4) Rent of College Chambers
(5) From small rents
5
4903
.
151
In this statement, however, there does not seem to have been
included the sum of £300 from Bishops' Teinds settled on the
College by William III. and Queen Anne (above, Vol. I. p. 231),
nor Queen Anne's bounty of £250, obtained by Carstares for
the augmentation of Professors' stipends, nor £300 per annum
settled on the Ale Duty for the support of three Professors in the
Faculty of Laws (see above, Vol. I. p. 279). The income of the
University, down to 1833, as payable by the Town Council,
never rose above £900, though from the middle of the eighteenth
century it generally approximated that amount.
Per contra, the following is a statement in round numbers of
the University expenses, taken from the accounts of 1776 :-
(1) Payments to Bursars .
. £261
(2) Salaries to Principal and Professors
621
(3) Payments to Janitor and Servants
15
(4) Pensions ,
31
(5) Tradesmen's bills for repairs, etc.
293
(6) Contingencies
19
£1240
1 The rents for College Chambers in 1733 had been £23 : 155. (see above,
p. 189). They had fallen off since.
1833-]
223
THE FINANCES OF THE UNIVERSITY.
With an income of £900 this would show a deficit of £340 to
be made up out of municipal funds. In 1801 the income was
£836 and the expenditure £1285, being a deficit of £449.
In 1825 the income was £830 and the expenditure £1612,
leaving a deficit of £782. During the fifty years between 1756
and 1825 the total excess of expenditure over receipts (including
therein Legacies, Compositions paid on the entries of Vassals, and
Sales of Superiority) amounted to £14,132, giving an average
annual deficit, defrayed from the common good," of £282.
"
In 1833 a catastrophe occurred which had long been prepar-
ing, for the Municipality of Edinburgh was declared bankrupt.
The main causes of this result appear to have been three in
number : ist, the deficiency of the Ale Duty to meet the burdens
charged upon it; 2d, over-zeal on the part of the Town Council
in building operations for the New Town of Edinburgh; 3d, a too
sanguine haste in pressing on the commercial development of the
harbour of Leith. The Municipality of Edinburgh had been
struggling for a long time under pecuniary difficulties when in
1716 the Ale Duty was granted to the Magistrates and Council
for the purpose of paying the interest of the City's debts and of
liquidating the principal. But other burdens were laid on the
Duty originally, and were added to from time to time whenever
the Duty was renewed, which it was about every thirty years down
to 1837. When in 1837 the Duty finally expired, it was found
that not only the debts originally charged upon it were still un-
paid, but that also more than £100,000 of additional debt had
been incurred by the City, owing to the burdens laid upon the
Duty by successive Acts of Parliament having exceeded the pro-
duce of the Duty by that amount. This, then, was the first cause
of the financial crisis of 1833.
The second cause of difficulties was the Athenian rashness
with which the Town Council indulged in a passion for public
buildings when they had the task and the privilege of dealing
with the romantic site of Edinburgh and of developing the New
Town. It appears, for instance, that they built some thirteen
churches, without any prospect of an adequate return in the shape
of seat-rents. A Commission, composed chiefly of Edinburgh
Advocates, who in 1835 reported on the Municipal Corporations
of Scotland, were very severe on the Town Council of Edinburgh
224
[1838.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
I
2
for their extravagance in building, and especially reprehended
them for having in 1819 built St. George's Church at a cost of
£38,000, and for having in 1829, when they were over head and
ears in debt, built the new High School for £34,000, of which
£23,000 had to be provided for out of municipal funds. But the
present generation can well afford to excuse these splendid extrava-
gances, especially as the architectural designs chosen were good, and
at all events did not spoil the naturally beautiful capital of Scotland.
The third and greatest cause of insolvency was the too great
rapidity with which the Town Council pushed on the extension
and improvement of the Leith docks, for which they borrowed no
less than £265,000. In this they exhibited something of the
speculative spirit of the later French Empire ; but as the loan
was sanctioned and even advanced by the Commissioners of Her
Majesty's Treasury, the Government must be held as a party to
the transaction, and as responsible for it. The returns from this
outlay in the shape of dock dues were not sufficiently immediate
to recoup the City Managers and avert the necessity of their
declaring themselves insolvent.
Matters took some years to adjust, during which time that
" lesser corporation,” the University, suffered considerable incon-
venience, the Principal and several of the Professors being kept
out of their salaries. At last, in 1838, an Act of Parliament was
passed “to regulate and secure the Debt due by the City of Edin-
burgh to the Public.” For this purpose the claims of the Treasury
were postponed to a first charge upon the Leith harbour and dock
dues of £7680 per annum ; which sum was to be disbursed in
the following way :
£2000 a year towards the payment of the Ministers of Edinburgh in
lieu of certain taxes hitherto assigned for their support by the
Town Council.
£3180 a year in payment of annuities to the holders of City bonds.
£2500 a year “ towards the maintenance and support of the College
and Schools of the said City," with the proviso that a statement
of the intended appropriation of this sum was to be submitted to
the Commissioners of H.M. Treasury, and to be subject to their
approbation thereof signified in writing. And in consideration of
this last annual payment the sum of £13,119 known by the name
of “the College Debt" was to be extinguished and discharged.
I
.
1838.]
225
THE FINANCES OF THE UNIVERSITY.
The care for the interests of the University thus evinced by
the Government was due to the recommendations of the Right
Hon. Henry Labouchere, who was appointed to draw up a report,
which he did most elaborately, upon the affairs of the City.
Ultimately, by an Act of Parliament in 1861, the sum of £ 2170
per annum from Leith Harbour dues was settled upon the Uni-
versity, £330 a year being allotted to the High School, to
which also the mortcloth dues and the poor remains of the
kirk-annuals were transferred. Thus a clean sweep was made
of the items of University revenue formerly payable by the Town
Council, and in lieu of an income approaching £900 a year
from that source the University was now endowed with £2170
a year of certain revenue to be disbursed under the control of
the Treasury. The financial administration of the University of
Edinburgh by the Town Council was now virtually at an end.
They maintained their authority over the University buildings,
however, down to 1862, when an Act of Parliament transferred
the control of these and of all other University property to the
Senatus Academicus, subject to the revision of the University
Court.
The Municipality of Edinburgh had always contributed a
considerable proportion towards the expenses of the College,-
first by an outlay for buildings, then by giving to it the mort-
cloth dues, and afterwards from time to time by meeting such
expenses as were absolutely necessary for keeping it up. But all
this was a good investment, as the University not only brought
fame to the City, but also indirectly increased its material pros-
perity and wealth. The final arrangement which closed the
financial connection between the Town Council and the Univer-
sity gave the University out of the resources of the City a fixed
grant for ever of £1270 a year over and above the £900 a year
which was all that the University in 1838 could have claimed as
its legitimate income.
But the question arises whether that legitimate income might
not have been more than £goo if the Town Council had been
better stewards of the funds belonging to the University. Under
the excitement of the angry feelings caused by the " thirty years'
war," some persons were prone to denounce the financial adminis-
tration of the Town Council, and to declare that, if they had
VOL. II.
Q
I
226
(1861.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
I
acted properly, the University of Edinburgh might have become
a rich institution. This idea is based on two suppositions-Ist,
that much valuable Church property was alienated; and 2d, ,
that better investments might have been made of trust-funds given
or bequeathed to the College. With regard to the first point
there is no evidence of malversation; the Town Council during
the first years of the existence of the College were very zealous
for its promotion, and on the other hand, we see by the parallel
instance of Glasgow (see Vol. I. p. 73) that the Church properties
granted by Mary's Charter were half alienated beforehand, and
so encumbered with burdens and obligations that next to nothing
could be realised from them. It is difficult to believe that
anything important could have been made out of the ground-
annuals of the Kirk-of-Field, which in 1640 were worth only
£16:13:4.
There is more to be said for the second charge,—that the Town
Council did not make good investments of trust-funds. People
naturally point to the investment of George Heriot's bequest,
which was originally only £23,634, and the residue of which,
after the cost of building the Hospital, being invested in the
Broughton lands, now gives the magnificent income of more than
£25,000 a year. They say “if the £8000 or £10,000, which
were mortified to the College before the end of the seventeenth
century, had been similarly invested, how rich the University
would now be !" But it must be remembered that of the
sum mortified less than £3000 was for general College pur-
poses, the rest was devised for special purposes; therefore, the
best investments possible would not have made the University
very rich,— they would have made the Chair of Divinity rich,
and would have greatly increased the value of a number of
Bursaries.
Still, if the College funds could have been treated as George
Heriot's were, doubtless the University, by the middle of the
nineteenth century, would have been richer than it actually was.
But there were great difficulties in the way; the Municipality
was always impoverished in those early days, and was living from
hand to mouth, always in want of ready money. And the Town
Council had the highest authority for treating gifts to the College
as loans to themselves. When the College of Justice in 1590
1861.1
227
THE FINANCES OF THE UNIVERSITY.
presented £2000 (Scots) for a Professor of Laws, they did not
say to the Town Council, “Invest this in land," but they said
“Give a bond for this at 10 per cent.” So too, in 1608, when
the Kirk-Session handed over £8010 (Scots) to improve the
salaries of the Regents, they said, "Give a bond for this at 8.1
per cent." Following these precedents the Town no doubt con-
sidered that they were acting in the most natural and honourable
way, when in 1656 they consolidated the mortifications to the
College and turned them into City stock, on a perpetual bond
bearing the current rate of interest. The result of which, of
course, was that while the capital never increased, the interest
on it was evėr decreasing.
There is no trace of the Town Council ever deliberating for
a moment as to what form of investment they should adopt for
College trust-funds; it never occurred to them to do anything
else besides lending these funds to the Town. The reason of
this was that they never realised their own position as Trustees,
Nothing was said in the vague charter under which they acted,
and which gave them full powers as Patrons, of their responsibility
as Trustees. In an action before the Court of Session in 1847
the Town Council pleaded that they were “proprietors of the
University buildings, and as trustees and administrators for the
community, have the right and have always exercised the power
of assigning apartments therein, etc.” And this theory of their
position probably contained the idea on which they had almost
invariably acted, namely, that they held College property in trust
for the community, not in trust for the College or University
itself as a distinct though subordinate corporation. They re-
garded the College as an institution created by their predecessors
and upheld by themselves for the good of the Town, and no
more thought of it as a separate persona, than a landowner would
of his home-farm. Hence arose, throughout the whole period of
administration, a very easy-going procedure with regard to College
property. There was probably the feeling that they could do
what they liked with their own, and that so long as they paid out
for the College, on the whole, as much as or more than they had
received for it, there was no necessity to be punctilious in
accounting. They were often generous, but also often inexact.
Thus, for instance, when superiorities were sold, or compositions
>
228
[1861.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
were paid by vassals, the sums received were treated as income
and not brought to capital; in the same way unclaimed Bursaries
during the fifty years ending 1825 amounted to £490, but this
amount had been expended as general College income, instead
of being put to the credit of the several Bursary funds; again, in
1747, the Currie and Livingston Teinds are stated as £85:6:4,
with £13:1:11 deducted as “payable to the Town," and the
Commissioners of 1826 were informed1 that £72:4: 5 out of
the proceeds of teinds were immediately paid over to the College,
in salaries to Professors, and that the sum of £13:1:11 went
to the credit of the City Funds for a time, but was after-
wards, when required, applied to the general purposes of the
College.
These, though small matters, are instances of a looseness in
accounting which indeed throws a certain obscurity over the
financial transactions between the Town Council and the College.
But we may take one broad result which unfortunately seems to
show that the Town Council failed, at all events occasionally,
in their duties as Trustees,—and that is the case of the Divinity
Chair. Considering that this Chair was doted by the middle of
the seventeenth century with the large sum (for these days) of
£2039 sterling -under the express proviso that a salary for the
Professor, and a house to commemorate the name of Somerville,
the chief donor, for all time coming, should be provided, -it
cannot but appear a laches that in the present day the Professor
of Divinity, instead of having a larger salary than other Professors,
which he would have had if the trust-fund had been profitably
invested, should have one of the lowest salaries of all, and should
have no official house attached to his Chair. And in connection
with this we may advert to another matter, already mentioned
(p. 193), that when in 1785 the Town Council, by their absolute
authority, took away the gardens to the east of the College, and
alienated them as sites for South Bridge Street, they made no
compensation out of the price of this valuable property either to
the Professor of Divinity or the Principal, whose official grounds
were thus taken away, or to the University, which also suffered
by their loss. During the last part of their reign the Town
Council manifested a somewhat cynical indifference to the
1 See their Report, p. 105.
1861.]
229
THE FINANCES OF THE UNIVERSITY.
-
I
In
interests of the Professors; thus, when the Ale Duty expired in
1837, they did not think it incumbent on themselves to provide
from other sources the salaries which had been paid out of the
Duty But they were then embittered by litigation with the
Senatus, and by that time the Municipality had become insolvent.
Of the Town Council, as "a corporation of tradesmen " founding
and governing a University, we might say that it was omnium
consensu incapax imperii, nisi imperasset. From 1583 to 1859
the Town Council of Edinburgh did extraordinarily well in their
share of making the University what it is. But they succeeded
where they might have been expected to fail, and failed where
they might have been expected to be particularly successful.
the intellectual development of the University their success was
brilliant; they took good advice, and did the right thing at the
right moment, and in their appointments they rarely made a
mistake. On the other hand, the material interests of the
University did not flourish in their hands; and this is where
a body consisting of men of business should naturally have pro-
duced different results. Keen and sagacious trustees would
not have let the trust-funds lie like the talent in a napkin when
the New Town of Edinburgh was being developed; and there
were several occasions which they might have taken advantage
of to add to the resources of the University. But there were two
causes hindering ist, the false notion of their stewardship
engendered by the Charter under which they acted; and 2dly,
the embarrassment of the City finances during so many genera-
tions, which prevented each Town Council from acting freely as
unembarrassed men might have done. Looking back on the
past as a whole, we may take leave of the Town Councils of
former days with only a feeling of gratitude for the great work
which they helped to accomplish.
We have hitherto only spoken of the income of the University
proceeding from endowments in the hands of the Town Council ;
but from 1762 the “Library Fund,” established by Principal
Robertson, grew up, and became a fund in the hands of the
Professors applicable to contingencies as well as to Library pur-
poses. It was the produce, as we have seen (pp. 175, 176), of
the " Matriculation fee," and of fees paid for diplomas; but down
to 1806 the Matriculation fee was, in fact, a voluntary subscription
.
230
[1807
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
I
of 2s. 6d., paid by any Student who chose, for the use of the
Library. At this stage the Library Fund averaged about £250
a year; in 1806 the Matriculation fee was raised to 5s., but still
left voluntary, and it then produced an average of £500 a year.
In 1810 the Town Council appear for the first time to have
claimed to regulate the Library Fund. They took the very
proper step of making Matriculation compulsory, and raised the
fee to 7s., afterwards in 1812 to 1os., subsequently again to
I 25. 6d., and finally in 1833 they raised it to £i for the winter
session or the whole year, and 1os. for the summer session, at
which rate the fee now stands. The Library Fund was made to
bear the expense of “ College Police," i.e. the wages of Janitors,
the cost of fire insurance, and many contingencies in addition to
the salaries of Librarians, and the cost of purchasing and binding
books. In 1822-23 the Fund amounted to £1364, chiefly made
up of Matriculation fees £1075, diplomas £200, and induction
fee paid by thirteen professors £65. Out of this less than
£500 was spent in books and bindings, £450 went in salaries
to Librarians and Janitor, and the rest in contingencies. Alto-
gether, the Fund was a particularly useful one when the affairs
of the Municipality became embarrassed, and it may be noticed
that it was in the year of their bankruptcy, 1833, that the Town
Council raised the Matriculation fee to 208. It did not produce
much more at that figure than it had done in 1823 at 12s. 6d.,
because the number of Students had in the meantime decreased,
and Medical graduation had fallen off. The Senatus complained
that the Library Fund was then saddled with £180 a year to
provide salary and house for an unnecessary Secretary to the
University, but all this was part of the unhappy relations of
I
the past.
The regular income of the University being £900, and the
Library Fund (at its maximum) a little over £1100, it must
have been a new sensation for the Senatus, when in 1807 they
learned that they had been made residuary legatees of an estate,
subject to one liferent, the income of which would more than
exceed the previous University income and the Library Fund
put together. This was General Reid's bequest, the particulars
of which have been previously stated (Vol. I. p. 343). General
Reid's solicitors, in announcing his death, enclosed an estimate
1839.
231
THE FINANCES OF THE UNIVERSITY.
of what the residuary legacy would amount to, namely, £ 52,114.
During the twenty-seven years which elapsed before the death of
Mrs. Stark Robertson, the liferenter, successive generations of
the Senatus had plenty of time to consider what they should do
with the trust-fund when they received it. And this was left
very much to their discretion, for all that they were directed by
the Will to do was to establish and endow a Professorship of
Music (with a salary of not less than £300 to the Professor),
and to provide an Annual Concert in honour of the Founder; for
the rest, the Fund was to be applied “in making additions to the
Library of the said University, or otherwise in promoting the
interest and advantage of the University, in such way as the
Principal and Professors thereof for the time being shall in their
discretion think most right and proper.” The terms of the Will
were so large and unrestrictive, and the needs of the University
were so manifold, that it is not to be wondered at if the Senatus
thought more of the secondary than of the primary objects of the
trust. They very likely imagined that a Professorship of £300
a year and the expenses of a Concert could be met by a capital
sum of £10,000 or £12,000, and that they thus would have
at their disposal for other purposes about £40,000. As time
went on they were emboldened to borrow upon their reversion :
in 1819 they expended £3000 in this way on purchasing the
Dufresne Collection (see Vol. I. p. 370), and in 1825 £2800 in
repairing and removing to its new quarters the University Library
(above, p. 176). Among the greatest wants of the University
a Constitution, and in fighting for this (as related in
chapter vi.), they spent out of the Reid Fund a sum which
in 1850 they estimated at £909:16:4, though this must
have been afterwards increased by their suit before the House
of Lords.
In all this there was not sufficient thought of the Testator's
intentions. When the legacy became payable in 1838 General
Reid's Trustees invited the Senatus to an amicable suit before
the Court of Chancery, and that Court simply handed over
the estate, minus legacy-duty and expenses, amounting to about
£60,000, to the Senatus as Trustees to carry out the inten-
tions of the Testator. The Court laid on them no injunctions
as to the mode in which this was to be done. Reid's Trustees
I
was
I
232
(1850.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
I
in 1839 appointed the first Professor of the Theory of Music
(Thomson), and the Senatus then agreed to pay him, with-
out mortifying or investing any separate sum for the purpose, a
salary of £300 a year; they allotted to him a not very con-
venient or suitable class-room in their existing buildings; and at
his request they placed at his disposal £200 towards the expenses
of the first Reid Concert, estimating that if 5s. each were
charged for tickets £200 more might be raised, which would
be a fund sufficient to retain the services of every good musical
performer in Edinburgh, and also to bring artists from England,
so that General Reid's Concert might be celebrated with due
éclat.
Probably, as the Court of Chancery had given them no guid-
ance, it would have been the most prudent course for the Senatus
in 1839 to have raised an action of Declarator in the Court of
Session, with the view of having their duties under the Trust
defined. Unfortunately they did not do this, and hence differ-
ences of opinion and heart-burnings arose. The first Professors
of Music, Thomson, Bishop, and Pierson, made no objec-
tions to the course pursued. So the Senatus went to work in
supplying some of the wants of the University out of the interest
of the Reid Fund: they gave annually £400 to the Library,
£100 to the Divinity Library, £200 to the Anatomical Museum,
£100 to other Museums, £300 for Fellowships in Arts, £100
for Scholarships in Arts, and £100 for Prizes in Arts and Law,
-altogether £1300, and representing a capital of more than
£32,000. In 1842 Sir James Forrest, Lord Provost, wrote to
Principal Lee suggesting that some portion of the Reid Fund
“should be devoted to the purpose of providing retiring allow-
ances to aged and meritorious professors." But in 1845 John
.
Donaldson, who was by profession an Advocate, was appointed to
the Chair of Music. He soon devoted his mind to the position
of the Chair, and estimated its claims much higher than his pre-
decessors had been content to do. In pressing those claims he
created a dissentience in the Senatus ; earnest Professors, like J.
D. Forbes, considered the Music Chair as a toy, not to be com-
pared in importance with the scientific interests of the University;
Sir W. Hamilton thought the claims of the Library paramount,
and so on; while Sir Robert (then Professor) Christison and
I
а.
1855.]
233
THE FINANCES OF THE UNIVERSITY.
others were for a more just treatment of the Chair of Music. At
last Donaldson, who was not only a lawyer, but a skilful litigant,
succeeded in enlisting the sympathies of the Town Council and in
getting them to bring, in 1850, an action of Exhibition and
Declarator against the Principal and Professors to ordain them to
apply the Reid Fund "at the sight" of the Court of Session. The
litigation proceeded for five years, causing of course much discom-
fort within the University; nothing could be more adroit than
Donaldson's conduct in the case, and in the end he was victorious
all along the line. In fact, the Senatus, not sufficiently mindful
of General Reid's first object, had not provided adequately for
the Chair of Music. They had made no allowance for apparatus,
though on Donaldson's urgency they did disburse a sum of
£950 for that purpose; they had not provided an Organ,
which was indispensable; they had allotted nothing for a Class-
Assistant; and they had assigned to the Professor a very miserable
class-room.
The Court of Session rectified all this : they ordered the
following sums to be set aside for their respective purposes -
7
For the salary of the Professor of Music £ 12,000, to provide £420 a year
For Class-Assistant and expenses
8,500
300
For the Annual Concert
8,000
300
To be expended in building a Class-
Room
8,000
To be expended in purchase of an
Organ
2,000
1
£38,500
£1,020
The Senatus had apparently contemplated appropriating little
more than one-fifth of the Reid Fund to purposes connected with
General Reid's primary objects, ---the Chair of Music and the
Annual Concert --but the Court ordained that nearly two-thirds of
the Fund should be so appropriated. Had the Senatus dealt
more equitably with the Trust from the commencement, they
might have made terms with the Professor of Music and got the
Music class-room so built as to serve for the purposes of a Uni-
versity Hall. They attempted this too late, when Professor
Donaldson, with the Town Council on his side, was at war with
234
(1840.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
them, and he successfully resisted the proposal. As it was, a
class-room was built capable of holding only about 200 persons,
and therefore, though a pleasing building in a small way, not
admitting of any adequate development of the class of music in
future times, After the appropriations ordained by the Court
of Session had been made, there remained of the Reid Fund
£20,000 the interest of which is now available for general Uni-
versity purposes.
General Reid's example was followed in 1840 by General
Sir Joseph Straton of Kirkside, who left the residue of his estate
to the Principal and Senatus Academicus of the University of
Edinburgh, "the yearly interest to be applied by them towards
the promotion and advancement of science.” The estate was
realised in 1845, and was found to amount to £14,151,-a valu-
able contribution to the General University Fund.
In the meanwhile another bequest had been received, not
indeed contributing to the finances of the University, but convey-
ing a valuable property, and of a character highly complimentary
and gratifying to the Senatus: this was the collection of Pictures,
Bronzes, and Marbles bequeathed to the University in 1834 by
Sir James Erskine of Torrie, “for the purpose of laying a founda-
tion for a Gallery for the encouragement of the Fine Arts.” On the
death of Sir James Erskine's heir, who had the liferent, the Collec-
tion was handed over, and was at first exhibited in the Library Hall
of the University ; but as the Pictures could not be well shown
there, the Collection was entrusted to the Managers of the Royal
Institution (which afterwards developed into the National Gallery
of Scotland) for custody and exhibition to the public. In Mr.
Anderson's designs for a University Hall and subsidiary apart-
ments there is space provided for an Art Gallery, and if these
designs are ever carried out the Torrie Collection will be reclaimed
and exhibited, together with other Art treasures, on University
premises.
The Reid, Straton, and Erskine of Torrie bequests were har-
bingers to that host of benefactions, since 1858, which were
recorded in Chapter VII. During the last years of the reign of
the Town Council the University income, though greatly aug-
1 The Pictures, forty-six in number, consist chiefly of choice specimens of
the Flemish and Dutch Schools.
I
1882.]
235
THE FINANCES OF THE UNIVERSITY.
I 200
.
mented since 1833, did not amount from all sources to more than
about £8000. Thus:-
From Leith Harbour dues, for Salaries and Bursaries . £2000
“ Library Fund” (Matriculation and Diplomas). · say
Interest on Reid Fund
2000
Straton Fund.
560
Deanery of the Chapel-Royal
900
Government Compensation for Stationers' Hall
privilege
57 5
Government Grant for maintenance of Buildings
500
07
£7735
with some other small items not exceeding £500 altogether. So
great has been the increase, since those days, of Parliamentary grants,
of property funded for various purposes in the University, and of
Matriculation and Graduation Fees, that for the year 1881-82 the
Income of the University of Edinburgh amounted to £34,173,
whereof £21,756 : Ios. were specially destined for particular
objects, such as Professors' Salaries, Bursaries, Scholarships, etc. ;
and £12,416: 1os. were General Income administered by the
Senatus under the control of the University Court. But while
resources have thus largely increased, the functions and duties of
the University have also been multiplied. And as more than
£9000 of the revenue comes from a precarious source (Matricu-
lation and Graduation fees), the Finance Committee of the Senatus
are obliged to be cautious and practise economy, and to deny
to the University many an expenditure which would otherwise be
expedient.
APPENDIX R. TRAITS, PERSONAL, SCIENTIFIC, OR LITERARY, OF
BYGONE WORTHIES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH.
1.-CHANCELLORS.
(1) As above related (p. 104), Lord Brougham was elected
Chancellor of the University in 1859. The facts of Brougham's
life and the features of his character have been so completely
I
1 On the characters of living men no remarks will be made in these pages.
236
[1868.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
brought into the light of publicity, that it is unnecessary to repeat
here what is universally known, or may be gathered from a
hundred sources. Brougham formed a connecting link between
new and old times in the University of Edinburgh, for he was
the grand-nephew of Principal Robertson, whose sister married
the Rev. James Syme, Minister of Alloa, and their daughter, in
1778, married Henry Brougham, Esq., younger of Brougham Hall.
Lord Brougham was born in St. Andrew Square in April 1779,
and thus was more than eighty years old when elected Chancellor.
In April 1860 he delivered a brilliant Installation Address, con-
taining general remarks on Academic Studies, and in which he
gave a long list of fellow-students of his own in the Uni-
versity of Edinburgh who had since become remarkable.
(2) On Brougham's death in 1868 a keen contest for the
Chancellorship ensued. Mr. Gladstone was proposed by a
distinguished Liberal Member of the General Council, but it was
evident from the first that the election was not to turn on
politics, for another distinguished Liberal proposed the Lord
Justice General (Inglis), who was a staunch Conservative. The
claims of the latter rested upon the great services which he had
rendered to the Universities of Scotland (as related in Chapter
VI.) by his Act of 1858, and by his conduct as Chairman of the
Commission. The results of his work, tested by some six years'
experience, had inspired profound confidence in his wisdom as
an Academical administrator. On the other hand, Mr. Glad-
stone's proposal (pp. 97, 98), that the Universities of Scotland
should be reduced to the rank of Colleges, had created a feeling
of alarm. Great interest was taken by the political world in this
contest, because it was contemporaneous with the commence-
ment of the General Election of November 1868, and statesmen
looked to it as an indication of the state of party feeling. But
in reality it was not so; on purely Academical and personal
grounds the Lord Justice General was elected Chancellor, the
votes being :
For the Right Hon. the Lord Justice General
For the Right Hon. William Ewart Gladstone
1780
1570
Majority
2 IO
A
1859-1880.] RECTORS OF THE UNIVERSITY.
237
II.-RECTORS,
1859. The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone.
1862. Ditto, re-elected.
1865. Thomas Carlyle.
1868. The Right Hon. Lord Moncreiff.
1871. Sir William Stirling Maxwell, Bart.
1874. The Right Hon. the Earl of Derby.
1877. The Most Hon, the Marquis of Hartington.
1880. The Right Hon. the Earl of Rosebery.
Carlyle has commemorated his election (see above, p. 144)
by bequeathing in characteristic terms his estate of Craigen-
puttock to found Bursaries in the University. His reception by
the Students on occasion of his delivering his address to them
was very striking. By reason of old age he was unable to
make his voice heard throughout the large assembly, but
the Students sat manifesting the utmost patience and the
deepest respect, though hundreds of them were unable to catch
his words.
The case was different with Sir William Stirling Maxwell,
the most distinguished man of letters in Scotland at that time.
It so happened that when he came to Edinburgh in 1872 to
address the Students, the Student-world was in a state of con-
siderable excitement about the question of admitting women to
Medical degrees. A number of those who had voted for Sir
William determined to ascertain the sentiments on this point of
their new Lord Rector; so they met him at the railway station
and expressed to him their hope that he would not, as President
of the University Court, favour the pretensions of the Medical
ladies. Sir William was in truth not at all disposed to do SO,
but he very naturally declined to give the Students any pledge
as to the course which he might take. This reply was very
improperly interpreted to mean an espousal of the women's cause,
and was resented accordingly. A section of the Students (and a
very small minority is sufficient for such a purpose) went to Sir
William Stirling Maxwell's address, not to listen, but to interrupt,
and thus a graceful and charming oration was rendered inaudible
by barbarous noises, and was finally broken off amid confusion,
as has happened too often on other occasions--where even the
238
[1586.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
poor motive of this disturbance was wanting in the Universities
of Scotland.
III. -PRINCIPALS.
1
a
6
(1.) ROBERT ROLLOCK, 1586-1599.
Rollock had been appointed in 1583 to be the sole Regent
of the “ Town's College;" he was to be the one source of its
illumination; the measure of his attainments was to be its high-
water mark of learning, and the standard of its curriculum. While
far inferior to Melville and other scholars from the Continent,
Rollock was quite able to take his class through a course of
Aristotle tempered by Ramism. He also by his personal
character got a great influence over all the Students of the
College, and tamed the wild High-School boys who had “barred
out” their masters and shot a Bailie when the Town Council
made some demur about their autumn holidays.? And he
moulded the College into the similitude of a hard-working family,
much pervaded by the exercises of religion.
But when he had completed his four years' course of Philo-
sophy with his class—when, in addition to the title of “Principal,"
he was made Professor of Theology, and was relieved from
further teaching of secular subjects,--Rollock must have felt that
he was entering upon his true vocation. Entering upon it only
—for the scientific teaching of Theology was not his ideal of the
work which he had to do in life. He felt born to be a preacher,
and in comparison with this high calling he made light of
humanism and science in all its forms. On his death-bed he
said: “ Believe me, it is not a thing of small importance to
preach the Word; it is not the same thing as to expound the text
of Plato and Aristotle, or to set forth a harangue bedaubed with the
colours and allurements of rhetoric. The preaching of the Word
depends on holiness, humility, and the efficacious demonstration
of the Spirit. God knows how highly I have ever prized it."
Rollock's first opportunity for preaching came to him about
1587, when he chanced to go into the New Church (i.e. the east
end of St. Giles') early of a Sunday morning, and there found
“great crowds” of people assembled, and so, in order that they
might not be left idle, he took up the practice of preaching to
1 See Steven's History of the High School of Edinburgh, 1849.
a
1597.]
239
PRINCIPALS OF THE COLLEGE.
them every Sunday at 7 A.M. The Presbytery approved of what
he had begun, and he was regularly appointed to continue it.
One would have thought that this duty, in addition to his Pro-
fessorship of Theology and his administration of the College,
would have been sufficient for a man always frail in health. But
after a few years of his acceptable preaching he was, against his
own wish, drawn out completely from the seclusion of academical
life, and compelled by entreaties from all sides to take " the full
burden of one of the eight Ministers of the City.”
And now, when his strength began to fail, he had to launch
out on the troubled sea of Church politics, and to act amongst
men, some of whom were fanatical and others crafty. After the
“ tumult” of the 17th December 1596, when most of the
Ministers of Edinburgh had been banished, "none other willing
or daring to appear in the breach, grave and wise Henry Nisbet,
Provost, and godly Mr. Rollock, so prevailed with the King that
at length he was reconciled to the Town of Edinburgh, and
suffered the Ministers to return.” 1 Rollock's goodness and
sweetness and tact enabled him to shine out, as his biographer
says,
“like a star of salvation" over what appeared to be a dark
crisis in the relations between the Crown and the Church. His
offices as peace-maker were recognised by his being chosen
Moderator of the ensuing General Assembly, held at Dundee on
the roth May 1597.
The King, who was present in person at
that Assembly, demanded that a Commission should be appointed
"to watch on behalf of the Church that she should sustain no
injury," and of this Commission Rollock was one, ---"the honest,
good, and holy man, with some few like him, knowing nothing of
the grand design, the reviving of the hierarchical power."2 It is
agreed that Rollock was simple and trusting, and less fit for State
affairs “than for the pulpit and the schools." It was even said
that he was made a tool of, and that “his old master, Mr. Thomas
Buchanan, being now won over to the King's side, turned and
tutored him as he saw fitting.”
The labours of the Commission, on the top of his other cares,
broke down Rollock's strength, and aggravated his malady,—"a
fatal confirmed stone,” to which he succumbed on the 8th January
I
.
.
1 Craufurd, p. 47
2 Ibid. p. 48.
3 Mackenzie's Lives, iii. p. 443.
240
[1599.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
1598-99.1 “The time of expectation of his departure he spent
in most heavenly meditations when he was private, and most
pithy exhortations to godliness unto all that visited him."2 There
is no record of any of the Students coming to him, but the
Ministers, the Magistrates, and several of the Judges approached
his bedside. To the Magistrates he gave advice as to the choice
of his successor, “Why need you traverse other countries, and
assume to this charge a foreigner, who at the same time would
be unacquainted with the system of teaching and discipline of
this College ? You have at home one endowed with rich gifts
and furnished for this office, Henry Charteris, who under my
instruction has drunk deep of learning, and has for more than ten
years discharged the office of Professor of Philosophy with dis-
tinction. Place him at the helm of the College and you will
see God blessing his labours." Rollock's biographer says: "I
—
should hardly be believed if I were to tell the lamentations and
profound grief which the report of his death occasioned through
the whole of this city and the surrounding country.” “The
whole population of Edinburgh flocked in crowds to do honour
to his funeral.”
In 1587, as soon as he was freed from teaching philosophy
and had got his stipend raised to 400 merks, Rollock married
one Helen Baron, by whom he had a posthumous daughter.
is not to be wondered at that he left them unprovided for. On
his death-bed he bequeathed them to the care of the Town
Council, saying: "I declare frankly that from all that I have
received for my labours, I have not accumulated a single penny."
The Town Council granted his widow a pension of 100 merks,
and in 1611 voted the same allowance for his daughter till her
marriage, with 1000 merks as her portion.
Soon after Rollock's death eleven of his sermons were pub-
lished from notes taken by his hearers, two of his disciples—Henry
Charteris and William Arthur-being the collectors and editors.
One thousand copies of these sermons, at 6s. (Scots) each, were
sold off by 1616, in which year the editors republished them,
with seven sermons more added, in the English dialect and
1
i The year in Scotland used to commence on the 25th March. During the
year after Rollock's death, an alteration was made by public enactment, and
on the ist January next the year 1600 began.
2 Craufurd, p. 49.
1599.]
241
PRINCIPALS OF THE COLLEGE.
"
orthography, the original edition having been given forth in
homely and racy Scotch. Without any flights of eloquence,
without being, what was said of the preaching of his contemporary,
Bruce of Kennaird, “an earthquake to his hearers, "-Rollock's
sermons were intensely earnest, and they have been characterised
as "manly, sound, practical, and stirring."
During his own lifetime Rollock brought out several works,
and he has the credit of having been the first person in Scotland
to publish a Commentary on any part of the Bible. In the
Catholic Universities the Scriptures had seldom been lectured on;
the Sentences of Peter Lombard stood in their place, and John
Mair, whom one of his admirers called “the prince of the theo-
logians and philosophers of Paris,” had commented upon part of
the Sentences. In 1590 Rollock brought out his Commentary, in
Latin, on St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, which contained the
lectures which he had given to his Theological class in the
College. In 1591 he published, in like manner, a Commentary
on Daniel; in 1594 a Logical Analysis of the Epistle to the
Romans ; in 1596 his Questions and Answers on the Covenant of
God (de Fædere Dei); in 1597 his treatise On Efficient Calling ;
in 1598 a Commentary on the Epistle to the Thessalonians. And
he left several other Commentaries, which were published after his
death by Charteris. The works brought out by himself were
dedicated severally to James VI. ; to King James and Queen
Anne; "to his dearest pupils, John, Earl of Gowrie, and Colin
Campbell
, Lord of Glenorchie;" to William Little, Lord Provost;
and to his old tutor, Thomas Buchanan. In his title-pages
Rollock never gave himsc'f the title of “Principal,” or in any
way referred to his connection with the College; he always
styled himself “Minister of Jesus Christ in the Church of Edin-
burgh." This is the more remarkable, seeing that these works
.
were all composed for the class-room, and were, in short, the pre-
lections which he had delivered to his Divinity Students re-
vised for publication. They betray their origin, being put into
scholastic form, such as would suit young men who had just gone
1 Not even a sermon had been published in Scotland previously. In 1591
Bruce of Kennaird brought out a few sermons; and in 1593 Napier of Mer-
chiston followed with his Plain Discovery, expounding the Revelation of St.
John to apply to the Church of Rome and the Pope.
VOL. II.
R
242
[1599.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
through a course of Aristotle far better than the general reader.
In this respect Rollock's Commentaries were a contrast to his
sermons, which were put into the homeliest form and addressed
directly to the heart. These Commentaries, reflecting as they
did the views of the Geneva school, were praised by Beza; but
they exhibited no critical learning. His little catechism On the
Covenant of God, and On Effectual Calling, give a specimen of
Rollock's systematic theology. He appears to have been the
first " federal theologian" in Great Britain, and as such to have
propounded views which were afterwards admitted into the West-
minster Confession of Faith.
From Rollock's death-bed conversations we learn that he was
satisfied with the College as he had made it and as he was leaving
it. He was satisfied with the Regenting system and the pre-
scribed curriculum, and was only afraid that innovations might be
introduced into the discipline, and perhaps into the religious
teaching of the place. His aspirations were for the spiritual
advancement of all members of the College ; he felt no desire to
see a generation of the scholars of the Renaissance, such as
Reuchlin, Erasmus, Scaliger, and Casaubon, reared up in Edin-
burgh; he did not desire to see a University system developed
and Professors of Law and Medicine introduced. Therefore he
begged the Town Council to appoint as his successor his faithful
disciple, Henry Charteris, who might be trusted to keep things as
they were. His wishes were carried out, and things were kept as
they were for more than a century after Rollock's death. There
were two circumstances that prevented the College of Edinburgh
from rising during that period : first, the Regenting system was
fatal to all chance of development; and secondly, Scotland, during
the seventeenth century, entered upon a dark age of its own.1
(2.) HENRY CHARTERIS, 1599-1620.
Craufurd's character of Charteris is highly graphic :-“He was
certainly one of the most learned men of his time, both in the
tongues and in philosophy and divinity; but he had too low
? Many of the above particulars are taken from the excellent Preface and
Annotations of W. M. Gunn, Esq., to his edition of the Select Works of
Robert Rollock, published by the Wodrow Society, 1849.
1620.)
243
PRINCIPALS OF THE COLLEGE.
thoughts of himself, a fault (if a fault) known in few beside.
He
was also of an holy and unblamed life. He was not given to the
cares of this world, yet not unfrugal; for although he had very
small incomings by his charge (all his time), yet by the blessing
of the Lord upon his patrimony, and the portion which he got
by his wives, he left his children in good condition.” He married
three times, and had altogether twenty-three children, but only nine
of them survived him.
Charteris was the son of an eminent printer in Edinburgh,
was one of Rollock's pupils from the opening of the College, and
was laureated in 1587. In 1589 he was made Regent, and in
1599 Principal and Professor of Theology. We have seen above
(Vol. I. p. 173) that he was too shy to preside at the Stirling Dis-
putation in 1617 before King James, and (Vol. I. p. 197) that
he was driven out of his academical appointments by the Town
Council, and became Minister of North Leith. In 1627, on the
resignation of Andrew Ramsay, he was brought back to be Pro-
fessor of Divinity in the College. He died two years after.
The chief mark which he has left on the world consists in his
Narratio Vitæ et Obitus sanctissimi doctissimique viri D. Roberti
Rolloci, Scoti, Ministri Evangelii et Rectoris Academia Edinbur-
gensis, a beautiful tribute to the virtues of his master.
(3.) PATRICK SANDS, 1620-1622.
Sands graduated with Charteris in 1587, was made Regent
with him in 1589, and supplanted him in the Principalship in
1620. Previously to that he had left the College and gone
abroad as tutor to Lord Newbattle, and when he came back (hav-
ing probably taken the opportunity to study some Law in the
foreign schools) he became an Advocate. Through family interest
with the Town Council he got himself thrust into the Principal-
ship of the College (see Vol. I. p. 197). And strange as it may
appear, though a lawyer by profession, he was, as Principal,
appointed to supply in the afternoon” in Greyfriars' Church.
Naturally enough he did not give satisfaction in the combined
offices now held by him, and in 1622 he retired with "a gratifi-
cation of 1000 merks.” The only productions of Principal Sands
which the author of these pages has seen are a set of Latin verses
244
[1617
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
in The Muses' Welcome, and a Latin epigram in praise of Ander-
son's "Angelic Pills" (see Vol. I. p. 217, note).
6
(4.) ROBERT BOYD, Dec. 1622 to Jan. 1623.
In succession to Sands the Town Council made a really good
appointment to the Principalship in the person of Robert Boyd
of Trochrig. But we have related above (Vol. I. p. 177) how
James VI. annulled this appointment and deprived the College
of a head whose connection with it even for a month is an
honour to its Fasti.
(5.) JOHN ADAMSON, 1623-1651.
In selecting John Adamson to fill up the vacancy caused by
Boyd's expulsion the Town Council might feel sure that they
would not again be offending the King, for Adamson was a
courtier as well as a scholar. He not only acted as leader of
the College Regents who disputed before James VI. at Stirling
in 1617, but he also next year collected all the orations and
Latin and Greek verses with which the King had been greeted
at Edinburgh, Stirling, Perth, St. Andrews, Dundee, and other
places, during his visit to Scotland, and he published a volume
of these productions, dedicated to the King, under the title of
The Muses' Welcome to the High and Mighty Prince, etc., in order,
as he said, that the world might know “tuam Scotiam sub Rege
eruditissimo non ineruditam, erga Regem optimum optime affectam.”
This book was doubtless much more to James's taste than the
De Jure Regni of George Buchanan, who in his preface assumed
that the King would have a natural repugnance to the titles of
“Your Majesty," "Your Highness," "et si qua alia magis sunt
putida.” To use Buchanan's strong term, The Muses' Welcome is
made up of the most “rotten” compliments, and except in some
Theses defended before the King, and in a pretty English poem
by Drummond of Hawthornden, it hardly contains a word of
sense or truth.
As a specimen take the following sentence from
the English address delivered to the King in the name of the
Town of Perth :—“ By your Majesty's presence and most benign
aspect this day, We, who these many years bypast in absence of
your Majesty (the sunshine of our beauty), did sit like so many
girasoles languishing in the shades of darkness, mày now again
1627.]
245
PRINCIPALS OF THE COLLEGE.
1
like as many lizards delight ourselves in the sight of your gracious
countenance." Let any one conceive hundreds of variations of
this sort of thing tricked out with classical conceits in Latin and
Greek verse, and he will have a fair idea of The Muses! Welcome.
The book, no doubt, showed that Scotland was not unlearned ;"
indeed, merchants, doctors, and various other people contributed
to it, and it showed a very loyal humour in the people, though
expressed in an unreal form. Doubtless Adamson, as the editor
of all this classical adulation, was very acceptable to the King.
Indeed, it appears that James VI. had already presented 2 him
to the parish of Liberton in 1609. But this was probably done
at the instance of Sir John Home, who had presented Adamson
to North Berwick, and afterwards losing his temper in some dis-
cussion, had struck his Minister on the Sabbath-day. To prevent
an inquiry before the Synod Sir J. Home got Adamson removed
to another parish.
Adamson was, no doubt, an elegant scholar ; we have seen
(p. 169) that he wrote the Latin Catalogue for the Drummond
collection of books, and (Vol. I. p. 141) that he got the post of
Janitor given to an extra - Academical person instead of to a
Divinity Student. In 1627 he published a small Latin Catechism
for the use of Students, entitled Etoixeiwis Eloquiorum Dei, sive
Methodus Religionis Christianæ Catechetica. In usum Academia
Jacobi Regis et Şcholarum Edinensium conscripta. Beyond this
his Principalship did not leave much trace, except that he
bequeathed George Buchanan's skull to the College. The
earliest record of this circumstance is in Morer's Short Account,
p. 78, who says that he saw in the College Library "George
Buchanan's skull, very entire, and so thin that we may see the
light through it. And that it is really his, appears from hence,
because one Mr. Adamson, Principal of the College, being a
young man of twenty-four years of age when Buchanan was
buried, either out of curiosity or respect to the Dead, bribed the
Sexton some time after to procure him the skull, which being
brought, he fastened these verses to it, and at his death left it and
Adamson had also the honour of superintending the pageants which were
got up to welcome Charles I. on his visit to Scotland in 1633, and of editing
another volume similar to the former one, entitled EIXOAIA, Musarum Edinen-
sium in Caroli Regis, Musarum Tutani, ingressu in Scotiam.
2 Scott's Fasti Ecclesiæ Scotticana, i. p. 114.
a
246
[1651.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
them to the College.” The ten Latin verses which Morer quotes
are insipid, as may be seen from the concluding couplet -
“ Per Te olim tellus est nobilitata Britanna,
Et decus es tumulo jam, Buchanane, tuo."
But the skull, supposing it to have been the real one, is an
interesting relic. There was something wrong, however, in
Morer's story, for Adamson appears to have been born in 1576;

George Buchani
Gratuit
he was therefore six, and not twenty-four years old, when George
Buchanan was buried. But that Adamson bequeathed the skull
to the College, however, and at whatever age he may have
obtained it, there seems no reason for doubting. The skull still
exhibits the remarkable thinness which Morer adverted to; it
shows a fine breadth of forehead and forcible contours. The
present Professor of Anatomy pronounces that it bears the marks
of an age corresponding to that at which Buchanan died; but he
also pronounces that it is not the skull of a Lowland Scot, being
altogether of a shorter and broader type; and he asks, Can George
Buchanan have been a Celt? Undoubtedly the Buchanans were
a clan of Western Highlanders, and the Celtic type may have
come out prominently in the head of the mighty George.
(6.) ROBERT LEIGHTON, 1653-1662.
Adamson appears to have died during the year 1651, and
there followed a short interregnum in the Principalship. There
1652.]
247
PRINCIPALS OF THE COLLEGE.
were no meetings of the Town Council for fifteen months after
the battle of Dunbar. At last, in the spring of 1652, under the
sanction of the "Judges" or "Commissioners” appointed by
Cromwell's Parliament to settle the affairs of Scotland, a new
Town Council was elected, and met, and proceeded among other
things to choose Mr. William Colvill to be Principal of the
College. But one of the Judges, Edward Mosely, objected to
the appointment of Colvill, who had been deposed from clerical
functions by the General Assembly three years before on suspicion
of favouring the cause of Charles I. The Town Council had
nothing for it but to bow to the absolute authority of the Judges
and cancel the appointment. So the Principalship remained
vacant for nearly a year more. In the meantime Mr. Robert
Leighton, the Minister of Newbattle, received a commission from
the General Assembly to proceed to London and endeavour to
obtain the liberation of certain Presbyterian Ministers imprisoned
there. Leighton appears to have remained in London from May
till about the end of November 1652. And it seems in the
highest degree probable that he took the opportunity of applying
to Cromwell's Government to be appointed to the Edinburgh
Principalship. On the 16th and again on the 30th December
the Presbytery of Dalkeith received letters from him resigning
the office of Minister, both which they declined to accept. On
the 27th January 1683 Leighton returned and appeared before
the Presbytery, accompanied by Andrew Brysone, the City
Treasurer, who stated that the Town Council had given Mr.
Leighton a call to be Principal of the College. This was prob-
ably the result of an order sent down from the Government, and
we learn that the Edinburgh Ministers, when invited by the Town
Council to join in Leighton's election, refused to vote "because
they were not satisfied with the manner of the call.” The curious
thing is that “Mr. Leighton being posed (asked), if he would
embrace the aforesaid charge, answered that he was not yet fully
resolved," which seems to have been a façon de parler, as he
immediately took up the appointment.
The reason which Leighton assigned for wishing to resign the
"1
i See Extracts from the Presbytery Records of Dalkeith, 1641-1653. Com-
municated by the Rev. Thomas Gordon, Minister of Newbattle. With remarks
by David Laing, Esq.,—in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, vol. iv,
248
(1652.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
Ministry of Newbattle was that the parish was too large for his
strength (there were goo communicants), and "the extreme weak-
ness of his voice" prevented his reaching the half of them when
they were convened. But he had also shown symptoms of a
growing distaste for the Presbyterianism of those days, with its
strifes and violences. He disliked the “Covenant," and in 1648,
when the Assembly ordered a “Declaration " to be read in all
”
churches against “the unlawful engagement” with Charles I., he
made his precentor read it, excusing himself on the ground of
' "ane great defluction” (i.e. a bad cold). He had very likely a
secret kindness for Charles I. ; and though what he desired was
to realise the divine life in a region quite above all disputes about
Church government or forms of worship, he still perhaps leant, so
far as he had a leaning, towards what there was of the beautiful
in Episcopalianism. It was under the circumstances above stated
that he accepted, and probably applied for, the Principalship of
the College of Edinburgh, and retired from the jar of Church
factions into a haven of Theosophy.
Whatever his own proclivities in Church politics may have
been, he was a man who, from his sweetness and humility,
and perhaps from some faculty of “being all things to all
men," was acceptable to all the Churches. No Presbyterian had
a word against him, the Independents took him up, and as
soon as the Stuarts were restored to the throne he was made a
Bishop
Leighton was not one to cherish a family feud; else, as the
son of a father who had, by the orders of the Star Chamber,
been whipped in the pillory, had his ears cut off, his nose slit,
and his cheeks branded with S.S. (sower of sedition), been fined
£10,000, and condemned to perpetual imprisonment, for the
crime of writing a pamphlet called Zion's Plea against Prelacy-
he would not have accepted the Bishopric of Dunblane and the
Archbishopric of Glasgow. But he was above, or at all events
devoid of, the ordinary human passions.
While we seem to know something of Leighton's mind in its
mature beauty, the early facts of his life and education are very
ill-ascertained. It has never been observed that whereas a
century later Robertson and Hume took the greatest pains to
write English correctly, and did not always succeed, because it
1653.]
249
PRINCIPALS OF THE COLLEGE.
was not the dialect in which they were accustomed to speak and
think, Leighton in the middle of the seventeenth century wrote
in a lucid style of " English undefiled.” The explanation must
be that as a boy he lived in England, and the southern dialect
was to him his mother-tongue, the use of which he of course
improved by scholarship. He was born in 1611, and in 1627
was sent down from London to complete his education in the
College of Edinburgh. He was conducted to graduation by his
Regent, Robert Ranken, in 1631. His father's horrible sentence
had taken place in 1630, and on leaving College Leighton went
to live with relations at Douay, where he remained many years,
and conceived, it is said, a certain sympathy for the French
Catholics. Returning to Scotland about 1640 he was licensed
as a preacher by the Presbytery of Edinburgh, and next year was
appointed by Lord Lothian to the parish of Newbattle.
Leighton having entered on his duties as Primar, or Principal,
in February 1653, held the post till March 1662, and, as Bishop
Burnet says,
was a great blessing to it; for he talked so to all
the youth of any capacity or distinction, that it had great effect on
many of them.” He is said to have “revived ”l the practice
introduced by Rollock (see Vol. I. p. 142) of Wednesday lectures
to the Students on the knowledge of God and their duties. Four-
and-twenty of these lectures have been preserved; they are written
in Latin, and, as being addressed to an educated audience, they
are full of learning; but they are also of extreme beauty, and, if
space only permitted, these pages should be adorned with many
quotations from them. They treat of Human Happiness, which
Leighton maintains to consist in holiness alone; of the Immortality
of the Soul; the Scheme of Salvation, etc.
Salvation, etc. Leighton, though
nominally Professor of Theology, was not expected to teach
Theology, that being the province of the Professor of Divinity;
his discourses were purely practical. Beside these lectures there
were eight Paræneses, or exhortations, addressed to Students on
the occasion of their laureation. They all strike the same note,
that of the whisper of the slave to the Roman General during his
triumph--"Remember that thou art mortal.” They all tell the
successful graduates that academical pomps are a vain show, that
learning and all earthly successes are but as a vapour of smoke,
1 From this it would appear that Adamson had abandoned the practice.
250
[1658.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
a
and that the one career for them worth following is that, in the
words of Tertullian, they should be candidates for eternity."
Leighton in his College discourses always showed himself as one
who was overshadowed with the sense of eternity. In addition
to his Wednesday lectures in Latin, it was proposed to the Town
Council by Leighton that he should also preach to the Students in
the College Hall of a Sunday afternoon once or twice a month, and
that on the other Sunday afternoons sermons should be delivered
in turn by the Professors.1 And this suggestion was adopted.
In 1657 Leighton received a commission from the Town
Council to proceed to London and endeavour to obtain from the
Protector some increase of the College revenues. He was
successful in his application, for Cromwell granted in general
terms £200 a year “out of Church lands” to the College of
Edinburgh. In July 1658 Leighton moved the Town Council to
endeavour to obtain a "locality” for this amount (i.e. to get it
fixed as a charge on the teinds of some parish), but in the following
September Cromwell died, and his intended bounty came to
nothing
At that same meeting with the Patrons Leighton brought
forward two other matters : ist, that there was a common report
of some suspected houses near the College, especially of an
irregular house in the College Wynd, in reference to which the
Bailies undertook to remove all scandalous persons from the
neighbourhood; 2dly, that the Students did not make such good
progress as might be wished, and this Leighton attributed to a
deficiency of grammar schools, and he suggested that steps should
be taken for the establishing of a grammar school in every
Presbytery, and that the Protector should be petitioned to pro-
vide salaries for the masters out of Church rents. Also that a
Latin grammar, written in English, "for the more easy apprehen-
sion of little children,” should be provided. The Town Council
then recommended Professor Thomas Craufurd to finish some
Rudiments which he was understood to have in hand. Craufurd,
however, was probably too old for this work, and nothing was
done towards realising Leighton's aspirations for the improvement
of classical teaching.
In December 1661 Leighton accepted the Bishopric of Dun-
1 i.e. probably of Divinity and Hebrew,
e
1672.]
251
PRINCIPALS OF THE COLLEGE.
1
blane, but seems to have held the Principalship for three months
afterwards; and, as if he had conceived an affection for the
College of Edinburgh, where he had spent nine peaceful years,
and where probably he finished his Commentary on the ist Epistle
of St. Peter," he afterwards retained his College chambers. We
find him living there in 1672, after he had become Archbishop
of Glasgow. In Chorleyana, which is the diary of an English
Nonconformist Student at the University of Glasgow, and which
Cosmo Innes 2 brought to light, we get the following characteristic
picture :--Chorley, who was about to graduate, was deputed to
wait upon Archbishop Leighton and present him with a pair of
gloves, and invite him to the laureation at Glasgow. "I found
him," says Chorley, “at his chamber in the College, whereof he
had been formerly Master. After presenting the service of our
College and Tutor, and invitation to our Laureation, I craved his
acceptance of the Theses, which he thankfully accepted; but
presenting then the fine fringed gloves, he started back, and with
all demonstrations of humility excused himself as unworthy of
such a present. I humbly urged his acceptance; he still retired
backward and I pursued him till he came to the end of the
chamber, and at last prevailed. But it was amazing to see with
what humble gratitude, bowing to the very ground, this great man
accepted them. This was agreeable to his whole deportment at
Glasgow, where the history of his deep humility might fill a
volume."
This extreme and ironical deprecation of a small com-
pliment—this scene between the Archbishop and a young Student
-gives us a good idea of Leighton's manner, which evidently
might have been classed with the “irony” of Socrates, and, like
it, was a source of strength based on the assumption of weakness.
Chorley records that the public worship in the churches of
Glasgow, “even when the Archbishop preached," was “in all
respects after the same manner managed as in the Presbyterian
congregations in England, so that I much wondered why there
should be any Dissenters there till I came to be informed of the
renunciation of the Covenant enjoined, and the imposition of the
hierarchy.” We need not follow Leighton into his ecclesiastical
)
1 Not published till after his death. From its Platonic beauty of thought
and diction this work attracted the enthusiasm of S. T. Coleridge, and has
become a classic.
2 Sketches, p. 235.
a
252
[1552.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
career after he had left the College. His “ Accommodation
Scheme"—according to which there was to be a Presbyterian
Church, with Bishops for the chairmen of Synods—was, like the
Book of Discipline, “a devout imagination." Leighton, while
living in the world, was never of the world, and therefore in
political matters he had no power of moving the world.
(7.) WILLIAM COLVILL, 1662-1675.
Colvill graduated in the University of St. Andrews in 1617.
He was Minister of Cramond, and was transferred to Edinburgh,
where he became the first Minister of the new Tron Church when
that building was finished in 1641. In 1648 he was suspended,
together with Andrew Ramsay, on the charge of "silence" in the
matter of "the unlawful Engagement” of certain nobles to arm
Scotland in support of Charles I., without having made the con-
dition that the King should sign the Covenant. And in 1649 he
was deposed, for this crime, from all ministerial functions. He
went to Holland, where he remained till 1652.
In April of that year the Town Council, as we have seen,
were proceeding to the election of a Principal. They made a
leet of the following names Alexander Colvill, Professor at St.
:-
Andrews; James Fairlie, Minister of Lasswade ; Thomas Crau-
furd, Professor of Mathematics ; Mr. William Colvill; Mr. William
Strachan, Minister of Old Aberdeen; and Mr. William Rait,
Minister of Brechin. The Edinburgh Ministers who were present
protested against William Colvill
, but the Town Council deter-
mined to appoint him. He was accordingly invited to return from
Holland, and he arrived just a month after Leighton's induction.
Colvill received from the Town Council 2000 merks as com-
pensation for his disappointment, and in 1854 the Synod of
Lothian (there being no General Assembly during the Protec-
torate) "opened his mouth," i.e. removed the sentence of disability
to preach, and he then became Minister of Perth. On Leighton's
resignation he received a second appointment to be Principal of
the College, and in his inaugural address he gave some account of
the circumstances, using strong language about Cromwell's deputies.
"Harpya," says he, "in omnia tam sacra quam profana involarunt."
Of Leighton's appointment he says :—“Et (quod mihi non ingratum
"
1671.]
253
PRINCIPALS OF THE COLLEGE.
fruit) D. Leightonum, virum pium, modestum, et absque omni eru-
ditionis typho (free from all pride of learning) egregie ductum in
cathedram surrogarunt.” He speaks of his own appointment as Prin-
cipal as having been made " by the suffrages of the Town Council
and the unanimous invitation of the Professors and Regents."
Dr. Munro, one of Colvill's successors in the College, described
him (in an Appendix to Spottiswood's Church History) as “a man
of very moderate temper; he was deposed by the Covenanters,
and yet he would never accept preferment, though divers Bishop-
rics were proffered to him." Zealous Presbyterians, however,
watched Colvill with suspicion : thus Sir Thomas Stewart of Colt-
ness recorded the baptisms of some of his children in a family
Bible, which came into possession of his son Robert Stewart,
Professor of Mathematics, in the following terms: "Margaret
Stewart was born the 4th of March 1666, baptized by Mr. William
Colvill, who continued to be a Presbyterian and refused to be a
Bishop." “ Thomas Stewart, born 8th Sept. 1671, baptized by
Mr. W. Colvill, Principal, yet honest to his death."1
In 1668 Colvill drew up a new set of Regulations for improv-
ing the discipline of the College, which was approved by the
Professors and Regents under the name of "the Faculty," and
sanctioned by the Town Council (see Vol. I. p. 236). In 1672
he was one of a body of inter-University delegates, who framed
certain Articles, the first of which was a resolution-likely to be
prejudicial to learning in Scotland—“to petition the Privy Council
to grant an Act prohibiting all but the Professors of Universities
to teach the youth in this Kingdom the languages and philosophy
taught in the Universities.”
Colvill was the author of a work entitled Ethica Christiana,
which had considerable repute in those days. " His sermons on
the Righteous Branch show a great vein of piety, and that his
religious opinions corresponded with those of the Westminister
Confession."2
1 The above particulars are taken from a rare pamphlet, formerly in the
library of Principal Lee, now in the possession of the Lord Justice General,
entitled Submission to the Censures of Suspension and Deposition exemplified in
the case of the very Rev. Mr. Will. Colvill, sometime one of the Ministers of
Edinburgh, and afterwards Principal of the College there. From authentic and
unquestionable vouchers. Ed. 1734.
2 Bower, vol. i. p. 276.
2
254
[1685.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
(8.) ANDREW CANT, 1675-1685.
There were several Andrew Cants among the Scottish Ministers
of the seventeenth century, of whom the most famous was Minister
of Pitsligo in Aberdeen, and afterwards of Newbattle; he was a
strenuous Covenanter, and much associated with Alexander Hen-
derson. It is thought that the person we have now to do with
was his son; if so, he departed from his father's views, as he was
an Episcopalian. He was Minister of Trinity College Church,
and on Colvill's death was made Principal of the College, with a
salary of 2000 merks, and Minister of the East Kirk of St. Giles,
with a stipend of 1600 merks (altogether £200 sterling a year),
“with the house and yards of former Principals," so that for those
days he was not badly off. Scott says of him, “his Librarie was
estimate at £5000 (Scots)." He was “ane eminent and solide
preacher.” His published works were Theses Philosophicæ (4to).
De Libero Arbitrio. Oratio de Concordia Theologorum et Discordia.
The loss of the old Minute Book of the College of Edinburgh
prevents us from knowing the particulars of Andrew Cant's ad-
ministration. Addison in the Freeholder vainly endeavours to
connect the term “cant " with the name of the Scottish Ministers
above mentioned. What is certain is that Immanuel Kant was
descended from a Scottish family.
.
I
(9.) ALEXANDER MONRO, 1685-1690.
On the oth December 1685 the Town Council appointed as
the next Principal Dr. Alexander Monro, Professor of Divinity in
St. Andrews, and "universally allowed to be a good scholar, a
judicious man, and a person of considerable talent."2 He had
a short reign of less than five years, but he described this period
as a peculiarly happy one for himself and his colleagues.
“When," says he, "the Government of the City of Edinburgh
was in the hands of the first and best order of citizens and gentle-
men, the Masters of the College had all the encouragement they
could wish; they lived in all tranquillity and freedom during the
administration of Sir Magnus Prince and his predecessor, Sir
Thomas Kennedy. These gentlemen knew what an ornament
1 Scott's Fasti, vol. i. p. 27.
3 Ibid., i. p. 27.
1686.)
255
PRINCIPALS OF THE COLLEGE.
1
I
their University was to the City and the whole Kingdom, and
how necessary freedom, contentment, and retirement are to the
attainment of learning, and therefore they were so far from vexing
or disturbing the Masters, that they heaped upon them all marks
of honour and regard.”
Monro was quite in sympathy, as to religion and politics,
with the two Lord Provosts whom he names. He was a staunch
Episcopalian, and was even suspected of a leaning towards
Romanism.
In 1687 he altered the Sponsio which was adminis-
tered to Graduates, making them promise perseverance “in the
Christian Religion," the word “Reformed" being omitted.
He was also accused of removing the pictures of the Re-
formers from the College Library; but he explains this by stating
that Sir Thomas Kennedy, expecting that a Commission which
had been appointed by James II. (1686) would sit in the
Library, “feared that some of them who were in the retinue of
persons of quality might take occasion, from the sight of the
pictures of the first Reformers, to begin some discourse neither
so pleasing to the Protestants, nor yet so fit to be heard in that
House." Sir Thomas therefore “ ordered and advised that the
pictures should be removed for some few days, and so soon as
this occasion was over, they might be hung up again.” This was
done, and it was afterwards made one of the grounds for the
dismissal of Principal Monro.
A newly-appointed Regent (Burnet) was suspected of Popery,
and it was understood that several parents intended to prevent
their sons joining his class (the Semies), which would have put
the rotation of the classes out of order. But Monro got an
of Faculty" passed that second-year Students should be received
into no class but Burnet's, and with the help of the Town Council
he carried this through.
But when the Presbyterians came into power with the Revolu-
tion Settlement, when the Act of 1690 was passed obliging every
Principal and Professor to swear allegiance to William and Mary,
and sign the Westminster Confession of Faith, and when a Com-
mission was appointed to see this Act carried out in the Universi-
“ Act
1 Presbyterian Inquisition, as it was lately practised against the Professors
of the Colledge of Edinburgh, August and September, 1690 (London, 1691).
This little book, though anonymous, was known to be by Monro.
256
[1690.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
ties of Scotland, it was plain that Monro was doomed. It was
to clear the Universities of him and others holding his sentiments
that the Act had been framed and the Commission appointed ;
it was another "purging" of the Universities, like that of 1569.
Monro and others would not take the required tests, therefore he
was expelled from office, and with him Dr. Strachan, Professor
of Divinity ; Douglas, Professor of Hebrew; Burnet, Regent of
Philosophy; and John Drummond, Regent of Humanity.
But in addition to the main point,—refusal to take the tests,
-the Commission added several other minor charges against
Monro, including the matters above mentioned. The replies to
these charges in Presbyterian Inquisition throw much light on the
internal condition of the College in those days. Monro says of
the Students that he had “no Utopian Commonwealth to govern. ”
“And yet I think that they are as obedient and regular as so
many youths in any part of the world.” Monro was accused of
having "had no public Dictates, one whole year, but only cate-
chising." This refers to the Wednesday lectures.
that he found the Students very averse to the labour of taking
down dissertations, and that he substituted catechetical lectures
on the Apostles' Creed, which had given great satisfaction. He
adds that "the most learned and pious Dr. Leighton did never
oblige them to write one word from his mouth."
In 1688 Monro was living in expectation of a new Royal
Charter which was to raise the College into a University and
make him Vice-Chancellor (see Vol. I. p. 235), and towards the
end of the same year, by the influence of Dundee, he was
nominated Bishop of Argyle, but was never consecrated. The
change of Dynasty and of Religion marred his fortunes. After
his dismissal from the Principalship he published the following
works before his death in 1698 Presbyterian Inquisition, 1691.
Sermons, 1693; An Apology for the Church of Scotland, 1693;
Spirit of Calumny, etc., 1693 ; An Answer to Dr. Rule, 1696;
Letter to Sir Robert Howard, occasioned by his twofold vindication
of Archbishop Tillotson, 1696.
Monro says
(10.) GILBERT RULE, 1690-1701.
As Monro was persecuted by the Presbyterians, so was his
successor by the Episcopalians. But Rule went through his
1690.]
257
PRINCIPALS OF THE COLLEGE.
troubles before being appointed Principal, and had a peaceful
time afterwards. He had been a distinguished Regent in the
University of Glasgow, and in 1651 was sub-Principal in King's
College, Aberdeen. Thence he went to Alnwick to be Minister
to a dissenting Congregation. After the Restoration he was
much molested by local authorities, who tried to force upon
him the use of the English Prayer Book. In 1662 he was
ejected from his charge under the “Bartholomew Act.” He then
came into Scotland, and after a time, under the Indulgence
granted to dissenters by Charles II., and with the encouragement
of Lord Haddington, he preached in a meeting-house provided
for him at Prestonkirk. But visiting a niece in Edinburgh, he
was asked to baptise her child. Turner, the Episcopal Minister
of St. Giles', lent him the church for this purpose, and Rule held
there a Presbyterian service, preaching and baptising several
children. For this offence he was arrested and sentenced by the
Privy Council to be imprisoned on the Bass Rock. The sea air
made Rule seriously ill, and after three months he was discharged,
under bond to quit the Kingdom.
He then went to France and Holland, where he studied
medicine, and returning as M.D. began to practise in Berwick,
but also in private performed ministerial functions. He only
escaped the consequences of this by keeping on the English bank
of the Tweed, as people were waiting to arrest him should he
cross to the Scotch side. Receiving a call from a congregation
in Dublin he went thither, and was brought back thence, imme-
diately after the Revolution, to be Minister of Greyfriars', in
which appointment he was confirmed by the Town Council in
July 1689. Rule was nominated as one of the Commissioners
for the purging of the College of Edinburgh (1690). And when
the Commission had expelled Monro, the Town Council appointed
Rule to succeed him.
The Episcopalians of those days spoke contemptuously of the
scholarship of Dr. Gilbert Rule. Perhaps in the twenty-eight
years of unsettled life which he spent in preaching and in studying
and practising medicine his academical attainments, which had
been highly thought of at Glasgow and Aberdeen, had grown
rusty. That he was a studious man may be seen from the
following anecdote, related by Calamy :-“The University of
VOL. II.
S
258
[1701.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
Edinburgh was at that time happy in two bright ornaments at
once, in the Doctor and worthy Mr. Campbell, Professor of
Divinity. Their lodging-houses 1 stood so that the windows were
opposite to each other, though at some distance. Dr. Rule used
to sit up late at his studies, and it was Professor Campbell's way
to rise very early in the morning, so that many times the Doctor's
candle would not be put out by the time Mr. Campbell's was
lighted. The one they commonly called "the Evening Star," and
the other "the Morning Star.” They lived together in great love,
and there was a most intimate friendship between them. The
Doctor died a little before Professor Campbell. When the news
came to Mr. Campbell that the Doctor was departed it made no
small impression upon him. He presently said "that the Even-
ing Star was now gone down, and the Morning Star would soon
disappear.” This pleasing story fixes the date of Rule's death, as
Professor Campbell's successor was appointed in 1701. Rule
therefore must have died in 1701, though Carstares did not
succeed him till 1703. Hill Burton, in his Book Hunter, quotes
from Wodrow's Analecta a ghost story which, if true, would prove
Rule to have been a most powerful preacher. He is said to have
been lodged by chance in a deserted house among the Grampians,
where a ghost, forcing him to leave his bed, showed him a spot
where next day the skeleton of a murdered man was found. On
the following Sunday Rule, occupying the parish pulpit, preached to
the people in such moving language on the crime which had been
committed among them many years before that an old man, over-
come by remorse, gave himself up as the murderer, and was executed.
Rule's chief works were :-A Modest Answer to Dr. Stilling-
fleet's Irenicum, 1680 (8vo); A Vindication of the Church of Scot-
land, 1691 (4to); The Cyprianick Bishop Examined and Found not
to be a Diocesan, 1696 (4to); The Good Old Way Defended, 1697
(4to), etc.
(11.) WILLIAM CARSTARES, 1703-1715.
And now comes a Principal who was largely instrumental in
putting a stop to those miserable persecutions under which his
1 As we have seen, the houses of the Principal and the Professors of
Divinity stood at the south-east and north-east corners of the College.
2 Authorities for the above are Calamy's Abridgement of Baxter's Life, iii.
514, sqq.; Wodrow's History, iii. 194; and Scott's Fasti, p. 41.
a
a
1703-]
259
PRINCIPALS OF THE COLLEGE.
predecessors had suffered, and in giving peace and security to
Scotland. Carstares first persuaded William III., who was waver-
ing, to trust the Presbyterians of Scotland rather than the Episco-
palians; and this produced the Revolution Settlement. And
secondly, he succeeded in persuading the General Assembly to
accept the Act of Union with England, which otherwise could not
have been passed. These were great services to his country; and
there was another minor one which Carstares performed in the
early days of the Settlement (1694), when Parliament had legis-
lated for the imposition upon all Ministers of an “ Oath of Assur-
ance,” by which they were to swear that they acknowledged
William III. as King de jure as well as de facto; without sub-
scribing the Assurance no Minister was to take his seat in the
Assembly. This was felt to be an unwarrantable forcing of the
conscience; great excitement was created, and a "flying packet"
was sent to Kensington petitioning the King that the law might
not be pressed. In the absence of Carstares the King hastily
signed a despatch refusing to listen to the petitioners, and making
the Assurance Oath peremptory. After nightfall Carstares return-
ing learnt what had been done. He stopped the messenger, who
was on the point of departure, took the despatch from him, and
penetrated to King Willian's chamber. The King was already
asleep, and Carstares, waking him, fell on his knees and said that
"he had come to ask his life,” which he had forfeited by inter-
cepting a royal despatch. The King frowned severely, but when
he had listened to all the judicious and loyal counsel which Car-
stares poured forth he entirely relented, ordered the despatch to
be burned, and told Carstares to write what he pleased instead.
Carstares lost no time in writing to say that it was His Majesty's
pleasure to dispense with putting the Assurance Oath to the Min-
isters. This decision was received with great joy in Edinburgh,
and it was said that “next to the establishment of Presbytery in
Scotland, no act of King William's administration endeared him
to the Presbyterians so much as this.” 1
The incident is very characteristic of Carstares; it shows his
political sagacity, his knowledge of Scotland, his boldness and
promptitude in an emergency, and his power of influencing the
1 William Carstares, a Character and Career of the Revolutionary Epoch
(1649-1715), by Robert Herbert Story, D.D. (1874), p. 243.
260
[1703.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
minds of others. Carstares was in many respects the very anti-
thesis of Leighton, for he was essentially a man of action. He
was, though quite disinterested, what Napoleon called himself-~--
tout à fait un être politique." Carstares had “the touch of men;"
he could discern what ought to be done, and he could get it done.
He became a kind of Baron Stockmar to King William, who was
shy and distrustful towards others; he was considered the viceroy
of Scotland, and was nicknamed “Cardinal Carstares.” After
William's death he exercised his quiet influence in the most un-
mistakable way over the General Assembly and the Town Council
of Edinburgh.
Like Leighton, Carstares was the son of a persecuted parent;
his father (Minister of Cathcart) having been summoned by Arch-
bishop Sharp before the High Commission for non-conformity
with Episcopalianism, and having fled into hiding in Cantyre, Ire-
land, and elsewhere, where for many years he lurked under a
feigned name, separated from his wife and children. Carstares
did not desert his father's cause, but worked and suffered for it
till he saw it triumphant. After graduating in the College of
Edinburgh (1667) he went to study Theology in Utrecht, which
led to his being introduced to the Prince of Orange and gradually
obtaining his confidence. He was repeatedly sent as an emissary
to those who were plotting in England to place William on the
throne. He went by the name of “Mr. Red” in the secret
letters of the conspirators. He was perfectly cognisant of the
Rye-house Plot" (1684) for the assassination of the King and
the Duke of York, and, though he said “That's work for our wild
people in Scotland; my conscience does not serve me for such
things,” he did nothing to betray or arrest the plot. But what he
himself worked for was a great Whig conspiracy under Lords
Shaftesbury, Russell, and Argyll, which aimed at a general rising
in England and Scotland. Papers in his handwriting having
been seized in the house of one of the Rye-house conspirators,
he was arrested and sent down to Edinburgh to be tortured, in
order to wring from him secrets which the Government were sure
that he possessed. On the evening of the 5th September 1684,
in the Privy Council Chamber of the Parliament House of
Edinburgh, the "thumbkins" were applied to Carstares. For
more than an hour he endured extreme agony; and “when the
1703.]
261
PRINCIPALS OF THE COLLEGE.
executioner was ordered to remove the thumbkins, he found it
beyond his strength to undo what he had done, and the King's
smith had to fetch his tools to revert the screw, before the broken
and mangled thumbs1 could be released.” Next day the Privy
Council pledged themselves that, if Carstares would state what
he knew, his deposition should never be used in a court of justice
against any man ; and on this pledge (which was afterwards
broken) being given, he made a deposition, but carefully confined
himself to the Rye-house Plot and to matters with which the
Government were already acquainted. Carstares had, as Macaulay
.
says, “a singular power of keeping secrets." Having made his
deposition he received the King's pardon and got back to Hol-
land, where he became private chaplain to the Prince of Orange,
and accompanied him on his invasion of England. After the
landing at Torbay, Carstares proposed that a solemn service of
thanksgiving should be held. On the Prince assenting, the troops
were drawn up on the beach, and Carstares performed divine
service, getting the men to join in singing the 118th psalm.
“This religious rite produced a profound impression upon the
"
army."2
Thenceforward, till William's death in 1702, he had apart-
ments in Kensington Palace, but frequently passed over with the
King to Holland, where, as we have seen above (Vol. I. p. 230),
he took thought for the Universities of Scotland, and at this
period he obtained for them a royal grant of £1200 a year from
Bishops' Teinds. After Anne's accession Carstares was no
longer employed at Court, but he was held in high favour by the
Queen, especially in connection with the Act of Union. In 1707
she presented him with a silver medal to commemorate the pass-
ing of the Act, and in 1708 Carstares succeeded in obtaining
from Queen Anne a bounty of £2503 for augmentation of Pro-
fessors' salaries in the College of Edinburgh. As 1708 was the
year when the Regents of the College were first turned into Pro-
fessors (Vol. I. p. 263) Queen Anne's bounty was an appropriate
Story's Carstares, p. 94. It is remarkable that in the portrait of Carstares
the painter gave so much prominence to the right thumb. It is as if Carstares
were purposely exhibiting a member which had suffered so much, and were
saying: “You see, it is none the worse.
2 Story's Carstares, p. 157.
3 At first charged on the Post Office and afterwards on the Civil List.
1
262
[1703
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
supplement to that change. Carstares divided the whole amount
equally between seven Professors—of Humanity, Greek, Logic,
Moral Philosophy, Natural Philosophy, Mathematics, and Hebrew
—and kept nothing for himself.
We have seen above (Vol. I. p. 243) that Carstares was made
Principal at a time when the imprudence of the Regents had
stirred up a feeling of irritation between the Town Council and
the College, but he lost no time in placing himself on a most
cordial footing with the Lord Provost and Magistrates. Episco-
palian Town Councils seem, however, to have been rather more
liberal than Presbyterian ones, as Carstares only received 2200
merks (£122 : 3:4) as his salary as Principal, with the charge,
first of Greyfriars' Church, and afterwards of the High Church
of St. Giles, whereas both Andrew Cant and Monro had received
3600 merks (£200) a year for the same offices. None of the
sermons or other compositions of Carstares, except one political
pamphlet on Church matters (1712), remain. We must regret
the loss of the Latin addresses which he delivered to the Students
at the commencement of each session. The famous Dr. Pit-
cairne, who always went to hear these addresses, said that they
made him fancy himself in the Forum of ancient Rome. Car-
stares had received a singularly good classical education, before
he came to the College of Edinburgh, from Mr. Sinclair, Minister
of Ormiston, and a noted scholar, who allowed nothing but Latin
to be spoken in his family.
There was one scheme which Carstares worked at during
his Principalship unsuccessfully. This was for bringing down
English Nonconformists to Edinburgh for their University educa-
tion. With this view he invited Calamy to receive an honorary
degree in 1708, and negotiated with him and others to found
a Hall in Edinburgh for English Students, to be affiliated to the
College. But the jealousy of the Glasgow University folk was
roused; they refused to acknowledge the degree conferred in
Edinburgh upon Calamy, and they spread the opinion that the
College of Edinburgh had no power of conferring degrees. This
misrepresentation of law and history had the desired effect, for
the English Nonconformists wavered, and ultimately abandoned
the proposals of Carstares.
But in many and great things, as has been above mentioned,
I
1716.)
263
PRINCIPALS OF THE COLLEGE.
he influenced and transformed the College. It was owing to
him that its Regents were turned into Professors, and that all its
Faculties were remodelled after the Dutch type. From that
point, in the prosperous times that followed the Union with
England, and with the assistance of George Drummond, the
College rapidly developed into a great University,
When Calamy was in Edinburgh he was invited" by the
Masters of the College” to a fish dinner at Leith, with which,
according to annual custom, they were to entertain their Principal.
Amongst other viands served was “a sea-cat," which Calamy
found to be "an admirable fish, rather beyond a turbot.” “I
was extremely pleased,” says he, "with this day's entertainment and
conversation. One thing that gave a peculiar relish was the entire
freedom and harmony between the Principal and the Masters of
the College, they expressing a veneration for him as a common
father, and he a tenderness for them as if they had all been his
children.” 1
(12.) WILLIAM WISHART, 1716-1729.
2
I
It seems not improbable that Carstares recommended his
successor to the Town Council; for we learn that William
Wishart having graduated at Edinburgh in 1676, proceeded to
Utrecht to study Theology. This may have led to an early
acquaintance between him and Carstares, at all events, it would
put them into sympathy, as also would the circumstance that
Wishart, after his return from Holland, was imprisoned (1684)
in "the iron-house" by the Privy Council on a charge of denying
the King's authority. He was released next year under “bond
with caution" of 5000 merks to appear when called. He then
became Minister of South Leith, and afterwards of the Tron
Church. He was five times Moderator of the General Assembly.
Scott describes him 3 as “a good, kind, grave, honest, and pious
man; a sweet, serious, and affectionate preacher, whose life and
conversation being of a piece with his preaching, made almost
all who knew him personal friends." Two volumes of his
sermons remain.
1 Historical Account of my own Life, vol. ii. p. 185.
2 Scott's Fasti, p. 101.
3 Ibid., p. 56.
264
[1736.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
(13.) WILLIAM HAMILTON, 1730-1732.
From being Minister of Cramond, Hamilton was appointed
Professor of Divinity in the University (1709). On Wishart's
death he was chosen Principal, but died after about two years
of office. He was said 1 to be “distinguished for piety, learning,
and moderation." Some sermons of his were posthumously
published.
(14.) JAMES SMITH, 1733-1736.
This was another Minister of Cramond who was transferred
to the “New North Church," i.e. the N.W. portion of St. Giles',
and thence was made Professor of Divinity (1732), which office
he only held for a few months, as on the 12th October 1733
he was appointed to the Principalship, which had been vacant
for nearly a year.
The Minute Books of the Senatus Academicus
(the older records having been lost) commence with "a Uni-
versity Meeting” of 14th February 1733, when “Mr. Smith was
chosen preses," there being no Principal at the time. Smith
“ died at Coldstream in returning from Bristol hot wells, 14th
August 1736, in the fifty-sixth year of his age. He was distin-
guished for easiness of speaking and distinctness of thought, so
that he was highly popular, and had great influence in the
Presbytery and other Courts of the Church." He left two
sermons.
"2
(15.) WILLIAM WISHART, secundus, 1737-1754.
On the oth November 1736 the Town Council proceeded
to elect to the Principalship William Wishart, secundus, son of
the twelfth Principal of the College, but they did not induct him
till the 9th November 1737. The reason of this may have been
that a charge of heresy was in the meantime raised against him.
He had been officiating as Minister of a dissenting Congregation
at "Founders' Hall" in London, and on his election as Principal
had received a call from New Greyfriars', but the Presbytery
interposed, objecting to the doctrine of some sermons published
by him, in which he had maintained that true religion is influ-
1 Scott's Fasti, p. 67.
Ibid., p. 66.
60
1754.]
265
PRINCIPALS OF THE COLLEGE.
enced by higher motives than self-love.” 1 But after a keen
debate the General Assembly absolved Wishart from heresy, and
he entered upon his charges. He was more of a scholar and
man of letters than his father : he edited Ernesti’s. Preface to
Cicero, 1743, and Volusenus (Florence Wilson) De Amini Tran-
quillitate, 1751, besides publishing several Discourses.
He was
of an original turn of mind, and he is said to have adopted a
different style of preaching from that formerly in vogue, less stiff
and formal, dealing more with moral considerations, and using
more simple, and at the same time more literary language. He
was an active member of the Rankenian Club (so called after
the host of the tavern at which they assembled), for essays, criti-
cism, and literary conversation. We have seen above (p. 173)
that his first act as Principal was to make the beginning of a
Library Fund for the University, and (Vol. I. p. 271) that he made
an attempt to improve the system of Graduation in Arts by
demanding literary Theses from the Graduates. He took a great
interest in the more promising among the Students, constantly
visited the junior Classes of the Arts Faculty, listened to the exer-
cises, and used all means in his power to improve Scholarship
in the University.
(16.) JOHN GOWDIE, 1754-1762.
When John Smith was made Principal, Gowdie, who had been
Minister of the New North Church, succeeded him as Professor
of Divinity, and having held the Chair of Divinity for twenty-one
years was made Principal. It was of his teaching that "Jupiter"
”
Carlyle made the uncomplimentary remarks before quoted (Vol. I.
P. 330). Bower says of Gowdie that "he was generally esteemed
a man of moderate abilities, but very attentive to the discharge of
his academical duties.” Nothing, however, marked his Principal-
ship, which is not to be wondered at, as he was more than seventy-
one years old when appointed. He had, however, the distinction
of having caused the first Secession from the Church by giving his
casting vote, as Moderator, in favour of suspending Ralph and
Ebenezer Erskine and two other Ministers from their functions
on account of their protest against lay presentations to livings,
1 Erskine's Sermons, vol. i. p. 279, quoted by Bower, ii. 307.
? The above particulars are from Bower, ii. 305-316, and Scott's Fasti, p. 60.
266
(1762.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
and subsequent refusal to bow to authority. Half of the General
Assembly were in favour of milder proceedings, but this casting
vote drove the four Ministers, and with them a numerous follow-
ing, to leave the Church of Scotland, and form the Associate
or Seceding Presbytery. John Gowdie left behind him a few
.
sermons.
(17.) WILLIAM ROBERTSON, 1762-1793.
There had been already two great names among the Principals
of the College of James VI.-Leighton the divine, and Carstares
the statesman-and now came a third, that of Robertson the man
of letters. Robertson was in the van of those who revived intel-
lect in Scotland. His History of Scotland, published in 1759,
took London by storm, and was cordially praised by Horace
Walpole, Warburton, and others. Its purity of classical English
was the result of long study, as it was not the language of the
society in which its author lived ; and Robertson himself, even while
using the most careful diction in his speeches, never departed from a
broad Scottish accent. But he had great qualifications for being a
writer, and especially a writer of history: his industry all through life
was unflagging; he acquired a style which was always clear and often
vivid ; and, as Walpole said of him, he could “write on ticklish
subjects with the utmost discretion.” As might be expected from
his face, a subtle tact was one of his chief characteristics as a man.
But he had great and sterling virtues. In his twenty-second
year (1742), just after he had been appointed Minister of Glads-
muir, he lost both his father (Minister of Old Greyfriars') and his
mother within a few hours, and he then undertook the support
and education of his sisters and younger brother, all on a stipend
of £100 a year, and deferred for eight years his own marriage
with a cousin to whom he had been previously engaged. When,
in 1745, the Pretender's army was approaching Edinburgh, this
stout young clergyman forgot personal considerations, and leaving
his manse joined the volunteers, and when the City had been
surrendered to Charles Edward, he went with some others to
Haddington and offered his services to Sir John Cope.
Except this interruption his life was one of unremitting study.
While continuing to live and write at Gladsmuir he paid frequent
visits to Edinburgh, where men's minds were recovering rapidly

сесссссс
PEARSO Mas
WILLIAM ROBERTSON, D.D.
FROM A PORTRAIT BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.
1762.]
267
PRINCIPALS OF THE COLLEGE.
now.
from the nightmare of the Covenanting struggles, and were begin-
ning to enjoy with a fresh savour the pleasures of intellect and
wit. Robertson was no recluse, and he soon became one of a
somewhat brilliant coterie, of whose social life we get glimpses in
the Autobiography of Dr. Alexander Carlyle. People in those
days were more “clubable" in intellectual matters than they are
Various " societies" arose, and especially the “Select
Society” for debating, established by Allan Ramsay, the painter,
and some of his friends, and which included all the most dis-
tinguished names connected with Edinburgh. Robertson was
among the most frequent and the best of the speakers. In
1755 he preached a sermon before the S.P.C.K. which was much
admired and went through five editions. In 1757 he used the
influence which he had already acquired with the General
Assembly to mitigate the wrath of that body against the Rev.
John Home for writing the tragedy of Douglas, and against some
of his brother Ministers for going to see it acted. Robertson,
while taking a tolerant view of such things so far as others were
concerned, stated that owing to a promise which he had made to
his father, he himself had never entered a play-house.
While his History of Scotland1 was in the press he was pre-
sented to Lady Yester's Church; in 1759 he was appointed
Chaplain of Stirling Castle; in 1761 he was made King's Chaplain
for Scotland ; in 1762 Principal in the University; in 1764
Historiographer-Royal, These appointments secured to him a
revenue “far exceeding," says Dugald Stewart, “what had ever
been enjoyed before by any Presbyterian clergyman.” His friends,
however, were not satisfied ; Sir Gilbert Elliot, Dr. John Blair,
Prebendary of Westminster, and others, suggested that he might
aspire to a bishopric in the Church of England. But he at once
absolutely declined to entertain the idea.
In the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland he got
so great an ascendency that the period from 1762 to 1780, when
he retired from public business, came to be called “Dr. Robert-
son's administration," though all that time there was an “opposi-
tion” of great zeal and ability. Robertson's adherents were of
I
1 According to Scott (Fasti, p. 42), the foundation of Robertson's History
had been laid by his father, who up to the time of his death had been occupied
in collecting materials for an account of the reign of Mary Queen of Scots.
268
(1769.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
}
course the “ Moderates." He laid "the foundation," says Scott,
“of that system of polity--the independence of the Church, in
opposition to dependence on the fluctuating policy and measures
of the Civil Government according to the ministry of the day;
submission and obedience by the inferior judicatories; and en-
forcement of the law of patronage, unless on cause shown of
erroneous doctrine, or immoral conduct ;-which preserved the
unity and peace of the Church, until a different principle was
adopted by the Assembly of 1834."1
In some respects Robertson stands in contrast with Rollock,
for whereas Rollock was before all things Minister Verbi, and
considered literature and science of secondary importance in
comparison with preaching, Robertson was, in the first place, a
man of letters, and secondarily, and by profession, a clergyman.
In 1761, when Lord Bute's Government made proposals to him
for his undertaking the History of England, he wrote : "Though
“
I am not weary of my profession, nor wish ever to throw off my
ecclesiastical character, yet I have often wished to be free of the
labour of daily preaching, and to have it in my power to apply
myself wholly to my studies." After he became Principal he
had no longer the duty of daily preaching, but to the end of his
life he preached every Sunday in one of the City churches, and
he was always acceptable.
Robertson's second great work, the History of Charles V.,
was brought out in 1769. It was at once translated into French,
and Voltaire wrote of it :-“Il me fait oublier tous mes maux ;'
;
while the Empress Catherine of Russia said : “C'est le compagnon
constant de tous mes voyages.” This work naturally led to the
History of America, which Robertson brought out in 1777. Its
vivid descriptions and philosophical disquisitions on aboriginal
society captivated the literary world, while the outbreak of the
American war lent to it an especial interest. This circumstance,
however, prevented Robertson from going on to complete a
history of the North American colonies. He said: “I must wait
for times of greater tranquillity.” In his sixty-eighth year the
perusal of Major Rennell's Memoir on the Map of Hindustan set
him again to work, and within a year he brought out his Disquisi-
tion concerning Ancient India; which he concluded by expressing
1 Fasti, p. 43.
I
:
1788.]
269
PRINCIPALS OF THE COLLEGE.
a hope that his account of “the early and high civilisation of
India, and of the wonderful progress of its inhabitants in elegant
arts and useful science, may have some influence upon the be-
haviour of Europeans towards that people.” Histories are doomed
to be superseded, especially as to matters where discoveries
in philology and ethnology have opened quite a new point of
view; but Robertson's inquiries into the progress of society caused
Gibbon to say: "On this interesting subject a strong ray of philo-
sophic light has broken from Scotland in our own times.”
The appointment of Dr. Robertson to be Principal was one of
George Drummond's last and greatest services to the University.
We have seen (p. 173) how Robertson inaugurated his term of
office by establishing the Library Fund, and (pp. 190-192) how
he promoted the scheme for giving new buildings to the Univer-
sity. During the first four years of his Principalship he annually
delivered an address to the Students in elegant Latin, his topics
being "Classical Learning," “ the Duties of Youth,” and “the
Comparative Advantages of Public and Private Education.”
Finding, however, that the results of such discourses hardly
compensated for the time and labour spent in their production,
he discontinued the practice of delivering them. Robertson's
name and fame were sources of great strength to the University.
In his long Principalship of thirty-one years both the Arts
Faculty and the Faculty of Medicine were stronger in their
personnel than they had ever previously been. And the Univer-
sity of Edinburgh shone out in contrast to the depressed con-
dition of Oxford and Cambridge, and attracted many English
Students of high rank. Robertson's relations to his own colleagues
were perfectly harmonious; he was the prince of chairmen, and
having swayed the General Assembly he could easily guide the
Senatus Academicus. Dugald Stewart declares that during
more than thirty years, while Robertson presided over the
meetings of that body, "there did not occur a single question
which was not terminated by a unanimous decision."
He lived to see, with pleasure, the new University Buildings
commenced, but he did not see all the disappointment and
delay that followed. In 1792 he was removed out of the
Principal's lodgings to Grange House, where with great calmness
he enjoyed observing the changes of vegetation in the gardens,
270
[1793
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
and watched the formation of the buds, while he knew that he
could not survive to see them matured into fruits. 1
(18.) GEORGE HUSBAND BAIRD, 1793-1840.
It is a curious circumstance that the prænomen of the next
Principal expressed, according to all accounts, his chief claim to
office, for it was as “husband” of the Lord Provost's daughter
that Baird received his appointment. Sir Robert Christison
writes of him :—“Raised to this elevation at an unusually early
age in the case of such an office, successor to a man of high
literary fame, but presenting in himself no prominence in public
estimation as a man of learning, science, or professional distinc-
tion, Baird owed his appointment to the overwhelming influence
of Lord Provost Elder. Elder had in those days good right to
exert influence and show favour in Edinburgh. It was rather a
strong exercise of that claim, however, to exert his paramount
influence over the electors, his own Town Council, and to induce
them to appoint his youthful, untried son-in-law Principal of the
University of Edinburgh in succession to Principal Robertson
Nevertheless the appointment turned out not a bad one."
Baird had gone through his courses in the University without
graduating, and had become Minister of Dunkeld; in 1787 the
Senatus conferred an honorary M.A. degree on him, as one
who “had been many years an alumnus ;" and in 1792 they
conferred on him an honorary degree of D.D. This was followed
by his being presented in the same year by the Town Council to
New Greyfriars', one month after he had married Isabella Elder,
the Lord Provost's daughter. And three months afterwards he
was appointed joint Professor of Hebrew with Dr. James Robert-
In 1793 he received his commission as Principal. And
thus his fortunate marriage procured him an honorary degree and
three successive appointments within a year. He held the
Principalship for forty-seven years, and saw the Students increase
from 1000 to over 2000, the new University Buildings erected,
the Professoriate augmented, and, in short, great development in
many points. He also lived through and was party to long
strifes and litigations, and died leaving the Senatus still at war.
1 Authorities for the above are chiefly Dugald Stewart's Life of Robertson,
and Lord Brougham's Men of Letters and Science in the time of George III.
son.
1830.]
271
PRINCIPALS OF THE COLLEGE.
+
He was not a leading spirit, but in going with the majority of the
Senatus he wrote able papers in support of their views. And he
had the dignity of his position. Sir R. Christison says :-“He was
indeed much esteemed in general society in Edinburgh, and
highly respected by the members of Senatus. These advantages
he owed to kindliness, benignant features, cheerful deportment,
deferential manners, conversational power, and a rich fund of
anecdote.” In 1830, having gone with a deputation to present
loyal addresses to William IV. and his Queen on their accesion,
he was very well received at Court, and was entertained at a
banquet in the Freemason's Tavern by forty-four Medical
graduates of Edinburgh, all eminent practitioners in London,
who expressed respect and gratitude towards their Alma Mater.
In 1801 he became Minister of the High Church, and Scott says
s 1
of him that“his sermons were filled with deep feeling." This on
one occasion gave rise to a witticism, for in preaching about the
mental condition of the King he shed so many tears that it was
said his sermon might have been described as “From George
Husband Baird to George III.--greeting.” David Laing used to
tell that, when he was arranging the University Library, Principal
Baird was urgent with him to make a separate department for the
productions of Principals and Professors. Baird's own contribu-
tion to that department would not have been voluminous, for his
publications are thus enumerated by Scott :-“A sermon on the
Universal Propagation and Influence of the Christian Religion
was in the act of going through the press, but stopt after 48 pp.
had been thrown off, in 1795 (8vo.) He also edited Poems by
Michael Bruce, Ed. 1799 (12mo).”
܀
I
(19.) JOHN LEE, 1840-1859.
Many still living affectionately cherish the memory of Principal
Lee. He was a character” belonging to the old days before
railways and other influences had made people generally unin-
teresting Hill Burton, in the Book Hunter, caricatures him as
“ Archdeacon Meadows,” the bibliomaniac who would buy a book
of which he had several copies already, and then, owing to the
vastness and disorder of his accumulations, not being able to lay
i Fasti, p. 30.
272
[1840,
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
his hand on any of the copies, would have to borrow the same
book from a friend for reference; and who, after sending his
library to be sold by auction, could not bear the thought, and
secretly himself bought in all the books at large prices. But,
while all this was only slightly exaggerated, Principal Lee differed
from other bibliophilists in that he read all that he bought, and
acquired an extraordinary fund of information on all subjects,
which he was ever ready to pour out. He had strong academic
feeling, and presented a thoroughly academic figure, whether he
delivered, in full court-dress, as ex-Moderator, his annual addresses
to the Students, or sat in the Senate Hall ready for a "crack" on
any given topic with any Professor who might chance to come in.
He was born at Torwoodlee Mains, in the parish of Stow, in
1779, being the son of parents of slender means (belonging to
the Secessionist Church), for whom he had the greatest reverence.
His mother especially, who was noted for her knowledge of
Milton, as well as of the Bible, seems to have been an heroic
personage. He came to the University at the age of fifteen, and
strongly exemplified the life of struggle and noble self-denial which
so many Scottish Students have gone through. He supported
himself by teaching in by-hours, and remained ten years at the
University, during which he went through full courses in Arts,
Medicine, and Divinity. He did not graduate in Arts, that not
being the fashion; and there were no degrees then in Divinity;
but he took the M.D. degree, his Thesis, De viribus animi in
corpus agentibus, having been written in very elegant Latin.
Indeed he was said to have written the Latin Theses of a great
many of his contemporaries. This twofold course of professional
study shows Lee to have been more actuated by the pure love of
knowledge than by any "eye to the main chance." He wavered
for a time as to which of the two "black Graces,” Medicine or
Divinity, he should give his hand. But his choice was probably
decided by his being taken in 1804 to live with “Jupiter"
Carlyle at Inveresk, in the capacity of amanuensis. Carlyle died
in 1805, appointing Lee one of his trustees, and especially
entrusting to his care the MS. of his autobiography; this, how-
ever, was not published till after the death of Principal Lee, when
Hill Burton brought it out. In 1807 Lee was ordained Minister
of the Church of Scotland, and had the care of the parish of
1859.]
273
PRINCIPALS OF THE COLLEGE.
1
Peebles till 1812, when he was appointed Professor of Church
History at St. Andrews. In 1820 he became Professor of Moral
Philosophy in King's College, Aberdeen; but he lectured there
chiefly by deputy, sending down his lectures through the post.
And next year he resigned both his Professorships, and became
Minister of the Canongate. In 1827 he was made Clerk to the
General Assembly, and in 1837 was appointed Principal of the
United College of St. Andrews, which appointment he resigned
within a few months.
In 1826 he had been nominated as one of the Royal Com-
missioners to visit the Universities of Scotland. His name was
thus high in public repute, and, on the death of Principal Baird
in 1840 the Town Council appointed Dr. Lee as his successor.
When the Disruption occurred in 1843 Lee undertook to conduct
the Divinity class, and he was shortly afterwards made Professor
of Divinity, being thus the first Principal who had, in addition to
his own office, held a Professorship since the days of Henry
Charteris (1599-1620). During the last sixteen years of his life
Dr. Lee was a considerable pluralist, holding, besides his academi-
cal appointments, a Chaplaincy to the Queen and a Deanery of
the Chapel-Royal. But in Scotland all ecclesiastical and literary
offices were in those days poor, and his total emoluments were
but about £1300. This income, however, permitted him to
leave a library of 20,000 volumes, some of them of the most rare
and curious description.
Principal Lee did not much influence the fortunes of the
University. All through his time the unhappy strife with the
Town Council was going on; he just lived to see the Act of
1858 passed and the Commissioners commencing their work of
renovation. Some of his Inaugural Addresses to the Students
have been published by his son, the Rev. Dr. W. Lee, Professor
of Divinity in Glasgow. They are interesting from the stores of
historical knowledge and personal reminiscence which they con-
tain. It is a matter of general regret that Principal Lee was so
much "a dungeon of learning," and that, comparatively speaking,
he gave to the world so little of what he knew. He was accom-
I
1 Dr. Lee's Commission appointed him “ Principal of the College or Uni-
versity.” On which, notice was taken by Sir W. Hamilton of the novel and
very inaccurate expression, “Principal of the University."
VOL. II.
T
274
[1859.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
plished in almost every branch of knowledge, and in Scottish
literary and ecclesiastical history was overflowing with minute and
curious information. It was hoped that he might produce a
history of Scottish literature or of the Scottish Universities; but
he only accumulated the knowledge, without putting it into form.
It has been said that his early and too severe exertions had
impaired his physical strength. But it is more probably the case
that he was one of those in whom, by nature, the receptive over-
power the creative faculties. During his lifetime he brought out
Six Sermons, 1829; Memorial for the Bible Societies in Scotland,
1829; and two pamphlets. He also contributed several articles
to Brewster's Ed. Encyclopædia, etc. Since his death his son, Pro-
fessor W. Lee, has published his Lectures on Church History, de-
livered in St. Andrews, which are full of learning and interest.
I
(20.) DAVID BREWSTER, 1859-1868.
The name of Sir David Brewster, the illustrious man of
science, is the fourth great name in the list of the Edinburgh
Principals. In December 1881 the centenary of Brewster's birth
was celebrated by a banquet in Edinburgh, and he himself had
lived to within less than fourteen years of that date. In longevity
and assiduous labour Brewster stood on a level with Alexander
von Humboldt, 2 while he surpassed Humboldt in productiveness.
"Few men living can have written so much as Brewster, far fewer
so much that was thoroughly original. To the very last day of
his long life he worked steadily at original investigations," and
within a few weeks of his death he forwarded several papers to
the Royal Society of Edinburgh, whose Transactions he had
enriched for sixty years, and of which at the last he was President.
1 Many of the above particulars are taken from the obituary notice of
Principal Lee by Lord Neaves, read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
2 Humboldt, who lived to be more than eighty, was said to require only
two or three hours' sleep each night. Brewster's vigour was so great that
at the age of seventy-seven (when this writer knew him) he was in the habit
of working at research or composition every day from ten to two,
at both
ends,” in addition to official duties.
3 The passages in inverted commas above are from a notice of Brewster's
scientific work and place contributed by Professor Tait to the Scotsman in
1868. The rest has chiefly been derived from or suggested by the interesting
Home Life of Sir David Brewster, by his daughter, Mrs. Gordon, 1869.

SIR DAVID BREWSTER.
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY RODGER.
1859.]
275
PRINCIPALS OF THE COLLEGE.
а
To Brewster are due “almost all the most important of the
experimental results” arrived at in the field of Optics during the
present century. “With an amount of patient labour of which
few can form a conception, and with a singular experimental skill
which rose superior to defects of apparatus, he examined minutely
every curious fragment of transparent crystallised mineral which
the collections of his scientific friends would afford." He made
laborious “tables of refractive indices and dispersive powers ;"
"of the polarising angles of various reflecting surfaces; and of
innumerable other tedious investigations, apparently gone into at
first with the sole object of discovering facts and not laws."
Sometimes he brilliantly reduced his facts to laws, e.g. in “his
discovery that the index of refraction of a substance is the tangent
of its polarising angle." But "his turn
But "his turn of mind was not mathe-
matical,” and “often the mere mathematician stepped in, took
the toilsomely elaborated facts, and from them in a few minutes
deduced (sometimes taking the whole credit of it) the law he
himself would have been utterly unable to seek experimentally."
Hence Brewster was defrauded by his contemporaries of much of
the credit which was his due. But yet enough remained to him
to cause his name to go out into all lands, and his works to the
ends of the world. Being a high-spirited man "he was driven
into frequent disputes about priority;" and though he was
generally successful, he could not but suffer a good deal of
irritation from the treatment which he received.
One discovery, the glory of which was grudgingly, if at all,
conceded to Brewster, was that of the superiority of Dioptric, or
converging, lights to Catoptric lights, or mirrors, in the illumina-
tion of lighthouses. In 1812 he described the Dioptric Appar-
atus which he had invented, in the Encyclopædia Britannica ;
and in 1820 he pressed the adoption of a Dioptric system upon
the Engineer of the Scottish Board of Lighthouses, but without
effect. In 1822 M. Fresnel applied Brewster's system to a
French lighthouse, and it was then universally adopted by the
French Government. From that time Brewster laboured strenu-
ously, by personal representations and by writings, to obtain its
adoption in Great Britain. At last, on the motion of Mr. Hume,
a Committee of the House of Commons was appointed to
sider the subject, and in 1836 the Dioptric system was applied
т
276
[1859.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
a
to a Scottish lighthouse, and has since been universally extended.
Doubtless by this invention, as Lord Brougham said, "an incal-
culable number of lives have been saved in the prevention of
shipwrecks." And thus every lighthouse that burns round the
shores of the British Empire is a shining witness to the usefulness
of Brewster's life.
David Brewster was son of the Rector of Jedburgh Grammar
School, and was born in 1781. His genius received its bent
from his early friendship with a remarkable person, James Veitch,
ten years his senior, who made ploughs for his livelihood and
telescopes for his pleasure, and who awakened in Brewster the
love of Optics. At twelve years old Brewster came to the
University of Edinburgh, studied Arts and Divinity, and in 1800
applied for the M.A. degree, which was conferred on him, not
after examination, but on the report of the Arts Faculty that he
had distinguished himself in the classes which he had attended.
He had some tutorial appointments, was licensed to preach, and
in 1804 actually preached his first sermon in St. Cuthbert's.
His sermon was no failure, but from a certain constitutional
nervousness it was painful to him to speak in public. In 1808
he commenced bringing out his Edinburgh Encyclopædia, which
occupied him most laboriously till 1830. He continued all the
time his experiments and researches, and in 1813 brought out a
Treatise on Scientific Instruments. In 1814, going to Paris, he
was received with much honour by the philosophers there, La
Place, Biot, Berthollet, Arago, A. Humboldt, etc. In 1815 he
was invited by the Town Council to teach Playfair's class of
Natural Philosophy for a Session, but he declined on the ground
of his previous engagements. In 1816 he invented the Kaleido-
scope, which at once met with extraordinary popularity all over
the Continent of Europe. Brewster was told that, if he had
properly secured his patent, he might have made £100,000.
But he had not; the invention was immediately pirated, and he
made nothing by it. At a later period he invented, not the
stereoscope, but the improved principle upon which stereoscopes
were subsequently made. These two last-named inventions are
those by which Brewster is generally known to the public, in
combination with his Letters on Natural Magic, his Martyrs of
Science, his Life of Sir Isaac Newton, and his More Worlds than
1859.]
277
PRINCIPALS OF THE COLLEGE.
One, being an answer to Whewell's argument that all the other
planets, except the earth, must be uninhabitable.
In 1831 Brewster performed the great service of procuring
the establishment of the British Association. And in the same
year he was knighted. This was a first instalment of that greater
respect shown to men of science which resulted from Brewster's
vehement appeals against the neglect of science previously mani-
fested by the British Government. In 1833 he was candidate
for the Chair of Natural Philosophy in the University, but the
Town Council rejected him in favour of James D. Forbes, who
was much his junior. The election probably turned on the
question of Tory versus Whig; but Forbes proved an illustrious
Professor. In 1838 Brewster was made Principal of the United
College at St. Andrews. Twenty-one years later he was trans-
ferred to the Principalship in Edinburgh.
Brewster had urbane manners and great conversational
powers; he was thus a most agreeable companion in private
life. His organisation was too excitable, however, to allow of
his being a good chairman under difficult circumstances, and in
the Senatus Academicus of St. Andrews he is said to have
manifested a chronic irritation. All this was changed when he
came into the larger atmosphere of the University of Edinburgh.
His relation to his colleagues there was one of unimpaired
cordiality. Coming among them at the age of seventy-eight,
he brought with him a great prestige, and was received with
reverence. It was observed, however, that he never spoke so
much as a sentence of five lines in the Edinburgh Senatus
without having previously written it down; he had never been
a ready speaker, though a copious and impassioned writer. The
few addresses which he delivered to the Students were full of
enthusiasm both for science and for religion, clothed in the
richest language.
He was never troubled with those doubts
which physical science is supposed to engender.
Sir Lyon
Playfair said of him, speaking to the Royal Society of Edinburgh :
“In Brewster and Faraday the nation has suffered a heavy loss.
Both were great philosophers and ardent Christians. We point
to them as conclusive proofs that science and infidelity are not
akin," Sir David Brewster's Principalship was coeval with the
.
labours of the Commission and the first five years of the Uni-
278
[1868.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
versity after the Commissioners had given it its new start. But
he did not live to see the full tide of prosperity which was then
beginning to flow, for in the fifteen years since his death the
University has more than doubled both its wealth and the
number of its Students.
When we look at the statue of Brewster standing, prism in
hand, in the quadrangle of the University, we may recall the
words used about him by his younger fellow-labourer and friend,
James D. Forbes :—“Few persons have made with their own eyes
so vast a number of independent observations; few have ever
observed better, or recorded their observations more faithfully.
His scientific glory is different from that of Young and Fresnel,
but the discoverer of the law of polarisation, of biaxial crystals,
of optical mineralogy, and of double refraction by compression,
will always occupy a foremost rank in the intellectual history of
the age."
IV.-REGENTS OF PHILOSOPHY, 1583-1708.
During 125 years there were 46 Regents or Tutors of
Philosophy in the College, and as there were always four in office
together this gives each Regent an average term of service of
between ten and eleven years. But eight of the number had
previously held the subordinate post of Regent of Humanity.
For a long period all the persons appointed to be Regents were
Graduates of the College, and had either been Rollock's pupils
or the pupils of Rollock's pupils. The first Regent appointed
under Rollock was NAIRN, a pupil of Andrew Melville's (see Vol.
I. p. 137), but he died after acting for one year as Latin tutor and
for a few months as Regent. His place was filled by LUMISDEN,
who had been educated at St. Andrews under Rollock. In 1586
Colt and SCRIMGER were appointed Regents; they were probably
St. Andrews Students, but they each held office only about three
years. In 1587 Rollock graduated his class, and after that event
we find the following list of persons appointed to be Regents :-
I
1587. HISLOP
1588. FERME
1589. CHARTERIS
1589. SANDS
All Rollock's pupils, who had
graduated in 1587.
1626.]
279
REGENTS OF PHILOSOPHY.
1
1594. ROBERTSON—Lumisden's pupil, graduated in 1588.
1599. CRAIG-Ferme's pupil, graduated in 1593.
1598. ADAMSON-Ferme's pupil, graduated in i 1597.
The same tradition extends, with few exceptions, throughout
the seventeenth century, the pupils of former Regents being
appointed to carry on the teaching of the College. This system
naturally tended to produce a dead level of routine, and it seems
to have been unrelieved by any exceptional genius springing up
out of the list of the Regents.
Three of them (Charteris, Sands, and Adamson) became
Principals of the College. Charles Ferme (or Fairholm) was
removed to be Principal of a College which was created by Sir
Alexander Fraser of Phillorth in 1600 at Fraserburgh, and his
appointment ended disastrously. John Ray, the first Professor
of Humanity, was an accomplished scholar, and won the admira-
tion and regard of Drummond of Hawthornden, who wrote an
Epitaph to the memory of his much loving and beloved master, John
Ray, in which occur the lines :-
Bright Ray of learning, which so clear didst stream,
Farewell, soul which so many souls did frame !"
Ray, however, does not appear to have ever become Regent
of Philosophy. THOMAS CRAUFURD, a Graduate of St. Andrews,--
who was made Regent of Humanity in 1626, became Principal
of the High School in 1630, and in 1640 came back to the
College as Regent of Philosophy and “Professor of Mathe-
matics,”—was, of all the Regents, the personage most deserving
"
of honour from the University of Edinburgh. For he was not
only a good scholar, but extremely devoted to the College, for
which he performed the inestimable service of writing Memoirs
of its early history. We have previously seen (p. 250) that the
Town Council invited him to write a Latin Grammar, and that
on Leighton's resignation they placed him on a leet of persons
eligible for the Principalship. He served as Regent of Philo-
1 Ferme's labours were violently interrupted by the Earl of Huntly, who
imprisoned him first in the Castle of Down, and afterwards in the island of
Bute. The College then fell into decay, and disappeared amid the distractions
caused by the alteration of Church government.
2 David Laing, in his Catalogue of the Graduates, gives a list of “Regents
or Professors,” in which he mixes up the Regents of Humanity with those of
Philosophy ; this is misleading.
2
2
280
(1629.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
sophy for twenty-two years. Perhaps the most distinguished
name among the Regents was that of ALEXANDER CUNNINGHAM
(Humanity 1679, Philosophy 1689), of whom some account
has been given in Vol. I. Appendix I.
I
V.-PROFESSORS OF DIVINITY,
Rollock and Charteris, the two first Principals, were “Pro-
fessors of Theology," and taught the Divinity Students. In 1620
(see Vol. I. p. 200) a separate Professorship of "Divinity” was
created, and then the title of “Professor of Theology” became
merely honorary, attached to the Principalship. The following
were the Professors of Divinity :
(1) ANDREW RAMSAY, 1620-1626, a distinguished Minister,
of whom some account has been given (Vol. I. pp. 200, 209).
(2) HENRY CHARTERIS, 1627-1629 (see above, p. 243).
(3) JAMES FAIRLY, 1629-1630. After the death of Charteris
there seems to have been a contest of Church parties in Edin-
burgh about the Chair. The Laudian divines wished to put in
Robert Monteith, a former student of the College, who had
been Regent for four years at Saumur, and whose proclivities
may be judged from the fact that he ultimately joined the
Romish Church and took up his abode in Paris.1 Monteith's
election being resisted by the Calvinistic Ministers, the Town
Council appointed James Fairly, one of the former Regents of
the College, then Minister at South Leith. But this was merely
as a stop-gap, for next year they removed Fairly to the Greyfriars'
Church, and conferred the Chair of Divinity upon (4) Dr. JOHN
SHARP, who had been Professor of the same subject at the
Calvinistic College of Die in Dauphiny, and who had been
expelled from France by Cardinal Richelieu. Sharp held the
Chair till his death in 1648. He was a staunch Presbyterian,
and in 1637 aided in promoting the renewal of the National
Covenant.
An interregnum of two years then occurred, during which
1 For some reason or other he took the name of Monteith de Salmonet,
under which title he published a History of the Civil Wars in Britain. From
this the story arose that, being asked by Richelieu to what family of Monteiths
he belonged, he, as he was the son of a fisherman on the Forth, replied : “The
Monteiths of Salmon net!" See Hill Burton's Scot Abroad, vol. i. p. 99.
1675.]
281
PROFESSORS OF DIVINITY. .
܀
6
6
the Town Council offered the Professorship first to Alexander
Colvill, Professor of Divinity at St. Andrews, but the General
Assembly, who controlled the Universities in matters of religion,
refused to allow him to be transferred, and afterwards to the
celebrated Mr. Samuel Rutherford, but he declined to accept.
At last, in 1650, the Town Council and Ministers obtained
leave from the General Assembly to translate (5) Mr. DAVID
DICKSON, Professor of Divinity at Glasgow, to the same office in
Edinburgh. He held the Chair, together with charge of the
High Church, till 1662 (on a salary of 2000 merks, or £111: 55.
sterling). He was "the most powerful and popular preacher of
his day,” and had been "instrumental in promoting the notable
conversion at Stewarton about 1625, termed the Stewarton
Sickness.'»
He took a prominent part in the Assembly at
Glasgow in 1638 for the overthrow of Episcopacy. “ From the
frequency of depositions and even of decapitations, a few years
after, among those offered to the Covenanters, he observed the
wark gaes bonnilie on,' which became a common proverb." He
was a leader among the “Resolutioners," as opposed to the “Pro-
testers." But he was not only a preacher and a church politician,
he was also a learned and voluminous writer. Among his works
may be mentioned Expositio Analytica Omnium Apostolicarum
Epistolarum, 1645, 4to. Explanation of the Psalms, 3 vols.
1653. Therapeutica sacra, 1656, 4to. A Commentary on the
Epistles, 1659, fol. Prælectiones in Confessionem Fidei, fol.
Besides several minor works, pamphlets, and poems (such as The
Christian Sacrifice and O Mother, dear, Jerusalem), “The Directory
for Public Worship was drawn up by him, with the assistance
of Mr. Alexander Henderson and Mr. David Calderwood.” 1
The Chair was next offered to Mr. Patrick Scougall, Episco-
palian Minister of Saltoun, but he declined to accept it, and
was soon afterwards made Bishop of Aberdeen. After a vacancy
of a year (6) Mr. WILLIAM Keith, Episcopalian Minister of
Udney, was appointed to the Professorship, which he held,
together with the Ministry of St. Cuthbert's, till 1675. “He
was wholly mortified and denied to the world, and led a most
severe and ascetical kind of life." 2
1 The above particulars are all taken from Scott's Fasti, pp. 26, 27.
2 Ibid. p. 125.
I
282
[1690.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
(7) LAURENCE CHARTERIS, 1675-1681. This was the fourth
son of Principal Charteris, and he seems to have resembled his
father in some points, for he is described as being “of composed,
serene gravity, but unpopular utterance, and most conversant
with history." He conformed to Episcopacy in 1662, while
Minister of Bathaus, but he was a half-hearted Episcopalian, for
he refused a Bishopric in 1671, and in 1681 resigned his
Chair of Divinity rather than subscribe the Test. Three small
works of his-On True and False Christianity; On the Corrup-
tion of the Age; and Spiritual Discourses-were brought out
after his death (in 1703 and 1704), and in 1833 A Catalogue of
Scottish Writers which he had drawn up, was published.
Another interval occurred, for John Menzies, Minister of
Caerlaverock, to whom the Chair was offered, declined it. In
1683 (8) JOHN STRACHAN, the last of the three Episcopalian Pro-
fessors of Divinity, who had been Minister of Tarves, was
appointed to the Chair in conjunction with the second charge of
the Tron Church. In 1689 he was deprived of his appoint-
ment, when the College of Edinburgh was purged after the
Revolution Settlement (see above p. 256).
(9) GEORGE CAMPBELL, Minister of Dumfries, who had been
a Member of the Commission for visiting the University, was
immediately after Strachan's dismissal appointed to the Chair,
which he held, with the Old Church of St. Giles, till his death in
1701.
“ Joined to great and universal learning, piety, and
prudence, he had prodigious application and diligence, and was
withal very modest, humble, and bashful.” He seems to have
been admired and beloved. In one of their Acts the Town
Council speak of him as "the worthy and famous Mr. George
Campbell.” As we have seen (p. 258), he got the title of "the
.
Morning Star." No publications of his are mentioned, but his
name was commemorated in the College of Edinburgh as the
founder of the Theological Library, by the following inscrip-
tion:
Bibliotheca Hæc Virum Pietate Prudentia et Literis insignem
Geo. Campbell SS.T. apud nos summa cum Laude Professorem
grato Animo Autorem agnoscit, &c.
2
1 Scott's Fasti, pp. 337, 263.
1809.)
283
PROFESSORS OF DIVINITY.
>
(10) GEORGE MELDRUM, 1701-1709, was Minister of the Tron
Church, and was unwilling to accept the Professorship of
Divinity till the Presbytery “unanimously relieved him from
visitation of families and preaching on week days.”I He was
Moderator of the General Assembly in 1703, when the Lord
High Commissioner (James, Earl of Seafield) abruptly dissolved
the Assembly. Meldrum, however, concluded as usual with
prayer, and “the collision at this time led to an understanding
between the Church and the Government regarding the manner
of dissolving the Assemblies in future." Meldrum was said to
have a "sweet, plain, pathetic way of preaching," and "a large
compass of solid knowledge." His published writings were con-
fined to Sermons and polemical works on Patronages, Tolera-
tion, etc.2
(11) WILLIAM HAMILTON, 1 709-
These three Professors of Di-
vinity all became Principals
1732.
of the College of James
(12) JAMES SMITH, 1732-1733.
VI., and as such they have
(13) JOHN GOWDIE, 1733-1754.
been already characterised.
(14) ROBERT HAMILTON, 1754-1779, was born within the
walls of the College, being the son of Principal William Hamilton.
He was successively Minister of Cramond, Lady Yester's, and the
Old Greyfriars' Church. When the Town Council appointed
him to the Chair of Divinity they required him to resign his
clerical charge. He was twice Moderator, and was made Dean
of the Thistle. When seventy-two years old he applied for
assistance in the work of his Chair, and (15) Dr. ANDREW HUNTER
was appointed conjoint Professor of Divinity in 1779. On
Robert Hamilton's death, in 1787, Hunter became sole Professor,
and held the Divinity Chair till 1809. During the same
period he was in charge of the Tron Church, It was said
of him that “perhaps no man in a public station ever
passed through life more respected, or with a more un-
blemished reputation.” He published Five Single Sermons,
1775, 4to.3
(16) WILLIAM RITCHIE, 1809-1828, was transferred from St.
1 This shows that there was a practice of daily preaching in the eighteenth
century. We have seen (p. 268) that Robertson wished to be relieved from this
duty.
2 Scott's Fasti, p. 58.
3 Ibid., p. 57
284
(1828.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
Andrew's Church, Glasgow, to the High Church of Edinburgh and
the Chair of Divinity, both which appointments he held till his
eighty-first year, when Dr. Chalmers came to Edinburgh to take
the work of the Chair in the capacity of conjoint Professor.
Ritchie died in 1830. Sir R. Christison's recollection of him
was that, " in his old age he had in the pulpit the piercing gaze
of an old eagle ; but he was of mild disposition and gentle in
manners. His sermons were well composed, and delivered with
great earnestness, a persuasive voice, and the remains of an
Ayrshire intonation." His publications were Five Single Sermons,
1803; and a Statement relative to the use of an Organ in St.
Andrew's Church, Glasgow.
The next Professor of Divinity (17) THOMAS CHALMERS,
1828-1843, towers immeasurably over all his predecessors in the
Chair. No one connected with the University of Edinburgh ever
bore more decisively the stamp of greatness than Dr. Chalmers.
But his life, like that of John Knox, is a part of the history of
Scotland, and to attempt to epitomise it here would be out of
place. All that can be done is to endeavour to indicate a
few salient qualities, chiefly in connection with his Professorial
character.
In early life the bent of Chalmers' mind was towards science.
After he had passed seven years at the University of St. Andrews,
and had been "licensed" as a preacher in his nineteenth year
(contrary to the usual rule of the Church, on account of his remark-
able ability), he, instead of devoting himself at once to the min-
istry, came to the University of Edinburgh, where for two years he
studied Mathematics under Playfair, Chemistry under Hope, and
Natural Philosophy under Robison. He afterwards spoke of
Robison's lectures as having been most stimulating to his mind.
He was appointed Assistant to the Professor of Mathematics in
St. Andrews, and when, after one session, he was deprived of that
appointment he started extra-academical lectures in Mathematics,
in successful rivalry to the Professor, while all the while he was
Minister of Kilmany.
On Robison's death, in 1805, he was candidate for the Chair
of Natural Philosophy in Edinburgh, and wrote a pamphlet to
prove that a Minister might very well combine a Scientific
Professorship with the satisfactory discharge of his parochial

THE REV. THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D.
FROM A PLATE PUBLISHED BY ANDREW ELLIOT.
1828.]
285
PROFESSORS OF DIVINITY.
duties. His views on this subject were greatly changed after-
wards. His mind seems first to have been seriously turned to
Theology by his undertaking to write the article on “Christianity"
for Brewster's Edinburgh Encyclopædia, which engaged him for four
years (1809-1813). It was as Minister of the Tron Church in
Glasgow that Chalmers first sprang into fame as a preacher and
as an administrator. His Astronomical Discourses produced the
most astonishing effect on the crowds who listened to them, and
when they were published, in 1817, no less than 6000 copies
were sold in a month, and 20,000 within the year. These Dis-
courses seem to show what Science was to Chalmers—it was food
for his imagination rather than a field to be worked out. His
Bridgewater Treatise "On the Adaptation of External Nature to the
Moral and Intellectual Constitution of Man” (published in 1828)
indicates the same thing. In Glasgow the sad realities of life
which surrounded him in his parish aroused his noble spirit to
the idea of coping with pauperism, and he organised his celebrated
system of relieving the poor by means of individual effort and
supervision, without poor rates or compulsory charity. This
drew him into the province of Political Economy, in which he
became ardently interested, and also into the question of National
Education.
Everything that Chalmers did was original, springing out of
his own nature, He opposed the Reform Bill, not believing that
its promises would be fulfilled. On the other hand, he was
a supporter of Catholic Emancipation. After achieving great
results in Glasgow, but before his work was consolidated, he
accepted the Chair of Moral Philosophy in St. Andrews, and set
himself to the systematising of what to him was a fresh science.
In so doing he left aside Metaphysics (as taught from another
Chair), and prelected largely on the connection of Morals with
Religion and Natural Theology. The subject of Political Economy
was also attached to his Professorship, and in teaching this he
constantly insisted on the moral and religious relationships of
economic science, and expatiated on its applications to the wants
of a Christian community.
On Professor Ritchie's becoming superannuated, in 1827, the
Town Council, as an interim arrangement, appointed Dr. John
Lee to conduct the Divinity Class for one Session, and on the
.
286
(1828.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
6th November 1828 they appointed Chalmers joint Professor
with Ritchie. The following description of his Inaugural Address
has been placed on record :1 —
“He had an air of extreme abstraction and at the same time
of full presence of mind. Ascending the steps in his familiar
resolute manner, he almost immediately engaged in his opening
prayer, that was most startling and yet deeply solemnising. In
closest union with a simple, forcible antithesis of intellectual
conception, clothed in still more antithetical expressions, there
was the deep, vital consciousness of the glory of the Divine
presence. The power of the dialectician, restrained and elevated
by the prayerful reverence as of some prophet in ancient Israel,
imparted a peculiarity of aspect to his first devotional utterances
in the class. As to his discourse, all felt far more deeply than
they could worthily declare that it was a most glorious prelude,
and that at once and for ever his right to reign as a king in the
broad realms of theological science, and to rule over their own
individual minds as a teacher, was as unequivocal as his mastery
over a popular assembly.”
Chalmers came to Edinburgh in his forty-eighth year, at the
zenith of his reputation, universally recognised in Scotland as a
great intellectual and moral force, a simple, grand, and noble
nature, for the most eloquent preacher in the land, one whose
success as a pastor had never been surpassed, and almost the
type of a Christian patriot. Of him it might be said “famam
ingenii expectatio hominis, expectationem ipsius adventus admira-
tioque superabat." His lecture room was thronged not only by
Divinity Students, but by distinguished members of the various
professions, and by many of the most intelligent citizens of
Edinburgh. At the close of his first session the Rev. Robert
Morehead (Episcopal clergyman), as representing these extra-
academical listeners, wrote Chalmers a letter expressing their
gratitude for his teaching, and enclosing a honorarium which they
had subscribed. Chalmers' emoluments from his Chair were
then only £200 per annum. His more strictly Theological
lectures were on (1) Natural Theology, (2) Christian Evidences,
(3) Systematic Theology, (4) Butler's Analogy, Paley's Evidences,
and Hill's Lectures on Divinity. The lectures were all elaborated
1 Hanna's Memoirs of Dr. Chalmers, vol. iii. p. 225.
1844.)
287
PROFESSORS OF DIVINITY.
into books: his Natural Theology; his Institutes of Theology,
his Prelections on Butler, Paley, and Hill, etc. But in addition
to this theoretic side of his teaching there was another, and in
Chalmers' view still more important, branch of his lectures,
namely those on practical and pastoral Theology, which were
developed into his Christian Polity of a Nation ; his Church and
College Establishments; his Church Extension; his Sufficiency of
a Parochial System ; and his Political Economy. One of his
pupils1 has recorded that Chalmers' course in Theology was
really a course of Chalmers himself, and of Chalmers in all his
characters.” The listeners were carried “through the whole
round of Chalmers' favourite ideas." “But through all and over
all was the influence of a nature morally so great that by no
array and exposition of its ideas, repeated never so often, could
it be exhausted, and by no inventory of them represented.
Merely to look at him day after day was a liberal education.”
Chalmers, with all his richness of mind, was not a learned divine,
indeed it was hardly possible that he should have been,--therefore
he made no theologians out of his class, but he contributed
enormously to the making of an active, earnest generation of
pastors. It was an evil day for the University when, on the 5th
June 1843, after the Disruption, Chalmers, in company with Dr.
Welsh, demitted his Chair. The Senatus then recorded “their
deep regret at the circumstances which had caused these resigna-
Chalmers made important recommendations for the
improvement of Theological Education to the Commission of
1826. He proposed that there should be five Professors in the
Faculty of Divinity, and this, though not entirely carried out, led
to the creation of the Chair of Biblical Criticism. He also
advocated, in concurrence with Professor Blackie, the establish-
ment of a strict entrance examination for Students in Arts,
combined with the provision of Gymnasia in connection with
each of the Universities, in which those who failed to pass the
entrance examination might be brought up to the proper level
for commencing University studies.
(18) JOHN LEE, 1844-1859. After the Disruption had
thinned the ranks of theologians in the Church of Scotland,
Principal Lee was invited to bring his great learning to the
| Professor Masson, in Macmillan's Magazine, vol. xi. p. 127.
tions."
I
288
[1876.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
I
service of the Chair of Divinity, which, in conjunction with the
Principalship, he held till his death in 1859.
(19) THOMAS JACKSON CRAWFORD, 1859-1875, was the
last person appointed by the Town Council to any Chair within
the University. He was son of a Professor of Moral Philo-
sophy in St. Andrews, where he graduated and was licensed
preacher, having as a boy attended the High School of Edin-
burgh. He was made Minister of Cults, of which parish he
wrote a Statistical Account, containing anecdotes of Sir David
Wilkie ; thence he went to Glamis, and was finally transferred to
St. Andrew's Church, Edinburgh. He was elected Convener of
the General Assembly's Committee on Psalmody, for which office
he was qualified by his knowledge of and fondness for music.
In 1853 he produced two pamphlets advocating the claims of
Presbyterianism as against those of Prelacy. In 1859, in his
.
,
forty-seventh year, he was appointed to the Chair of Divinity.
He was Moderator of the General Assembly in 1863. He pro-
duced three theological works of some importance : The Father-
hood of God, a volume on the Atonement, and Mysteries of
Christianity, being the substance of the Baird Lectures, delivered
Without any great originality of mind he was a
cultivated, accomplished man, with much grace and urbanity of
manner, and was much respected and beloved. He succumbed
to inflammation of the lungs at Genoa in 1875. In 1876 the
Curators appointed as his successor (20) ROBERT FLINT, the
present Professor of Divinity.
I
in 1874.
I
I
VI.-PROFESSORS OF HEBREW AND ORIENTAL LANGUAGES.
2
The Chair of Hebrew and Oriental Languages was the second
Professorship (as distinct from a Regentship) founded in the College
of Edinburgh (see Vol. I. p. 212). We have already mentioned how
ill the Chair was endowed, and how perfunctorily its duties were
performed to the end of the seventeenth century (Vol. I. p. 215).
The following is a list of the Professors during that period, about
whom there appears to be nothing special to record :-(1) JULIUS
CONRADUS OTTO, 1642; (2) ALEXANDER DICKSON, 1656; (3)
ALEXANDER AMEDEUS, 1679; (4) ALEXANDER DOUGLAS, 1681;
(5) PATRICK SINCLAIR, 1692 ; (6) ALEXANDER RULE, 1694.
ܙ
I
1751.]
289
PROFESSORS OF HEBREW.
»
Speaking of the Chair during the first half of the eighteenth
century Bower says: “this Chair had been by far more unfortu-
nate than any other in the College in regard to Professors. The
truth is that from the time of the Revolution hardly an efficient
Professor had held that office excepting Mr. Goodall. Dr. Crau-
furd united it with the Class of Chemistry, and only considered
it in a secondary point of view; and Mr. Dawson, it appears, had
not taught for a long time. The chief causes of this negligence
arose from the Students being under no necessity of attending it,
and no fees being demanded by the Professor from such as did.
The Church had not defined with precision the classes which
candidates for license must have attended before their application
can be received; neither did the Professor of Divinity require a
certificate from the Student of his having studied Hebrew under
a Professor established by law. The consequences naturally
were, that both Professors and Students neglected the study of
Oriental literature, and it is only of late years that any consider-
;
able degree of attention began to be paid to it in this country.”1
The following were the Professors whom Bower thus characterised:
-(7) JOHN GOODALL, 1702; (8) JAMES CRAUFURD, 1719; (9)
WILLIAM DAWSON, 1732.
The first really qualified Professor who held the Chair was
(10) JAMES ROBERTSON, 1751-1792.
He had studied at Leyden
for some years under Schultens, the greatest Oriental scholar in
Europe of those days, and he brought from Schultens "a very
great character as deserving the public encouragement for his
good qualities and abilities to teach in the Hebrew and Arabic."
On his way home Robertson had stopped at Oxford, which was
becoming a good school of Hebrew, and he brought with him a
testimony to his attainments from Hunt, then Regius Professor
of Hebrew. These recommendations "excited great interest
among the clergy of the City and the Town Council.” The
latter body then forced Dawson, who was in weak health, to
accept James Robertson as conjoint Professor. During his forty-
one years' service in the Chair of Hebrew, Robertson was a most
valuable member of the University. For twenty-two years he
was an admirable Librarian, and made the first alphabetical
catalogue of the books. His name appears frequently in the
1 Bower, Hist. Un. Ed., vol. ii. pp. 360, 361.
VOL. II,
♡
290
[1812.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
Senatus Minutes, as for many years delegated to be Manager of
the City Poor-House. The Divinity Students had petitioned for
his appointment in 1751, but we have seen above (Vol. I. p. 335)
that, owing to the supineness of the General Assembly in encour-
aging the study of Hebrew, his lectures were thinly attended.
He compiled a Hebrew Grammar of his own, with the vowel
points, according to the Masoretic punctuation adopted by Bux-
torff and Schultens, and was mortified in his old age by the St.
Andrews Professor of Hebrew, Dr. Charles Wilson, bringing out
a Grammar without the vowel points. He also published a Key
to the Pentateuch. Dr. Johnson, when he visited Edinburgh in
1773, “was much pleased with the University Library, and with
the conversation of Dr. James Robertson, Professor of Oriental
Languages and Librarian.”' 2 Dalzel tells us that the other Pro-
fessors used to call him “the Rabbi."
(11) In 1792 the Town Council, as above mentioned (p. 268),
appointed Dr. GEORGE HUSBAND BAIRD to be conjoint Professor
of Hebrew, but he was a few months afterwards made Principal.
So in 1793 (12) WILLIAM MOODIE, Minister of St. Andrew's
Church, Edinburgh, was appointed to the Chair and held both
charges till his death in 1812. He edited Wilson's Hebrew
Grammar, and published a few sermons and pamphlets.
(12) ALEXANDER MURRAY, 1812-1813, shone as a star of the
greatest brilliancy in the Professorial firmament for half a
session, and then disappeared. There is a great but sad interest
attaching to his astonishing career. He was the son of a very
poor Galloway shepherd, who taught him the alphabet by marking
the letters on an old wool-card with a burnt stick. With this
-
beginning he at once learned to read, and discovering an old loose
Bible, carried it off piecemeal, and learned most of it by heart.
From the Hebrew letters prefixed to the divisions of the 119th
Psalm he learned the Hebrew alphabet. All this time he was
engaged in shepherding. When fifteen years old he managed to
get an old copy of Ainsworth's Latin Dictionary, and read it all
through with minute attention. Within a year after commencing
Latin he was able to read Ovid, Cæsar, and Livy, and getting
some desultory schooling, soon found his way through Homer.
Bailie's English Dictionary led him into Anglo-Saxon, whence his
1 Bower, vol. ii. p. 366. 2 Boswell's Life of Johnson, chap. xxxiii.
1813.)
291
PROFESSORS OF HEBREW.
extraordinary progress went on to German, Visi-Gothic, Welsh,
Abyssinian, Hebrew, Arabic, etc. In 1794 Murray's fame had
begun to spread, and he was invited to Edinburgh to give an
exhibition of his acquirements. Principal Baird and Professors
Moodie and Finlayson examined him, and being much struck by
his performances kindly exerted themselves to obtain a gratuitous
education for him from the other Professors, and at the same
time Baird generously assisted him till he got a bursary. Besides
going through the classes, and supporting himself partly by private
teaching, he employed the rest of his time so assiduously as to
master all the European languages, and to commence researches
in the more recondite dialects of the East. About 1800 he
became Editor of the Scots Magazine, and also wrote for the
Edinburgh Review. For three years he resided at Kinnaird,
editing Bruce's Travels, which he brought out in seven volumes
full of Abyssinian learning. In 1806 he settled down as Minister
of Urr, in Kirkcudbrightshire, in which remote locality he was
sought out as the only person in the kingdom likely to be able
to translate a letter written in Geez from the Governor of Tigre
to His Britannic Majesty. This task Murray satisfactorily per-
formed. In 1812 the Town Council, by a majority of two
votes, appointed him Professor of Hebrew and Oriental Languages.
Before he opened his class he published his Outlines of Oriental
Philology, but he broke down at once under the labour of lectur-
ing, and without having concluded his first course he succumbed
to pulmonary consumption in April 1813, in the thirty-eighth
year of his age. He left behind him a work of varied learning,
entitled A History of European Languages ; or Researches into the
Affinities of the Teutonic, Greek, Celtic, Sclavonic, and Indian
Nations. Alexander Murray was of an amiable, retiring character;
his great learning would have conferred honour on the University,
had his life been prolonged, but it seems doubtful whether he
had the qualities for a successful lecturer.
(13) ALEXANDER BRUNTON, 1813-1847, was a great con-
trast to the recluse scholar and genius whom he succeeded in the
Chair of Hebrew. Brunton had been and continued to be
Minister of the Tron Church. Sir Robert Christison speaks of
him as a strong well-built man," "courtly in address," "eminently
“
sociable, and esteemed in general society," and "something of
292
[1880.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
a a clerical beau.” He was very active, and zealously discharged,
for thirteen years, the duties of Convenor of the India Mission
Committee of the General Assembly, and he also took great
charge of Heriot's Hospital. He did something for the literature
of his Chair by publishing Extracts from the Old Testament, with
Sketches of Hebrew and Chaldee Grammar, 1814, 8vo, and
Outlines of Persian Grammar, 1822, 8vo. He also published
some sermons, and Forms for Public Worship in the Church
of Scotland, 1848, 8vo. “Besides being a City Minister and
College Professor, he was also Upper Librarian of the Uni-
versity. In that capacity he claimed and got the only private
house included in the scheme of the then new University build-
ings. But he did not live always there. During six or seven
months of every year he occupied a pleasant villa, which he had
built in the country, about six miles from College, on the north
bank of a little tributary of the Esk near Loanhead.” 1 This
seems to show that his plurality of duties did not press very
heavily upon the worthy Dr. Brunton. When in his seventy-fifth
year his strength failed him, the Town Council, as we saw
(p. 75), tried in 1847 to put a Free-Churchman into the Chair of
Hebrew, but this measure having been successfully resisted in
the Law Courts by the Senatus Academicus (14) Mr. DAVID
LISTON, who had been a Missionary in India, was appointed
and held the chair for thirty-two years. He was a modest and
diffident man, and, having no other appointment, was depressed
by the extremely low salary attached to the Professorship. On
his retirement, in 1880, the present Incumbent, (15) The Rev.
DAVID LAIRD ADAMS, was appointed.
VII. –PROFESSORS OF MATHEMATICS.
The century in which the College of Edinburgh was founded
was a most remarkable one in the history of Mathematics. It
was the great age of the development of Algebra.
Tartaglia of Brescia had discovered the rule for solving cubic
equations, and this had been followed up by the solution of
equations of the fourth degree, discovered by Ludovico Ferrari,
a pupil of Cardan's. North of the Alps Algebraic symbols were
introduced instead of words: the signs + and - by German
In 1530
i Sir R. Christison's MS. Recollections. See Scott's Fasti, p. 57,
1621.)
293
PROFESSORS OF MATHEMATICS.
Mathematicians, the sign = by Recorde, an English algebraist, and
letters to denote quantities by Vieta, a French Mathematician.
At the end of the century Scotland made a great contribution
to mathematical science in the invention of Logarithms by
Napier, Baron of Merchiston. " Whether we consider the great
originality of the idea, the difficulty of carrying it into effect in
the state in which Algebraical analysis then was, or the immense
practical and theoretical value of the invention, we shall have
little difficulty in claiming for Napier the honour of a discovery
unsurpassed in brilliancy in the whole history of Mathematics.” 1
There were great Physicists and Astronomers in that age,
such as Gilbert, Sturinus, Galileo, and Kepler. The birth-time
of the College of Edinburgh was therefore coeval with "the
high spring-tide of Mathematical and Physical Science." But
unfortunately the College was precluded from the benefits of this
movement: ist, because Rollock was not a Mathematician; and
2d, because the teaching was done on the Regenting system.
There was no Geometry in the curriculum as at first arranged,
and it is a significant fact that Napier of Merchiston, though a
near neighbour, did not send his son to be educated at the
College, but preferred to send him to the University of Glasgow.
After thirty-seven years the Town Council took steps to have
separate lectures, in addition to the curriculum, given in Mathe-
matics. In 1620 they appointed ANDREW YOUNG to be " Public
Professor of Mathematics" in addition to his duties as Regent
of Philosophy (see Vol. I. p. 203). It is possible that Napier had
made a suggestion on this subject; at all events he took an
interest in it, for on the 17th August 1621 the Town Council
paid for the carriage from London of a quadrant which Napier
(the year before his death) presented to the College "for the
Professor of Mathematics."
Young, having graduated in Edinburgh, had gone to serve
as Regent in Marischall College, which was always a good school
of Mathematics, and he may have picked up something there.
He must certainly have had a reputation for mathematical
i From Professor Chrystal's (unpublished) Inaugural Address. Most of
the above facts and estimates relative to the Professors of Mathematics are
taken from that Address. Unless otherwise specified, the passages quoted are
all from Professor Chrystal.
294
[1668.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
knowledge. He came back to Edinburgh as Regent in 1601.
When appointed “ Professor of Mathematics” he had to give two
public lectures a week, but what they consisted in we know not.
He died in 1623, after three years' performance of these new duties.
No successor to Young was appointed till 1640, when the
title and office of “Professor of Mathematics ” was revived by the
Town Council and offered in connection with a Regentship to
Thomas Craufurd, then Principal of the High School, as an
inducement to come back to the College. The salary was only
600 merks (£33 : 6:8) a year. But Craufurd was an academi-
cally-minded person, and he accepted the post, and held it for
twenty-two years, till his death in 1662,
He was proud of his
title, and always signed himself “M.P.” at the end of his Theses.
He introduced the term Theses Mathematicæ into the College,
the Theses previously having been styled Ethica, Logicæ, Physicæ,
Sphæricæ, or Metaphysicæ. It was merely an alteration of name
(says Professor Chrystal), as the matter in Craufurd's papers was
much the same as that contained in the Theses Sphærice or
Astronomicæ of the other Regents. In one of the College
Records 2 Craufurd is characterised as "a Grammarian and Philo-
sopher, likewise profoundly skilled in Theology, and a man of
the greatest piety and integrity.” He had evidently no special
attainments in Mathematics.
For twelve years after Craufurd's death no one else was
appointed “Professor of Mathematics.” The Town Council
seem to have held the office in abeyance only, for in 1668,
when Articles were drawn up by Principal Colvill for regulation
of the College, the Town Council added an Article of their own
defining the duties of the Professor of Mathematics, though at
that time no such officer existed. He was to teach publicly
Arithmetic, Geometry, Cosmography, Astronomy, and Optics,
upon Tuesdays and Fridays, all the Regents with their Scholars
being present.
From time to time the Town Council appear to
have appointed a Tutor of Mathematics. There is a record of
their paying £10 sterling in 1672 as salary for one year, to
George Sinclair, one of the Regents, for acting in this capacity.
i Perhaps by the advice of Henderson, then Rector of the College.
2 Tabulæ petentium et adeuntium Professiones publicas in Academia Jacobi
Regis Edinburgena.
1674.]
295
PROFESSORS OF MATHEMATICS.
At last, in 1674, the Town Council took the enlightened step
of inducing James Gregory, who had been for four years Professor
of Mathematics at St. Andrews, to transfer himself to the same
office in the College of Edinburgh. In so doing they conferred
distinction upon the College, for they secured the services of a
great mathematical genius, perhaps in that age second to Newton
alone. James Gregory had been educated at Marischall College,
but soon passed beyond the teaching of that place, for at the age
of twenty-four he invented the reflecting telescope, and brought
out his Optica Promota, in which he was the first to suggest that
the transits of Venus and Mercury might be used in determining
the solar parallax. Afterwards he started to visit the seats of
mathematical learning in Italy, and took up his abode at Padua,
where, in 1667, he brought out a work which at once became
famous, On the Quadrature of the Circle and Hyperbola by means
of infinitely converging series. Returning to England he was
immediately elected Fellow of the Royal Society, and was warmly
welcomed by Newton, Wallis, Lord Brouncker, and other mathe-
maticians. In 1668 he published his Exercitationes Geometrice,
and in 1670 was appointed Professor of Mathematics in the
University of St. Andrews. In the following spring he wrote to
his friend Collins a letter, an extract from which is preserved in
the Biographia Britannica : “I am now much taken up and have
been all this winter past with my public lectures, which I have
twice a week, and in resolving doubts which some gentlemen and
scholars propose to me. This I must comply with, nevertheless
that I am often troubled with great impertinences, all persons
here being ignorant of those things to admiration; so that I have
but little time to spare in those studies my genius leads me to.”
From which we learn that two lectures a week was the amount
of teaching expected from a Professor in those days, and also
that a Professor was regarded as a sort of oracle pro bono
publico.
(1) When JAMES GREGORY was brought to Edinburgh he
became the first substantive Professor of Mathematics there, the
first non-Theological Professor in the College who was not
hampered with the drudgery of Regenting. In November 1674
he delivered an inaugural oration before a distinguished audience.
But the hopes that might have been formed on that occasion
296
[1784.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
a
were soon blighted. On an October evening in 1675, while
James Gregory was showing his Students the satellites of Jupiter
through a telescope, he was struck with sudden blindness, and
he died of a fever a few days afterwards, closing his brief and
brilliant career at the age of thirty-six.
As an interim arrangement a "Mr. John Young, student,"
was appointed to teach Mathematics in the room of the deceased
Professor, with a salary of 300 merks a year. He seems to have
gone on as Mathematical Tutor in the College for eight years,
when the Town Council found a second member of the family of
Gregory worthy to be elected to the Professorship.
(2) This was DAVID GREGORY, nephew to the illustrious James,
who had been partly educated at Marischall College, but came
to complete his studies in the College of Edinburgh. He was
appointed Professor of Mathematics here with a salary of £ 1000
(Scots) in October 1683, after he had passed his examinations
for the M.A. degree, but previous to his laureation.
He was
then twenty-two years of age. In December he delivered an
inaugural address (unfortunately not preserved), De Analyseos
Geometrica progressu et incrementis. In 1684 he brought out a
work entitled Exercitatio Geometrica de Dimensione Figurarum,
which contained some posthumous papers of his uncle's, with
additions of his own.
A MS. volume of notes of David Gregory's course of
lectures, taken by Francis Pringle, afterwards Professor of Greek
at St. Andrews, is preserved in the Edinburgh University Library.
The range of subjects indicated by these notes “ will bear com-
parison," says Professor Chrystal, “ with our curriculum as it is
There are lectures on Trigonometry, Logarithms, Practical
Geometry, Geodesy, Optics, Dynamics, and Mechanics." But
the great point of interest attaching to David Gregory is, that he
has “the honour of having been the first to give public lectures
on the Newtonian philosophy. This he did in Edinburgh five
and thirty years before these doctrines were accepted as part of
the public instruction in the University of their inventor.” David
Gregory not only introduced the Principia to Edinburgh Students,
but he also brought them to the notice of Englishmen. Whiston
says "that he was greatly excited to the study of Sir Isaac
Newton's wonderful discoveries in his Principia by a paper of
now.
1692.]
297
PROFESSORS OF MATHEMATICS.
>
Dr. Gregory's, when he was Professor in Scotland, wherein he
gave the most prodigious commendations to that work, as not
only right in all things but in a manner the effect of a plainly
divine genius; and he had already caused several of his scholars
to 'keep acts' as we call them, upon several branches of the
Newtonian philosophy;--while we at Cambridge, poor wretches,
were ignominiously studying the fictitious hypotheses of the
Cartesians." Newton's own opinion of David Gregory is recorded
in a letter to Flamstead ; referring to their common scientific
work he says: “If you and I live not long enough, Mr. Gregory
and Mr. Halley are both young men.'
Gregory's fame in England led to his removal from the College
of Edinburgh, where, during nine years, he had “brought the
mathematical teaching into the vanguard of scientific progress.”
In 1692 he was made Fellow of the Royal Society; and the
Savilian Professorship of Astronomy at Oxford shortly afterwards
falling vacant, he was chosen to fill it, in preference to Halley,
who was a candidate for the Chair. He died at the early age of
forty-nine, in 1710, and Oxford preserves his memory by an
inscription upon a monument in St. Mary's Church. His chief
works, beside the one mentioned, were his Catoptricæ et Dioptrice
Elementa (1695), containing valuable hints for the achromatising
of telescopes, and his Astronomie Physicæ et Geometria Elementa,
being a sort of digest of Newton's Principia, with a commentary
thereon. He also left in manuscript a Latin treatise on Practical
Geometry, which was used by his successor, as it had been by
himself, in teaching the mathematical class. An English trans-
lation of this work was published by Colin M‘Laurin in 1745,
and it was considered in the last century a regular University
text-book for exercising Students after they had gone through
Euclid's Elements and Plane Trigonometry.
(3) On the departure of David Gregory to Oxford, in 1692,
the Town Council appointed Mr. JAMES GREGORY, his “brother-
german,” as the Commission bore, to be Professor of Mathematics.
The peculiarity of this Commission was that it did not speak of
the Professorship as vacant, but premised that there never had
been a regular Professorship. “Albeit," it grandiloquently said,
“the famous College of this City, founded by that mighty and
illustrious Prince, King James the Sixth, of ever glorious memory,
298
[1725.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
66 He
be furnished with Professors, Principals, Masters, and Regents,
both in Divinity, Philosophy, and Humanity, yet never with a
constant profession of the Mathematics," etc. “ Therefore the
said Lord Provost, Bailies, Council, and Deacons of Craftsmen,
for themselves and their successors—have erected, and hereby do
erect, a profession of Mathematics, within the said City, now and
in all time coming, and appoint the said James Gregory Professor
thereof.” Henceforth, then, there were to be no more interregni
in the Mathematical Chair, but a regular succession of teachers
of the subject, which, at the same time, was left standing outside
the curriculum of Philosophy (or Arts), and was to be "for the
accomplishment and education of youth, and particularly in the
art of Navigation (the great ornament of any Kingdom or
commonwealth)." See City Records, 23 September 1692.
James Gregory secundus had to accept the Chair thus founded
de novo on a diminished salary of goo merks, or £50 sterling, as
the College revenues were stated to be low at the time. He
held the Chair for nearly thirty-three years, till 1725.
seems to have been an able teacher, but did not otherwise add
to the reputation of the Gregory family." In 1725 he was
”
superannuated, and anxious for retirement and rest.
tion was, who should be associated or made joint Professor with
him, to do his work on condition of succeeding him. Sir Isaac
Newton took a great interest in this matter on scientific, as well
as friendly grounds, and wrote to the then Lord Provost
recommending Mr. Colin MʻLaurin, and, to show his sincerity,
offering “to contribute £ 20 per annum towards a provision for
him, till Mr. Gregory's place become void, if I live so long."
Such a recommendation could hardly fail, especially when George
Drummond's influence was in the ascendant. MʻLaurin was
made joint Professor, and thus “the ablest in every respect of all
the occupants of the Mathematical Chair," if we except the first
Gregory (whose career in Edinburgh was too brief for him to be
brought into comparison), commenced his course in the University
of Edinburgh.
(4) Colin M‘LAURIN was born, in 1698, of an old Highland
family. At eleven years of age he was sent to the University of
James Gregory secundus, however, managed to live on for seventeen
years, during which time M'Laurin got no salary.
The ques-
1
1
1725.]
299
PROFESSORS OF MATHEMATICS.
a
Glasgow, and at the age of twelve he showed his mathematical
precocity by mastering in a few days the first six books of Euclid,
a copy of which he came across in a friend's chamber. Having
graduated at the age of fifteen, he studied Divinity for a year, but
not finding his bent lie in that direction, he lived in a country-house
for three years, pursuing Mathematics and Natural Philosophy,
“and sometimes reading the best classic authors, for which 'tis
said he had an exceeding good taste."1 When nineteen years
old he became candidate for the Professorship of Mathematics
in Marischall College, to which he was elected after a ten days'
competition. At the age of twenty-one he was made Fellow of
the Royal Society, brought out papers in their Transactions,
published his Geometrica Organica, made the acquaintance and
became the favourite of Sir Isaac Newton. He left his Aberdeen
Professorship to travel abroad with the son of Lord Polwarth,
and during his stay in France he wrote a tract “On the Per-
cussion of Bodies," which gained the Prize of the French
Academy of Sciences in 1724. On his return he was chosen
to be joint Professor with James Gregory.
“He soon became the life and soul of the University of
Edinburgh. In his time the teaching of Mathematics reached
a point which it cannot be said to have yet surpassed.” We have
elsewhere (Vol. I. p. 271) given in full M‘Laurin's programme of
classes for 1741. We have also referred (Vol. I. p. 378) to his
strenuous exertions for obtaining the erection of an Observatory,
which would certainly have been successful but for his untimely
death. M'Laurin was a man of remarkable social qualities, and
was a prominent figure in all the scientific circles of Edinburgh
in those days. He was the friend of the great physicians, and
accepted the post of Secretary to the "Society for improving
“
Medical Science.” After editing their Transactions for some
"
time he got them to enlarge their scope so as to take in all the
parts of Physics, and the antiquities of the country, and to
change their title to that of the "Philosophical Society," which
in a later generation was transformed into the "Royal Society
of Edinburgh." He was ever zealous in the application of his
scientific knowledge to practical uses.
To him is greatly due
the establishment by Law of the Ministers and Professors'
1 Biographia Britannica, sub voce M‘Laurin.
300
[1746.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
Widows' Fund for Scotland. M‘Laurin with great labour made
the actuarial computations necessary for the scheme, and the
authority of his name went far to satisfy members of the Legis-
lature that the principles on which the Assurance Fund was to
be started were essentially sound. In 1739, at the request of
Lord Morton, he drew up directions for a survey of Orkney and
Shetland, to be carried out by his own pupils. In 1744 he
memorialised Government in defence of a north-east passage to
the Pacific. And in 1745 he roused up his fellow-citizens to the
defence of the Capital against the advance of the Pretender;
and was employed to act as military engineer and to fortify the
City. The whole burden, not only of contriving but also of
overseeing the execution of these hasty fortifications, fell to Mr.
M‘Laurin ; he was employed night and day in making plans,
and running from place to place; and the anxiety, fatigue, and
cold to which he was thus exposed affecting a naturally weak
constitution, laid the foundation of the distemper which proved
fatal to him."1
On the entry of the rebels into Edinburgh
M‘Laurin fled to York, where he was welcomed and entertained
by Archbishop Herring. After the retreat of the Jacobite army
he returned to Edinburgh, but his over-exertion on the city walls
and the fatigue and exposure of his journeys had been too much
for him. He was seized with dropsy, and his brilliant career
was hurried to a close in 1746. His elogy was pronounced in
the University by Alexander Monro primus, who maintained
that “acute parts and extensive learning were in Mr. M'Laurin
but secondary qualities; and that he was still more nobly dis-
tinguished from the bulk of mankind by the qualities of his heart,
his sincere love to God and men, his universal benevolence and
unaffected piety,--together with a warmth and constancy in his
friendships that was in a manner peculiar to himself.” MʻLaurin
left a wife and five children, for whose benefit his executors pub-
lished by subscription his posthumous works, namely, his Algebra,
and his Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy. His chief
work, published during his lifetime, was a Treatise on Fluxions
(1742), in two volumes quarto, which had grown out of an
answer to an attack made by Bishop Berkeley, upon the founda-
tions of the calculus. In 1740 he had written an
Essay on the
| Biographia Britannica.
I
W
1775.)
301
PROFESSORS OF MATHEMATICS.
Tides," which shared with Daniel Bernoulli and Euler the prize of
the French Academy. His last work was a tract De Linearum
Geometricarum proprietatibus generalibus. " M'Laurin's dis-
coveries in the department of pure Mathematics are of the most
exquisite beauty; and at the same time he shows in his applica-
tion of Mathematics to Physical problems that power of seizing
the vitally important amidst a mass of irrelevant details, which is
the highest qualification of the true Natural Philosopher.”
After the death of M‘Laurin the Patrons desired to appoint
to the Chair of Mathematics James Stirling, well known for his
contributions to the theory of series and interpolations, and for
his Commentary on Newton's Enumeration of Lines of the Third
Order. His Jacobite principles, however, led him to reject the
offered appointment.
(5) MATTHEW STEWART was then elected to the vacant
Chair. Though a genius of a much lower order than MʻLaurin,
he was nevertheless in his own field an able and original
Mathematician. He had been trained by Dr. Simson at Glasgow,
and had imbibed the severe taste of that celebrated expert in
the Ancient Geometry. In the cultivation of the Geometrical
Analysis of the Ancients Stewart was most successful, and his
General Theorems remain much-admired monuments of his skill.
Like his master Simson, he was jealous of the encroachments
that Algebra was making on Geometry, and it was his constant
aim to reduce to the level of ordinary Geometry problems that
were supposed to require the higher calculus. With this view
he wrote his Tracts Physical and Mathematical, in which he
essayed the application of his pure Geometry to Physical ques-
tions. He undoubtedly achieved many important successes in
this way; his solution of Kepler's Problem being one of the
most remarkable. On the whole, however, it was unfortunate
for the progress of science in Scotland that a man of Stewart's
limited range should have succeeded the versatile M‘Laurin.
In 1772 Matthew Stewart retired from the active duties of
his office, and the teaching of his class was undertaken by his
son (6) DUGALD STEWART, who, however, was not formally
appointed joint Professor till 1775. Of Dugald Stewart's
mathematical work little need be said ; he appears to have been
a good teacher, but his name and reputation in the University
302
[1785.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
belong rather to the department of Mental and Moral Science.
In 1785 he took the place of Adam Ferguson in the Chair of
Moral Philosophy.
Nominally the next Professor of Mathematics was Adam
Ferguson, who exchanged Chairs with Dugald Stewart in order
that he might get a sinecure; but a joint Professor who was
appointed with him to the work was really the seventh Professor.
This was (7) JOHN PLAYFAIR, 1785-1805, born in Forfarshire in
1748, and educated in the University of St. Andrews, where,
while yet a Student, he was selected to deliver lectures for the
Professor of Natural Philosophy. Having in early youth been
an unsuccessful candidate for the Chairs of Mathematics in
Marischall College and of Natural Philosophy at St. Andrews,
he settled down as a parish clergyman in his father's living at
Liff and Bennie. He was brought back into the scientific world
by the accident of Maskelyne, the Astronomer, coming to Scotland
to make his celebrated Schehallion experiment. Playfair made
the acquaintance of Maskelyne, became intimate with him, visited
him on his return, and was by him introduced into the scientific
circles of London. While in England Playfair was struck with
the backwardness of the English Mathematicians in adopting
the results of the Continental analysts. While they boasted of
Newton they were unable to follow him, and the mantle of
Newton had indeed passed over to France, where it rested
ultimately on the shoulders of Laplace.
Playfair accordingly set himself to diffuse among his country-
men a knowledge of the progress which science had been making
abroad. This he did in a variety of ways : by his articles in the
Encyclopædia Britannica, by his papers in the Transactions of
learned Societies, by his articles in the Edinburgh Review, and
by his class teaching. As David Gregory introduced the New-
tonian philosophy, so Playfair introduced the Continental methods,
into the studies of the University of Edinburgh.
Playfair's chief merit was not as a discoverer in pure Mathe-
matics, in which department, however, he produced an Essay on
the Arithmetic of Impossible Quantities, a paper on the Causes
which affect the accuracy of Barometric Measurements, and an
edition of Euclid's Elements. He had an immense scientific
erudition, a calm intellect, and a clear style; and he was the

CARGO
JOHN PLAYFAIR.
FROM A BUST BY CHANTREY.
1819.]
303
PROFESSORS OF MATHEMATICS.
first of a succession of Edinburgh Professors who may be called
"the Encyclopædists." He, and Leslie after him, did much to
revive an almost forgotten branch of learning, namely, the History
of Science; to this field Playfair's Dissertation on the Progress of
Mathematical and Physical Science, and his Lives of Matthew
Stewart, Hutton, and Robison, were valuable contributions. In
1805 Playfair was transferred to the Chair of Natural Philosophy.
(8) JOHN LESLIE, the next Professor of Mathematics, was a
native of Fife, and began by studying some time in the University
of St. Andrews, and then he and a College friend, James Ivory
(afterwards noted for Mathematical discoveries), came over together
to finish their course in Edinburgh. Leslie served as mathematical
tutor in the famous Wedgewood family, and became a writer in
scientific journals. In 1800 he wrote a description of a differen-
tial thermometer which he had invented, and in 1804 published
an Essay on the Nature and Propagation of Heat.
Leslie's candidature, in the following year, for the Chair of
Mathematics, gave rise to a fierce contest which agitated Edinburgh
society and the General Assembly of the Church. A City Min-
ister, by name MacKnight, started as an opposition candidate, and
was supported by the Presbytery, who professed to have discovered
heterodox tendencies in certain passages of Leslie's book on Heat,
though he himself disclaimed the inferences. The “Moderate ”
party in the Church, contrary to what might have been expected
of them, were MacKnight's partisans. The scientific members
.
of the University, headed by Playfair (who had himself been a
clergyman), strongly protested against the appointment of a
clergyman to a scientific Chair. A whole literature of pamphlets
for and against Leslie was produced. The Town Council elected
Leslie; and the Presbytery then put forward a claim, based on
the Charter of James VI., to have a voice in the election, and
applied to the Court of Session for an interdict to stop the
induction of Leslie. In this they failed, and thereafter the
dispute degenerated into a personal controversy within the
General Assembly, where it was waged with the utmost bitter-
ness for two days.
Leslie held the Mathematical Chair for fourteen years, and
in 1819 became Professor of Natural Philosophy. He was a
Mathematician of the school of Simson and Matthew Stewart;
I
304
[1838.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
man,
that is to say, he was a Geometer, " in our modern insular sense,"
pure and simple. His Geometry was long a popular text-book,
the most interesting part of it being an Appendix on Geometrical
Analysis. In mathematical erudition he was scarcely inferior to
Playfair. His Philosophy of Arithmetic and his Dissertation on
.
the Progress of Mathematical and Physical Science are enduring
monuments of his greatness in this respect. His works, however,
are all tinged with rhetoric and a consequent tendency to exag-
geration. They also exhibit an occasional perversity which
belonged to his markedly eccentric character.
(9) WILLIAM WALLACE was a self-educated and self-made
, He began life as a bookbinder's apprentice, and was suc-
cessively journeyman bookbinder, warehouseman in a printing
office, shopman to a bookseller, mathematical tutor, master in
Perth Academy, Professor of Mathematics at Sandhurst, with
Ivory as a colleague, and finally became Leslie's successor, 1819-
1838, in the Edinburgh Chair of Mathematics, being elected in
preference to Babbage, who was a candidate. Throughout his
professorship he was recognised as an able and popular teacher.
He is best known, perhaps, by his invention of the eidograph;
but he was a fruitful writer on mathematical subjects generally.
Many articles of his appear in the fourth edition of the Encyclo-
pædia Britannica ; and he contributed many theorems of great
elegance to pure Mathematics. It is a curious circumstance-
showing how recently narrow views about University teaching
were entertained that in 1828 Professor Wallace moved the
Senatus to represent to the Town Council that the establishment
in the High School of “a class for teaching Arithmetic and
Mathematics," which he understood to be in contemplation, was
"likely to injure the Mathematical Chair" in the University.
(10) PHILIP KELLAND, 1838-1879, was the son of an English
clergyman, and himself in Episcopal orders. He was Senior
Wrangler and First Smith's Prizeman at Cambridge, and for three
years Tutor of Queen's College. He was the first Englishman,
with an entirely English education, who was ever appointed to a
Chair in the University of Edinburgh. The experiment was
justified by its success, for Kelland was not only a successful
teacher, beloved by his Students, but he identified himself with
the Scottish University system, recognised its merits, and depre-
1879.]
305
PROFESSORS OF MATHEMATICS.
1
cated reforms which might interfere with its essential character.
He was never tired of working for education in Scotland, and it
was a labour of love to him to act for many years as Examiner
of Schools under the Dick Bequest. He was also for a long
time Secretary to the Senatus Academicus. He was a most
lovable personage, full of bright pleasantry, and at the same time
the type and model of an Academic figure. He was in some
respects a kindred spirit with Principal Lee, for whom he had a
great regard. The thoroughness of his teaching was shown by
the striking success of Edinburgh Students in competition for the
Ferguson Mathematical Scholarship (see above, p. 124). But he
was not only a teacher, he was a savant of high calibre, who
promoted science in some of its remotest altitudes. This is
shown by the list of papers which, during forty-one years, he
read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He contributed to
Physical Science investigations of the motion of waves in canals,
and of various questions of physical optics; and he edited and
reprinted the valuable Lectures of Thomas Young. But his forte
lay in pure Mathematics ; one of his most important papers was
his "Memoir on the limits of our Knowledge respecting the Theory
of Parallels," in which he dealt with the subject now better known
as absolute or non-Euclidean geometry;"I and “it would be
scarcely possible to convey to those who have not busied them-
selves with pan-geometry (or the geometry of pure reason, as
opposed to the geometry of experience—which is Euclid's) a full
idea of the importance of this work of Kelland's, and of the
evidence that it affords of his grasp of purely Mathematical
speculation.” Kelland published a text-book on Algebra, giving
a rational account of its first principles; and, in conjunction with
Professor Tait, he brought out an excellent elementary treatise
on Quaternions. He died in harness, like a general in the hour
of victory. Six months before his death he had been made
President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. A fortnight
before his death he had delivered the Promoter's Address
to the Arts Graduates in the University; and no address of
the kind was ever received with more warm and affectionate
1
cheering.
1 Obituary notice of Professor Kelland for the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
by Professors Tait and Chrystal.
VOL. II.
x
306
[1703
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
(11) In 1879 the present Professor of Mathematics, GEORGE
CHRYSTAL, was elected by the Curators.
VIII.-REGIUS PROFESSORS OF DIVINITY AND CHURCH
HISTORY
I
We have seen before (Vol. I. p. 231) how a Regius Professor-
ship (the first in Scotland) was created in the College of
)
Edinburgh. The Sign-Manual of William III. (1694) having
ordained that there should be "a second Professor of Divinity,"
nothing further was heard of the matter till the 10th November
1702, when, among the Regents and Masters of the College who
came to qualify before the Magistrates by declaring allegiance to
Queen Anne, appeared Mr. John Cumming, “ Professor of Church
“
History." The Lord Provost, at a meeting of Council on the 5th
February 1703, observed that “Mr. Cumming was come into
the College as a master of some profession, and that it was fit to
see his gift and know his profession, that the Council may give
rules and directions thereanent." Cumming's Commission, when
,
presented, was received under protest that it was not to prejudice
the rights of the Town Council as patrons of the College. A
A
question arises whether Cumming received his Commission from
Queen Anne, or had received it some time before from King
William. The former supposition seems most probable, because
the whole sum of £300 per annum granted by the King for the
maintenance of twenty bursars and a second Professor, and pay-
able from Whitsunday 1694, was to be paid into the hands of
the College Treasurer and his successors. Therefore Cumming
could not have drawn any salary as Professor, except through the
Town Council, in which case they would have been cognisant of
his existence as Professor, and could not have used the language
which they did in 1703. And it is unreasonable to suppose
that Cumming held the appointment for several years without
applying for the salary. William III., for some reason, probably
left the Chair which he had created unfilled. Perhaps Carstares
was working to get a Dutch theologian put in; in short, we know
not what happened.
At all events (1) JOHN CUMMING, 1702-1714, qualified for
the first time as Professor in 1702, and appeared among the
>
1720.]
307
PROFESSORS OF CHURCH HISTORY.
I
1
Masters of the College at the Visitation of 15th February 1703.
He was son of the minister of Auldearn, and grandson of the
laird of Relugas (county Moray); his uncle, William Cumming,
had been Regent of Humanity, and afterwards of Philosophy; a
relative of his had been surgeon in William's army at the battle
of the Boyne. It is just possible that this last circumstance had
something to do with his appointment. We may conjecture that
on Anne's accession Carstares, relieved from weightier cares, got
this matter pushed through. Cumming is said to have given
lectures on Church History till his death, but of his teaching we
know nothing, and he left no publications.
(2) WILLIAM DUNLOP, 1715-1720, was for a brief space a
distinguished occupant of the Chair. He was younger son of
Principal Dunlop of Glasgow, and nephew of Carstares. He
graduated M.A. at Glasgow, and then prosecuted Theology under
his uncle's roof in Edinburgh, after which he went to Utrecht to
study Civil Law. He was only twenty-three years old, and a
probationer of half a year's standing, when, probably by the
influence of Carstares, he had the vacant Professorship of Church
History conferred upon him. He proved himself well worthy of
it; a controversy having arisen as to the necessity for Confessions
of Faith, Dunlop, in 1719, brought out A Collection of Confes-
sions of Faith with an elaborate preface, which was published
separately, as A full account of the several ends and uses of Confes-
sions of Faith, and went through several editions. To show the
fairness of mind with which this work was composed, it may be
mentioned that his adversaries admitted that he had “written as
well as the bad cause he had undertaken would bear," while some
of those who were on his own side, in supporting the symbolical
books of the Church, complained that he had betrayed their
cause and advocated universal toleration. There is ample testi-
mony that he was a highly-gifted and attractive teacher. Two
posthumous volumes of his Discourses having been published in
1722, a publisher's intimation held out the prospect that his
Lectures on Ecclesiastical History would be given to the world,
“ fully more excellent of their kind” than his sermons. But
unfortunately this was not done. His bright career was closed
at the early age of twenty-eight.
1 Shaw's History of Noray, p. 94.
as
308
[1737.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
а.
а.
(3) MATTHEW CRAUFURD, 1721-1736, was son of a minister of
Eastwood, who had compiled a History of the Church of Scotland,
which, never having been published, remains in two folio MS.
volumes in the Library of the General Assembly. Whether this
assisted the son's claim to the Chair of Church History we know
not; but Matthew Craufurd must have been bookish, as he was
“Library Keeper" to the University of Glasgow. Wodrow, who
was his co-presbyter in the country, seems not to have held him
in high esteem. Writing in March 1731, Wodrow said: “He
has £100, and really does nothing for it. He will give no private
colleges but for money, and nobody comes to him. His public
prelections are not frequented; he will not have six or seven
hearers.” Attendance on the Church History class being left
optional to Divinity Students, it required an attractive lecturer
to muster them in any number.
The next Professor (4) PATRICK CUMMING, 1737-1762, was
another member of the Relugas family, who afterwards succeeded
his father in the family estate. He received a Royal Commission,
which styled him "Second Professor of Divinity and Ecclesiastical
History." Bower complains of this, saying that, as the Principal
is ex officio Primarius, the Professor of Church History can only
be third Professor of Divinity. He forgets, however, that the
Principal in those days was honorary Professor of Theology, and
not of Divinity. It is indicated in the records which lie under
the foundation - stone of the University that the Professor of
Divinity and Church History took rank in the Senatus next after
the Principal and the Professor of Divinity (see above, p. 200).
Patrick Cumming was a power in the Church of Scotland; "dis-
tinguished by erudition, liberality of sentiment, and extensive
benevolence, not less than by his talents as a public speaker, he
acquired such influence in the Church as to have the chief
management in her affairs from almost the time of his settlement
in the city” (as Minister of St. Giles', 1732) "till 1751, through
the support of the noble family of Argyll, then holding in their
hands the Government of Scotland."2 He was three times
Moderator of the General Assembly. In his Chair he gave
lectures to the extent of one a week for four months in the year,
1
1 Hist. Un, Ed., vol. ii. p. 319.
2 Scott's Fasti, p. 15.
1799.]
309
PROFESSORS OF CHURCH HISTORY.
1
taking as his text-book Jo. Alphonsi Turretini Compendium Historia
Ecclesiastica, but very few Students attended him.
He resigned the Chair on the 18th June 1862, in favour of
his son (5) ROBERT CUMMING, “who never, as far as I know," says
Bower,1 "delivered any lectures." This Robert Cumming, then,
holding the Chair as he did for six-and-twenty years, reduced it
to an absolute sinecure, while all the while claiming precedence
in the first rank of University Professors.
His successor (6) THOMAS HARDY, 1788-1798, Minister of
the New North Church, took a very different view of his duties.
He had acquired great fame as a preacher, and “as soon as it
was known that he was to deliver a course of lectures on
Ecclesiastical History, great expectations were formed concerning
them, and the public were not disappointed. He excited a spirit
among the students which had never been known before, and his
class became one of the best attended in the University. His
lectures might rather be called the Philosophy of Ecclesiastical
History."2 He appears to have used no text-book, but to have
drawn for himself a vivid picture of the Christian Church in
different ages, employing “a refined satire” against the early
sceptics and against the corruptions of the clergy in later times.
Curiously enough, he would allow no notes to be taken of his
lectures. He probably intended to publish them, but this was
never done.
In 1793 he was asked to write something which
might counteract in this country the anarchical sentiments which
had been encouraged by the French Revolution, and he then
produced an effective pamphlet entitled The Patriot. He died
prematurely in his fifty-first year.
(7) The next Professor, Dr. Hugh MEIKLEJOHN, 1799-1831,
was a less gifted personage.
Sir R. Christison describes him as
"a powerfully-made man of six feet four, with a smooth round
face, that never bore any expression but that of good humour
and contentment.” He was chiefly famous, as to his lectures,
for “an extraordinary monotony of delivery," of which a Student
gave Sir Robert the following illustration :-"In the next century
of the Christian era Mr. Ritchie I am astonished at you an event
occurred that deserves our attentive consideration;" this passage
having been spoken without either pause or modulation of the
1 Hist, Un. Ed., vol. ii. p. 320.
2 Ibid., vol, iii. p. 274.
310
[1831.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
voice. Dr. Meiklejohn, in conjunction with his Chair, held the
living of Abercorn, about eight miles from Edinburgh. He was
thus able, when he entertained his Students at breakfast, to press
upon them the produce of his glebe: “Take an egg, Mr. Smith,"
he would say, “they are my own eggs; for the Edinburgh eggs
are not to be depended upon." Besides three single sermons,
Dr. Meiklejohn published an account of the Parish of Aber-
corn.
(8) DAVID WELSH, 1831-1843, who was next appointed to
the Chair of Church History, was a most eminent and admirable
divine, who, as colleague to Dr. Chalmers, added great strength
to the Theological Faculty of the University of Edinburgh, and
who, by his just views of his duties as a Professor, combined with
great ability, gave a new start to the study of Church History in
Scotland, and rescued it from an almost contempt into which it
had fallen. Dr. Welsh, the son of an extensive sheep-farmer,
was born in 1793 at Braefoot in the Parish of Moffat. He went
in his thirteenth year to the High School of Edinburgh, and in
his fifteenth to the University, where he studied under Professors
A. Christison, Dunbar, David Ritchie (Logic), and Dr. Thomas
Brown, whose lectures were to Welsh "the garden spot in his
College career”; his mind was captivated and stimulated by
them, and becoming the intimate friend, as well as the pupil, of
Dr. Thomas Brown, he in 1825 brought out a Memoir of that
interesting and prematurely deceased philosopher. Welsh
received "license” in 1816, but continued to study and teach
classics and Mathematics till 1820, when he was presented to the
living of Crossmichael, and he there gained renown as a preacher
and as a Parish Minister ; in 1827 the Town Council of Glasgow
called him to the Church of St. David's within their city, which
charge he held till 1831, when he received his appointment to
be Professor from the Town Council of Edinburgh.
Welsh's published sermons are effective appeals, couched in
the clearest language ; acceptable as they were, their delivery cost
too much to a man of so delicate an organisation. Welsh said
that the effort of preaching once rendered him unfit for mental
exertion for two or three days afterwards. A University Chair
was exactly suited for him, and he gladly devoted himself to the
duties of that of Church History. Unlike previous Theological
1844.]
311
PROFESSORS OF CHURCH HISTORY.
Professors, he declined all ministerial work, and confined himself
to the study of his subject; with this view in 1834 he went for
several months to Germany. Every session he altered and added
to his lectures so much as almost to write them anew. His full
course was one of three years, the first year's lectures embracing
the history of the Church down to Constantine; the second year's,
that of the rise of the Papal power down to the thirteenth cen-
tury; the third, that of the subsequent fortunes of the Papacy and
of the Reformation in most of the countries of Europe.
He em-
bodied the best results of German investigations, and he diligently
examined his class both orally and in writing. His Students were
interested and stimulated, and a proof of this exists in the Edin-
burgh Academic Annual for 1840, to which Mr. James Dodds
(now Free Church Minister of Dunbar) contributed a solid and
well-written paper “On the Study of Church History," reflecting
the teaching of Dr. Welsh, whose class Mr. Dodds had recently
attended.
Welsh, though free from parish duty, became a constant and
prominent member in the General Assembly, and obtained from
Government the appointment of the Bible Board for Scotland, of
which he was the first Secretary. Being Moderator in 1842, it
fell to him in April 1843 to open the Assembly, to read the
“Protest” of the Free Church party, and to head the exodus of
Ministers who, on that historical occasion, marched out of St.
Andrew's Church to the hall where they constituted themselves
the General Assembly of a new-born Church. Welsh, though in
weak and shattered health, went through the trying and momentous
scene with dignity and spirit. Thereafter he resigned his Chair
in the University, to the great regret of the Senatus.
greatly instrumental in founding “New College,” in which he
became, of course, Professor of Church History. In 1844 he
published his Elements of Church History, being a first instalment
of a never completed work. He also projected, and became first
editor of, the North British Review ; but he died in 1845.1
(9) JAMES ROBERTSON, 1844-1860, succeeded Dr. Welsh,
when the Disruption had carried him off, in the Chair of Church
He was
I
1 The above particulars are chiefly from a Memoir of Dr. Welsh by A.
Dunlop, Esq., Advocate, prefixed to a posthumous volume of his sermons
(1846).
312
[1861.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
66
Histortmand in the Secretaryship to the Bible Board. Robertson
was educated at Marischall College, became Head-Master of
Gordon's Hospital, Aberdeen, and afterwards obtained the living
of Ellon. He was long known in the General Assembly, where
he was a powerful debater, as “Robertson of Ellon.” He was
described as “an admirable specimen of the acute, clear-headed,
business-like Scottish character.” His name is chiefly associated
with the Extension Scheme of the Church of Scotland, for which
he worked with so much energy as to raise half a million of money
for the object in view. He was always greatly interested in the
currency question ; he began his career by a pamphlet on the
subject, and shortly before his death read an elaborate paper on
it before the Social Science Meeting at Glasgow. When made
Professor of Church History in his forty-first year, he turned from
practical matters to the zealous study of his subject. He used to
dictate his lectures to an amanuensis till after midnight, and then
rose at four o'clock to go on with his investigations, with a view
to which he learned German for the first time. He began his
course (which extended over four years) with Abraham, and
carried it down to Luther. He had a loving spirit, and treated
even the heretics with indulgence, as having something good
about them. The idea pervading his course appears to have been
that of a continuous development in the education of the human
race, though he did not push this idea so far as Lessing Dr.
Robertson had long over-taxed his powers; he died at the age
of fifty-seven,
(10) WILLIAM STEVENSON, 1861-1872, was a bibliophilist, and
a "book-minded,” scholarly, and learned man, though his learn-
ing was rather of the antiquarian kind which delights in minutia.
He was brought from the Ministry of North Leith, in his fifty-
sixth year, to the Chair of Ecclesiastical History. As Professor,
"he chose the method of taking in each Session a limited period
in the Church's history and illustrating this in the most minute
. Every heresy or controversy that had cropped up in
the period selected received due attention, and was illustrated
by rare works which Stevenson had collected for the purpose.
а.
manner.
1 The above imperfect account is taken from an Obituary Notice in the
Proceedings of R.S.E., 1861, and from Professor Charteris' Life of the Rev.
Tames Robertson, D.D., etc. (1863).
1707.]
313
PROFESSORS OF PUBLIC LAW.
1
n
In his first session the period embraced in his lectures was only
from A.D. 30 to 100."1 A good deal might be said both for and
against this mode of lecturing to Students on Church History.
It had the effect of obliging the Professor to write new lectures
for each year; he sometimes wrote seventy new lectures in one
session, in which a great deal of curious information was
embodied. Having ample means, he amassed a considerable
library. His only printed work was one on The Legends and
Commemorative Celebrations of St. Kentigern, his Friends and
Disciples (1872). He associated himself keenly in some of the
archæological investigations of Sir James Simpson. He was an
active member of the Library Committee of the University, and
was always distinguished by the urbanity of his manner. On
his resignation from failing health (11) ROBERT WALLACE,
Minister of Greyfriars, was appointed; but in 1876 he went off
into other pursuits, and was succeeded by (12) MALCOLM C.
TAYLOR, the present Professor of Divinity and Church History.
IX.-REGIUS PROFESSORS OF PUBLIC LAW AND THE LAW
OF NATURE AND NATIONS.
In 1707 (see Vol. I. p. 232) a second Regius Professorship
was added to the College of Edinburgh by Queen Anne. The
endowment for this Chair was provided by the suppression of
fifteen out of twenty Divinity Bursaries which had been created
by William III. from Bishops' teinds. " It now becomes of
more use and benefit to our ancient Kingdom,” said Queen Anne,
- to establish and settle a foundation for a Professor of the
Public Law and the Law of Nature and Nations." Accordingly
(1) CHARLES ARESKINE, son of Sir Charles Areskine of Alva,
was appointed Professor. He had previously been made Regent
of Philosophy (1701), when twenty years old. Great obscurity
hangs over the circumstances of this creation and appointment.
On the one hand we find a certain amount of interest shown by
Students in the College in lectures upon the Law of Nature and
Nations, and this may have led Carstares to recommend, or
.
1 From the Obituary Notice of Professor Stevenson by Mr. Small in the
Proceedings of R.S.E., viii. p. 314.
314
[1762.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
approve, the establishment of a Chair of those subjects with
Public Law added. On the other hand, the whole thing may
have been, as Dalzel suggests, a job, carried through by Areskine's
influence with Archibald, Earl of Islay (afterwards Duke of
Argyll), then High Treasurer of Scotland. 1 It must be said that
the latter view is favoured by the way in which the Chair was
used by Areskine as soon as he had obtained it. A brief in-
augural address by him remains, written in Latin, upon God as
the fountain of Law, but there is no other evidence of his having
taught. He apparently used the salary of his Professorship as a
means of studying Law at Utrecht, and so qualifying himself for
the Scottish Bar. He was admitted Advocate in 1711, and
though he immediately obtained considerable success in his pro-
fession, he still appears to have spent much of his time on the
Continent. By being abroad in 1715 he avoided being drawn
into the Jacobite rising, which several of his relatives took part
in. He travelled about a great deal with his brother, Robert
Areskine, physician to Peter the Great, and he wrote in joke
to his wife that “she must be thinking he has taken service with
the Czar of Muscovy."! At home he rose successively to be
Solicitor-General, Lord Advocate, Judge (under the title of Lord
Tinwald), and in 1748 Lord Justice Clerk. He died highly
respected in 1762.
The Chair of Public Law and the Law of Nature and Nations
was more richly endowed than any other in the University ;
certain specific Bishops' rents having been allocated to it, the
salary of the Chair often rose to be more than £300 a year.
But the example of the first Professor, who held it for twenty-seven
years without doing anything in it, was frequently followed after-
wards. The Chair came to be looked upon as a sinecure, and
was bought and sold, the Lord Advocate for the time being lend-
ing himself to these arrangements, and conferring the appoint-
ment upon the person who was willing to buy out an existing
Professor.
(2) In 1734, on Areskine's resignation, WILLIAM KIRK-
PATRICK succeeded him, but he only held the Chair for one year,
2
i Compare Bower, vol. ii. p. 67.
2 These particulars were kindly communicated by A. Erskine Murray, Esq.,
Sheriff-Substitute of Lanark, a descendant of Lord Tinwald's.
1780.]
315
PROFESSORS OF PUBLIC LAW.
and from MS. letters in possession of the R.S.E. from Hume to
Adam Smith and to Dr. Jardine, we learn that he sold it for
£1000 to the next Professor, Abercromby.
(3) From 1735 to 1759 GEORGE ABERCROMBY of Tullibody
was Professor of Public Law, and in 1741, as we have seen (Vol.
I. p. 289), was lecturing on Grotius' De Jure Belli et Pacis. He
was father of Sir Ralph Abercromby, and ancestor of the present
Lord Abercromby. Hume, in 1858, wanted Adam Smith to pur-
chase the Chair for £1000, but this was not done, and in 1759,
Abercromby made it over to his son-in-law (4) ROBERT BRUCE,
who was Professor for five years, and afterwards became a Judge
under the title of Lord Kennet. He was great-great-grandfather
to the present Lord Balfour of Burleigh.
In 1764 Dr. Hugh Blair, the Professor of Rhetoric, wrote to
David Hume (then in Paris): "In our College we are making a
great improvement. In consequence of a bargain made with
James Russell, Bruce, the Professor of the Law of Nature and
Nations, goes out, Balfour of Pilrig moves into his place,
Ferguson into the Chair of Moral Philosophy, and Russell into
that of Natural. Is not this clever?" 1
The transaction thus described by Blair evidently required
the connivance, not only of the Lord Advocate, but also of the
Town Council. The Chair of Public Law, etc., was evidently
regarded as a convenient shelf for an inefficient Professor of
Moral Philosophy. It would not matter if an incompetent man
were put into a Chair which was a sinecure, while it would be a
great advantage to put Adam Ferguson into the Chair of Moral
Philosophy. Probably both Russell and Balfour contributed to
buy out Bruce, and Russell got the Professorship of Natural
Philosophy.
(5) JAMES BALFOUR held the Chair of Public Law, etc., for
fifteen years. For this appointment he had the qualification of
being an Advocate, and of having studied to some extent Ethical
Philosophy. But whether or not he lectured is not known. In
1779 he sold the Professorship to (6) ALLAN MACONOCHIE, after-
wards Judge under the title of Lord Meadowbank, among whose
papers the following document has been found:“ Edin: March
3, 1780. I hereby acknowledge to have recd. from Mr. Allan
1 MS. letter in possession of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
316
[1826.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
a
Maconochie two bills payable to me in April next for a sum
amounting in whole to a hundred and ten pounds sterling, as
also another bill for four hundred and twelve pounds eighteen
shillings and two pence sterling payable first of December next,
which bills, together with a thousand pounds sterling already paid
by him, are in full of the price to be paid by him for my Pro-
fessorship, according to our agreement, and the same is accord-
ingly discharged by me.
JAS. BALFOUR.”
Thus Maconochie paid to Balfour for the Chair of Public Law
£1522 : 18:2, being about five years' purchase of the salary if
it then amounted to £300. Maconochie held the Chair for
seventeen years, and he certainly lectured with no want of ability,
but without succeeding in attracting a class. Mr. (afterwards
Lord) Jeffrey told the Commissioners of 1826, in reference to
the class of the Law of Nature and Nations : “It was taught by
a succession of able persons in this University, among others by
the late Lord Meadowbank, than whom no man was more full of
discursive knowledge and originality; yet in his hands, as well
as those of his successors, it proved in practice a complete failure,
so that they could hardly get through the course with a larger
attendance than is now round the table of the Commissioners."
Bower 1 tells us that Maconochie only lectured for two sessions,
owing to the extensive increase of his practice at the Bar.
In fact, the Class of Public Law, etc., seems to have held a
position in the University similar to that of Civil History. It
was regarded as a dilettante class, capable of being made interest-
ing, but neither necessary for any form of graduation nor likely
to be serviceable for the ends of professional life. It could only
have been made attractive to the Students by a man of genius,
who devoted himself to expounding the philosophy of Law.
Whereas the Chair was held by a succession of Advocates who
were engaged in successfully pushing their way to the Scottish
Bench, and who naturally treated their Academical position and
duties as of minor importance. It is no wonder, then, that the
Class was a failure.
When Jeffrey spoke of “the successors” of Lord Meadow-
bank he spoke inaccurately, for Lord Meadowbank, down to
1826 had only one successor. This was (7) ROBERT HAMILTON,
1 Vol. iii. p. 215.
1
1708.]
317
PROFESSORS OF HUMANITY.
a Principal Clerk of Session, who held the Chair from 1796 to
1831, treating it as a complete sinecure, and never lecturing.
Yet as the teinds belonging to the Professorship had now run low,
he succeeded in persuading the Government to give him com-
pensation in the shape of a consolidated annuity of £200.1 On
Hamilton's death the Crown made no new appointment to the
Chair, which accordingly dropped out of existence until it was
revived by the Commissioners of 1858-1862, who ordained that
" the Professor of Public Law shall deliver a course of not less
than forty lectures on International Law during the Winter Session
of the University yearly, and to the Professorship shall be attached
a salary of £250 to be annually voted by Parliament.” On the
15th May 1862 a Commission of Queen Victoria appointed (8)
JAMES LORIMER; and his class, being necessary for the LL.B.
degree, has been well attended ever since. In 1881 the Senatus
Academicus successfully pleaded before the Court of Session that
£150 per annum of Bishops' rents should be restored to the
salary of the Chair in addition to the Parliamentary vote.
X.-PROFESSORS OF HUMANITY.
In 1708 (Vol. I. p. 262) the great reorganisation of the Arts
Faculty took place, by which the Regent of Humanity was turned
into a Professor, and the four Regents of Philosophy were re-
spectively made Professors of Greek, Logic, Natural Philosophy,
and Moral Philosophy. At the time when this change was made
LAURENCE DUNDAS was Regent of Humanity, a post which he had
held since 1690. He now became the first Professor of Human-
ity (i.e. Latin), and held the new Chair for twenty years. In his
first class (1709-10) he matriculated 69 Students, and continued
afterwards to have a class numbering between 50 and 60. He
1 The Barons of Exchequer, in recommending that this personal grant
should be made by the Treasury, said: “We think it our duty, however, to
inform your Lordships that (in consequence of circumstances in no manner con-
nected with Mr. Hamilton's qualifications for the proper discharge of the duties
of Professor of Public Law, but arising from the neglect of the study of that
branch of law in this country) no lectures have been read by that gentleman or
by his predecessors in that Chair for a considerable number of years.” Hamil-
ton was not examined before the Commission of 1826. He must have been an
old man then.
318
[1741.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
taught in the University altogether twenty-seven years “with
great reputation." In 1727 he proposed to resign in favour of
Adam Watt, son of his old friend, the City Clerk of Edinburgh.
Delegates from the Town Council and the College of Justice (see
Vol. I. p. 192) agreed to this proposal,“ provided that Mr. Watt
be found qualified,” which he was. Laurence Dundas died in
1734, leaving "a considerable fortune.” Among other legacies
he bequeathed gooo merks (£500) as a perpetual fund for
educating three bursars, with a preference to persons with the
surname of Dundas. The Professor was of good family. His
great-nephew, Sir Thomas, became Lord Dundas.1
(2) ADAM WATT, having been elected as above-mentioned,
held the Chair till his death in 1734. During Watt's last illness
“the notorious Lauder," who by forged Latin poems had tried to
fix a charge of plagiarism upon Milton, was employed to teach
the Humanity class, and he became a candidate for the Chair
when it was vacant; but the Delegates preferred (3) JOHN KER,
1734-1741, who was in many respects an interesting person.
About 1710 he had been made a Master in the High School of
Edinburgh, and in 1717 he was chosen to be the first Professor of
Greek in King's College, Aberdeen, He was an intimate friend
of Dr. Pitcairne, and wrote Latin poems on the subject of the
Doctor's death. In 1725 he published Donaides, celebrating
some of those who had been educated in King's College. Bower
says that no copy of this poem can be found. In 1727 he pro-
duced a Latin version of the Song of Solomon. In 1734 he came
back to Edinburgh, advanced in age, to take the Chair of
Humanity, which he held for only seven years. His programme
of classes for 1741 was given above (Vol. I. p. 266). He died
in the latter part of that same year. Dr. A. Carlyle, as we saw
(Vol. I. p. 275), spoke highly of his efficiency as a teacher. He
was one of those who promoted a revival of Latin in Scotland at
the beginning of last century. In 1658 Leighton had complained
of its decadence.
(4) The Chair of Humanity was next held by GEORGE
STUART, 1741-1775 The City Register contains an amusing
story of his election. There were two candidates for the Chair,
i Dalzel, p. 338.
2 These particulars are from Bower, vol. ii. pp. 296-304.
2
a
1805.]
319
PROFESSORS OF HUMANITY.
2
a Mr. Foulis and Stuart, and these two were waiting in an ante-
chamber of the Advocates' Library to be summoned to a competi-
tive trial before the Delegates, when they “ agreed to transmit a
message to the electors, stating that each believed the other to be
qualified, and that they were rather inclined to refer it to their own
choice, without putting them to additional trouble.” The candi-
dates thus escaped the ordeal of examination (which must always
be irksome to a man in mature life), and Stuart was elected. Of
him George Chalmers says 1 that "after thirty years' labour he
had finished a Latin Dictionary, which is more copious than
Ainsworth's and more elaborate than Littleton's.” Bower, how-
ever,- tells us that “a new edition of Ainsworth which had just
been published prevented him from going to press” with it. His
long labour was probably not thrown away; it must have borne
fruit in his class, where Bower says that “he strained every nerve
to kindle in the minds of the youth the same passionate admira-
tion of the writings of the classics which he himself possessed in
so eminent a degree.” He seems to have been a powerful lec-
turer; Dalzel (Scots Magazine, 1802) says "he might have been
characterised in the words which Scaliger applied to Juvenal,
Ardet, instat, jugulat.” He was father to the celebrated Dr.
Gilbert Stuart.
In 1775 Professor Stuart, under sanction of the Town Council,
made a bargain with (5) Dr. John Hili, by which the former was
to receive the whole salary and part of the fees of the Chair of
Humanity, and the latter was to do all the work as joint Professor,
and to succeed to the Chair on Stuart's death. Stuart, however,
contrived to live eighteen years afterwards. Hill had previously
been Professor of Humanity at St. Andrews; he held the Chair
in Edinburgh till 1805. In his senior class he used, besides
reading Latin authors, to give two lectures a week on Roman
antiquities. And he published a large work on Latin Synonymes.
In teaching he took great pains to discriminate nice shades of
difference in Latin words. He wrote a Life of Dr. Hugh Blair,
which appeared posthumously in 1807. He was said to have
had a great flow of spirits, and to have been “an excellent
punster."y
1 Life of Ruddiman, p. 60.
2 Vol. ii. p. 336.
.
3 The above particulars are from Bower, vol. iii. pp. 188, 189.
320
[1820.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY,
1
I
(6) ALEXANDER CHRISTISON, 1806-1820. This worthy father
6
of a distinguished son was one of the instances, so numerous in
the history of Scotland, of native intellect, combined with force
of character, and aided by the parochial school and University
system of the country, forcing its way out of disadvantageous cir-
cumstances into the higher walks of life. Alexander Christison,
having got the rudiments of Latin at a parish school in Berwick-
shire, was, for the rest, chiefly self-educated, till about his twentieth
year, when he was deemed fit himself to be made parish school-
master, first of Auldcambus, and then of Edrom.
In his twenty-
second year he came to the University of Edinburgh as a Student
about the time of Hill's beginning to teach (1775). He did not
graduate, that not being the fashion, but was highly distinguished
as a Scholar, which led to his being appointed one of the Masters
in George Watson's Hospital, afterwards Master of the Dalkeith
Grammar School, and in 1785 Master in the High School of
Edinburgh. Here he left his mark; for by a pamphlet which
he published on the subject, he procured the teaching of Greek
in the school for boys in their fourth year. This very proper
arrangement had always been, and was still, resisted by the
University as an infringement of their monopoly. But it was
now at last carried through. Christison had such reputation as
a teacher in the High School that on Hill's death he was unani-
mously chosen Professor of Humanity by the Delegates. There
had been no other candidate, but Dr. Adam, Rector of the High
School, told Bower 2 that he was disappointed that the Chair had
not been offered to him. Christison was a most conscientious
Professor, and he was said to have illustrated his lectures very
widely from the general stores of literature and science which
he had accumulated. Sir Robert Christison says of him :
“At a late period of life my father betook himself ardently to
mathematical study, which became ever afterwards his main
relaxation from his classical and professorial labours. In the
course of a few years he made himself known as one of the most
profound amateur mathematicians in Scotland." This not only
serves to show the great activity of Alexander Christison's intellect,
but it also seems to indicate that the bent of his mind was rather
2
a
1 In 1806, on his appointment as Professor, he was made Honorary M.A.
2 Hist. Un. Ed., vol. iii. p. 300.
1820.]
321
PROFESSORS OF HUMANITY.
in the direction of science than scholarship, though circumstances
made him Professor of Humanity. Sir Robert mentions that
when he and his twin brother were attending the University his
father 66
was rather shy in drawing out his two sons” in the Latin
class; and he publicly intimated that they were not to compete
for the annual prizes. Sir Robert calculates that his father had
sacrificed at least £1000 during fifteen years, “through an amiable
weakness," by giving free class-tickets to any one who chose to
ask. Sir Robert was proud of his father's original descent from
some Norwegian pirate or Viking (the name Christison not being
Scotch but Scandinavian), and said that his father was “a genuine
Scandinavian in frame," and had been reputed “the strongest
man in his parish.”
(7) JAMES PILLANS, 1820-1863, was a character widely known
and respected in Scotland. He was a born teacher and educa-
tionist; he used to say that he was never perfectly happy except
when teaching; he loved his pupils, and their name was legion ;
and as he remained for forty-three years Professor of Humanity
he was able towards the end of that time to count up with pride
the number of his colleagues in the Senatus who had been his
pupils. Born in 1779 he was second in the High School of
Edinburgh to Francis Horner. After going through the University
course he had various private engagements as tutor, and in this
capacity was settled for some time at Eton, where he had an
opportunity of studying the English public school system. The
result of this experience, which he brought back with him to
Scotland, was an appreciation of the educational value of Greek
and Latin verse-making. Both as Rector of the High School
and as Professor in the University, he cultivated this accom-
plishment in his pupils. We have already mentioned (p. 84) the
scholarship of John Brown Patterson as a product of the method
of Pillans. On the other hand, Pillans discerned a narrowness
and barrenness in the Eton mode of teaching the classics. His
own prelections in the University comprised Literature, Ancient
Art, History, and Geography, with Grammar, often treated as
Universal Grammar. Thus there was a richness and manliness
about his teaching quite above what is supposed to be the
method of a schoolmaster. And yet it was perhaps as a school-
master and an educationist that Pillans won his greatest fame.
VOL. II.
Y
322
(1708.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
On the death of Dr. Adam in 1809 he was made Rector of the
High School, by the advice of Francis Horner and President
Blair. And for ten years he was so successful in his teaching
and management of the school that foreigners came to Edinburgh
expressly to visit his classes. On the death of Professor Christison
he succeeded him in the Chair of Humanity, and no Professor
ever made greater exertions for his class than Pillans did. He
drew largely on his moderate resources for the purchase of maps
and engravings for the illustration of ancient Geography and Art,
and for providing Medals to be competed for by his Students.
And he spent £200 or £300 on establishing a Class Library.
He did not aim at making exact critical Scholars, for becoming
which the previous preparation of most of his class did not qualify
them. But his old pupils look back to Pillans' class-room as their
first and best school of literary culture, a school of literæ humani-
ores in the best sense.
Outside the University he did much good by promoting
educational reform in Scotland. He was one of the first to
advocate Governmental inspection of schools and the institution
of Normal Seminaries. He had entirely superseded the use of
corporal punishment in his own class in the High School, and he
did much towards promoting in Scotland humane views of school
discipline. His most important papers on these subjects have
been collected in a volume entitled Contributions to the Cause of
Education. On his retirement from his Chair, in 1863, at the
1
age of eighty-four, (8) WILLIAM YOUNG SELLAR, the present
Professor of Humanity, was appointed.
XI.- PROFESSORS OF GREEK.
(1) WILLIAM Scott, 1708-1729.
We have seen above
(Vol. I. pp. 233, 260) that this person, who had been Regent in
the College from 1695, lectured on the Law of Nature and
Nations in 1706, and failing to obtain the Chair of that subject
in 1707, received a Royal patent to be sole teacher of Greek,
which patent gave rise to the abolition of the Regenting system,
1 The substance of the above account of Pillans has been kindly furnished
by Professor Laurie.
1772.]
323
PROFESSORS OF GREEK.
and the establishment of Professors of separate subjects in the
Faculty of Arts. William Scott then was made the first Pro-
fessor of Greek, and he held the Chair for twenty-one years.
The average number of students attending his class, as also that
of each of the other Professors, appears to have been about fifty.
Of his teaching nothing is recorded. In 1729, on the death
of Law, the Professor of Ethics, Scott claimed to succeed
to the vacant Chair, which by the Act of 1708 he was entitled
to do.
(2) His son, WILLIAM SCOTT secundus, after trial before
Hamilton, the Professor of Divinity; Charles Areskine, Professor
of Public Law, and then Solicitor-General; and Colin Drummond,
the Professor of Logic, was then appointed Professor of Greek,
but he died within a year.
(3) COLIN DRUMMOND, 1730-1738, was of the family of
Megginch, and related to George Drummond He had been
made Regent in 1707, and next year got the new Chair of Logic.
On the death of William Scott secundus, he decided to make a
change, and so claimed the Greek Chair, In 1734 he petitioned
.
the Town Council to enforce the rule laid down by the Univer-
sities' Commission of 1699, and make attendance on the Greek
class compulsory. But they declined to do so as long as the rule
was not enforced in Glasgow. Drummond also made a complaint
that the other Professors infringed his monopoly by giving
"colleges " in Greek. Dr. A. Carlyle described Drummond as
having been in 1735 an infirm old man who "used substitutes.”
In 1738 Robert Law was appointed joint Professor of Greek to
do the work of the class, and Drummond then confined himself
to the light labour of “teaching the students of Chirurgery,
Anatomy, or Medicine such Greek books as relate to their busi-
ness only” (see above Vol. I. p. 266). Law, who had never
become Professor, died of consumption in 1741. And then (4)
ROBERT HUNTER was appointed joint Professor in his place.
Hunter ultimately succeeded to the Chair, and held it till 1772.
Hunter, it was said, had "given proof of his qualifications by
teaching Greek privately within this city with great applause."
He had to give up all the salary of the Chair to Drummond, and
in 1745, on his representing that the fees of his class were not
equal to what he had made by private teaching, the Town Coun-
324
[1772.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
2
cil allowed him 400 merks a year till Drummond's death. They
also allotted him seven chambers in the College buildings, on
condition that he should spend £50 on repairing them. He
was said to have taken “particular care that the Students should
be well grounded in the elements, the generality of young men
who entered the first Greek class possessing no previous know-
ledge of the language."1 Dr. Somerville, however, put this in
a less complimentary way, saying of Hunter that “his method of
teaching did not differ materially from that of most country
schoolmasters.” We learn from Dalzel (Scots Magazine, 1802)
that Hunter, curiously enough, used to spend the first six weeks
of the session in reading Latin with his class (generally Livy and
Lucan), as if the session were too long to be spent in Greek !
But Latin was his forte; Dalzel thought him a “much more
accurate and profound” Latin scholar than Stuart, the Professor
of Humanity. In 1772 Hunter sold his Chair to (5) ANDREW
DALZEL for £300 and a liferent of the salary. The Town
Council, sanctioning this arrangement, gave Dalzel a commission
as joint Professor on the 21st December 1772. It may be
observed that on the 14th November previously Principal Robert-
son had protested against Dr. Adam, Rector of the High School,
being allowed to open a class for teaching the elements of the
Greek language. He and the Senatus claimed that the High
School should continue to be only a Latin school. This protest
appears to have been prompted by Hunter, and to have been his
farewell contribution to the Chair of Greek. The Town Council,
however, declined to interfere with Adam's teaching Greek
grammar to his own class, and Alexander Christison, as we have
seen (p. 317), got this extended to all High School boys in their
fourth year.
The circumstances of Dalzel's appointment form a strange
contrast to the election of a Professor of Greek in the University
of Edinburgh at the present day. The patrons then did not look
for a specialist; they allowed one who bore a good character as
having been a hard-working and able Student in the University,
and who, as tutor in the family of Lord Lauderdale, had probably
been influentially recommended, to make a bargain and step into
the Chair. They only required that he should show himself to
1 Bower, vol. ii. p. 332.
· Life and Times, p. II.
a
1784.]
325
PROFESSORS OF GREEK.
be decently qualified to succeed a Professor like Hunter. AC-
cordingly a week before the date of his commission Dalzel (aged
twenty-nine) was examined "in Latin as well as Greek" by Pro-
fessors Hamilton (Divinity), Stuart (Humanity), and Ferguson
(Moral Philosophy), and pronounced competent. Dalzel held
the Chair for thirty-four years (1772-1806), and during that time
he was not only a very successful and highly esteemed Professor,
but he conferred great honour on the University by doing some-
thing to raise the study of Greek in Scotland. He devoted him-
self to his subject, and during many years was engaged in pro-
ducing his Collectanea Græca, consisting of annotated selections
from the Greek authors, which, being the first work of the kind,
was greatly welcomed by scholars and educationists, especially in
England. The prose volume of this collection was published in
1785. In the preface Dalzel said : " Labor quidem humilis, laus
“
vero non item, si modo hoc opusculum vel tantulum conferre valuerit
ad studium promovendum Græcarum literarum, quibus apud nos
deficientibus, cito deficiet omnis doctrina politior; iisdem vigentibus,
omnes etiam artes quæ ad humanitatem pertinent una vigebunt.”
Polite letters and taste in Scotland had certainly suffered from
the neglect of Hellenic culture. And wise men, even if not them-
selves scholars, hailed an attempt to resuscitate these studies.
Thus the aged Dr. Alexander Monro primus, was heard to observe
that “Mr. Dalzel had more to brag of than any man in the
College, for Greek was going fast down-hill till he revived it."
Dalzel's Collectanea obtained so much attention that they brought
him into correspondence with many great English and foreign
scholars. The interesting memoir of him by Cosmo Innes gives
several of the letters which he received from Böttiger, Heyre,
Porson, Parr, Cyril Jackson, etc. The Edinburgh Greek scholar
was in fact recognised as belonging to the European con-
fraternity.
Besides his own speedily-acquired reputation, Dalzel had the
advantage of holding his Chair during the up-spring of the Uni-
versity under Robertson. In 1784 he wrote: "I have at present
about 180 students attending me, which is the greatest Greek
class ever was heard of since the foundation of our College."
He was then full Professor, but his emoluments were only about
£400 and a house,-- or rather quarters in the Gate-tower, which
326
[1799.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
was pulled down to make way for the new buildings in 1790.
Lord Cockburn, who had attended Dalzel's class, said that "At
the mere teaching of a language to boys, he was ineffective.-
Nevertheless, though not a good schoolmaster, it is a duty, and
delightful, to record Dalzel's value as a general exciter of boys'
minds. He could never make us actively laborious. But when
we sat passive and listened to him, he inspired us with a vague
but sincere ambition of literature, and with delicious dreams of
virtue and poetry.”
In 1785 Dalzel was made Librarian of the University, and
Secretary to the Senatus Academicus. In both offices he rendered
valuable services for many years. In 1788 he was elected Clerk
to the General Assembly, after a severe contest for the post
between himself and Dr, A. Carlyle of Inveresk, “When the
vote of the Assembly was first taken, Dr. Carlyle counted 145,
while Dalzel had only 142; and the Doctor, ever confident and
ready, took his place as Clerk, and delivered an address of triumph.
But on a scrutiny his small majority melted away, and the dis-
puted office was declared to be Dalzel's."1 Cockburn said that
Dalzel, as Clerk to the General Assembly, "was long one of the
curiosities of that strange place. He was too innocent for it."
He was said to have partly owed his success in the election to
the fact of his being the son-in-law of the popular Dr. Drysdale.
In all relations of life Dalzel was charming, and his letters to his
old College friend, afterwards Sir Robert Liston and Ambassador
at many of the Courts of Europe, give a pleasing picture of
Edinburgh University life at the close of the last century. With
Dugald Stewart Dalzel lived in the most intimate relations of
friendship In 1799 Dalzel set himself to write the history of
the University, for which he had special advantages as Librarian
and Keeper of the archives. He corresponded with various
people about the sources of general and constitutional history of
Universities, and he "plainly intended,” says Cosmo Innes, “to
make his work a systematic history, something very different from
the collection of 'Annals,' which alone he has left us." The
curious thing is that in what he wrote there was no attempt to
trace or explain the remarkable constitutional forms of the
University of Edinburgh. But the work was a mere fragment,
1 Cosmo Innes' Memoir, p. 76.
>
1882.]
327
PROFESSORS OF GREEK.
a
a
and was probably only intended to serve as notes for a continuous
history. Dalzel died in 1806, and his MS., with a few annotations
added, was brought out by David Laing in 1862. It serves now
as a book of reference, being a repertory of extracts from the
City Register and the University Records given in chronological
order.
(6) GEORGE DUNBAR, 1806-1852. As Zeno of Citium was
“cast upon the shores of philosophy," when, having been ship-
wrecked on the coast of Attica, he was changed from being a
merchant into the founder of the Stoic school, --so Dunbar may
be said to have fallen out of a tree into the Greek Chair. For
it was by some such accident, which disabled him from continuing
his original profession as a gardener, that he was led to come to
the University in his twentieth year (1795). Having been an
industrious and successful Student there, and having become a
Licentiate of the Church, he was made tutor to the son of Sir
William Fettes, Lord Provost, by whose patronage and favour it
was that he was chosen as assistant and successor to Dalzel in
1805. Dunbar held the Chair of Greek for forty-six years, and
was a laborious Professor.
Those who had only the Greek
lexicon of Schrevelius to assist them must have appreciated the
service done for them by Dunbar in producing his Lexicon of the
Greek language. Unfortunately, however, for him, his work,
when in its second edition, was eclipsed by the splendid work of
Liddell and Scott. Dunbar's English-Greek Lexicon remains
perhaps still unsurpassed; in preparing this he was assisted by
the learned Dr. Veitch. Dunbar's Students complained that he
brought out too many volumes of Extracts, which they had to
buy. Gillies, the “Literary Veteran," described Dunbar's class
at eight o'clock on a winter's morning, when "the good Professor
sat with pale composed visage betwixt his two dingy tallow
candles," while “snores and yawns, with practical jokes of diverse
kinds, wore through the long hour." Dunbar was a conscientious
”
worker. He died at the end of 1851, and was succeeded by
(7) JOHN STUART BLACKIE, 1852-1882, on whose retirement
(8) SAMUEL HENRY BUTCHER, the present Professor of Greek,
was appointed
328
[1741.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
XII.-PROFESSORS OF LOGIC AND METAPHYSICS.
.
(1) COLIN DRUMMOND, 1708-1730, of whom we have given
some particulars above (p. 323), was the first to hold this Chair.
He had been Regent of Philosophy for a year previously, and he
brought to the Chair the qualifications of a Regent, namely a
knowledge of the subjects of the old curriculum, without any
special aptitude for the province assigned to him. It is probable
that Colin Drummond taught Logic and Metaphysics according to
the old tradition of the College of Edinburgh, tempering Scholas-
ticism with Ramism. How far any of the modern spirit, which
was beginning to move in Edinburgh, was caught by Drummond,
we know not. But he belonged to the Rankenian Club, founded
in 1717, among the members of which that spirit was fostered.
It is probable that David Hume (aged fourteen) was Drummond's
Student in 1725. And Hume says that the principles of the scep-
tical philosophy were in his mind soon after that date; possibly they
arose from a reaction against his teacher. As if tired of Meta-
physics, after twenty-two years of them, Drummond, in 1730, as
we have seen, got himself transferred to the Chair of Greek.
With (2) JOHN STEVENSON, LL.D., 1730-1775, new blood
was brought into the Arts Faculty, he not having served as a
Regent; and, indeed, his name does not appear among the Edin-
burgh M.A.'s. His antecedents are not known, except that
when elected Professor he was tutor in the family of Mr.
Hamilton of Bargenie. Wherever he may have acquired it, he
showed himself to be possessed by the modern spirit; and
though he had no original or speculative genius, he was receptive
and appreciative of what was new. He introduced Locke's
Philosophy into Edinburgh (see the programme of his lectures
for 1741, quoted above, Vol. I. p. 273), taking as one of his
text-books Bishop Wynne's Abridgment of the Essay on Human
Nature. And when he was more than seventy years old he
delivered to his Students an analysis of Reid's Enquiry into the
Human Mind, published in 1764. Principal Lee stated before
the Commission of 1826 that “the Logic of Aristotle has scarcely
been a subject? of lecture in Edinburgh since the year 1730."
1 This was, of course, previous to Sir W. Hamilton's appointment to the
Chair.
1762.]
329
PROFESSORS OF LOGIC.
S
This was due at the outset to Stevenson, who substituted Heinec-
cius and Locke for the Organon or Ramus, and in Metaphysics
took as his text-book the Ontologia of De Vries. He introduced
into the University a valuable novelty in the shape of lectures
on the history of Philosophy, which he drew from Heineccius'
Historia Philosophica, illustrated by Stanley and afterwards by
Brucker. In all this there was much trace of the Dutch schools,
and we are led to imagine that Stevenson must have had a foreign
education.
But the most important and fruitful part of Stevenson's work was
that which he did as teacher of Rhetoric, which subject, though
not named in his title, was considered to belong to his Chair.
At eight o'clock every morning he read with his class Aristotle's
Poetic and Longinus On the Sublime. But those works served
only as a basis for treating of the principles of criticism. He
added to them copious extracts “from the prose discourses and
prefaces of Dryden, Addison's papers in the Spectator, Bossu,
Dacier, and Pope's notes on Homer, so as greatly to delight and
instruct his hearers."1 These lectures had really an extraordinary
effect; they were delivered just at a period when a certain
aspiration after literature was beginning to be felt in Edinburgh,
when an intellectual revival, after the Covenanting dark age, was
in the air. And Stevenson's lectures on criticism gave an impetus
to that revival. Bower says2 that no Professor in Edinburgh ever
“ had the honour of training up so many young men to a love
of letters, who afterwards made a distinguished figure in the
literary world, as Stevenson.” We have already seen the testi-
mony of Dr. Carlyle, who was not lavish of praise, as to the
value of Stevenson's teaching (Vol
. I. p. 275). Still more striking
was the testimony of Principal Robertson, who thought that " he
owed more” to the illustrations of Longinus and of Aristotle's
Poetic "than to any other circumstance in his Academical studies.”
There is a pleasing story that in the first year of Robertson's
Principalship (1762) he visited the Logic class, and having
listened to the exercises, addressed the Students in Latin, telling
them how much advantage he in his youth had derived from the
teaching of Stevenson, and urging them to profit by the instruc-
tion of so valuable a master. “Immediately after the dismissal
“
1 Dalzel in the Scots Magazine, 1802.
2 Vol. ii. p. 280.
330
[1786.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
1
of the class, the aged Professor, unable any longer to suppress
his emotion, dissolved in tears of grateful affection, and fell on
the neck of his favourite pupil, now his Principal.”1 Among
Stevenson's Students had been Hugh Blair, who in 1762 was
appointed to a new and separate Chair of Rhetoric and Belles
Lettres. Not unnaturally, the veteran, who had succeeded in
this province so well, complained that it should be taken from
him.
It is a curious circumstance that the Commissioners of 1826-
1830, from what they had heard of the success of Stevenson's
Rhetoric class, recommended that Rhetoric should again be
joined with Logic, and the Chair of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres
abolished But this was, of course, not carried out. We know
that Stevenson's lectures on Logic were delivered in Latin, for
Dr. Somerville tells us that he found it hard to follow them on
account of their non-classical terminology. The lectures on
criticism, on the other hand, must have been delivered in English.
Stevenson continued the practice of Latin disputations in his
class. He was a very laborious as well as enlightened Professor.
He died at the age of eighty, never having married. And he
bequeathed his library to the University.
(3) JOHN BRUCE, 1775-1792, having been a distinguished
pupil at the High School, came to the University, and as a
Student there was one of the six (Allan Maconochie being
another) who, in 1764, founded the Speculative Society. Bruce
was then twenty years old. What he did for the next ten years is
not apparent, but in 1774 he was made joint Professor of Logic,
etc., with the aged Stevenson, and next year obtained the Chair.
In 1777 he published a Syllabus of his Course, calling it
First Principles of Philosophy for the use of Students, by John
Bruce, Professor of Philosophy 2 in the University of Edinburgh.
And in 1786 he brought out Elements of the Science of Ethics on
the principles of Natural Philosophy.3 Bruce, in his first session,
I
i Dalzel in the Scots Magazine, 1802.
% It will be observed that the Professors of Logic in those days made free
with the title of their Chair. We have seen (Vol. I. p. 273) that Stevenson
called himself “ Professor of Instrumental and Rational Philosophy."
3 In this book Bruce draws an analogy between the Moral Law and the
Law of Gravitation; the former he makes to consist in the uniformity of the
effect “ that the observation of rights is the source of enjoyment.”
1802.)
331
PROFESSORS OF LOGIC.
in addition to his own class, had taught the Moral Philosophy
class for Adam Ferguson, who was away on leave of absence,
travelling with his pupil the Earl of Chesterfield. Bruce's two
publications were the only works which emanated from the Logic
Chair at Edinburgh previous to the appointment of Sir William
Hamilton; though not profound, they were full of the modern in-
ductive spirit. John Bruce must have been a very able man. In
fact, he had abilities which opened to him a more lucrative career
than that of an Edinburgh Professor. Robert Dundas, afterwards
second Lord Melville, had been his private pupil while attending
the University, and thus he became well known to the Dundas
family. · The Right Hon. Henry Dundas, President of the Board
of Control, offered Bruce an appointment in that office. This
was accepted, and Bruce resigned his Chair in 1792,1 He
became Keeper of the State Paper Office, and Historiographer
to the East India Company. He wrote several valuable Reports
on Indian affairs, which were printed but not published. He
was for a short time Secretary to the Board of Control, and sat
in Parliament for six years. He died at his estate of Falkland
in Fifeshire in 1826.
(4) JAMES FINLAYSON, 1792-1808. For several years
before his ultimate resignation Bruce's attendance upon his class
had been very irregular, owing to his travelling abroad with his
pupil, Robert Dundas. The Town Council, looking out for some
one to take his place, at last chose Finlayson, who had been
educated in the University of Glasgow, had been tutor in the
family of Sir W. Murray of Ochtertyre, and was seeking Church
preferment. In 1787 he was presented to the living of Borthwick,
twelve miles from Edinburgh, and at the same time was made
joint Professor of Logic. He subsequently was transferred to
Lady Yester's Church, and then to the Greyfriars', and finally to
St. Giles'. In 1802 he was Moderator of the General Assembly.
Bower 2 says that he was no orator, but acted
as chamber
1 In his letter of resignation to Principal Robertson, Bruce said: “May I
hope, sir, that you, under whose notice my efforts to discharge my duty to the
public more immediately fell, will upon this occasion recollect and express to
the Patrons of the University the approbation with which you have annually
honoured me?" This shows that Robertson annually visited the classes of
Professors and criticised their work.
2 Vol. iii. p. 272.
332
[1836.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
counsel” to the Assembly, being learned in the ecclesiastical
constitution of Scotland. His only publications were a pamphlet
On Chapels of Ease, and some sermons. He was greatly respected
for his piety and virtue, and when he died (prematurely), in 1808,
the Students of his class presented to the Senatus a portrait of
him which they had procured "as a testimony of their profound
respect for his memory.”
(5) DAVID RITCHIE, 1808-1836, who next held the Chair
for a period of twenty-eight years, was also a divine, being Minister
of St. Andrew's Church. Besides some sermons, he published
Lectures Explanatory and Practical on the Epistle to the Romans
(1831), 2 vols. 8vo. He was Moderator of the General Assembly
in 1814. In teaching his class he entirely omitted Metaphysics,
and he gave the Commissioners of 1826 the following synopsis
of his lectures on Logic, divided into four parts :-
ist. A description of the faculties by which we acquire the
elements of our knowledge.
2d. The theory of Evidence-Sense, Memory, Testimony,
Experience, Analogy, Mixed Mathematics, and the Calculation
of Chances.
3d. Reasoning-Syllogistic and Inductive, with a view of
Fallacies and Prejudices.
4th. Method --Analytic, Synthetical, and Socratic; and the
principles of interpreting written documents.
The Course concluding with the Theory of Language, or
Universal Grammar.
All which, if well taught, would be very useful as instruction
for youths, aged about sixteen or seventeen, though it was not
high philosophy. But perhaps it was not very well taught, as
Sir R. Christison records that the lectures did not interest him,
and that Dr. Ritchie, "a tall, big-boned, strong man, with a
powerful, rough voice, and great energy, though little polish, in
his delivery," was "more illustrious on the curling pond than in
the Professorial Chair."
(6) SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON, Bart., 1836-1856, was not only
very different from the Edinburgh Minister who had preceded
him, but was one who exercised a paramount influence in philo-
sophy throughout Scotland while he held the Chair, and whose
>
1836.]
333
PROFESSORS OF LOGIC.
a
I
writings at the same time gained him followers and stirred up
eminent opponents in England. Hamilton was son of a Professor
of Anatomy in Glasgow (who died young in 1790), and having
gained the Snell Exhibition in 1807, he proceeded to Balliol
College, Oxford, where he distinguished himself by his acquire-
ments in the classics, and chiefly in Aristotle, and obtained
brilliant first-class honours. He then settled in Edinburgh, and
in 1813 became an Advocate, but was too much called aside by
his passion for study to succeed in the profession of the Law.
In 1816 his historical investigations enabled him to make good
his claim to represent the ancient family of Hamilton of Preston,
and he took up the baronetcy, which had been dormant since
the death in 1701) of Sir Robert Hamilton, a Covenanting
leader. In 1820 he was defeated on political grounds by Wilson
in his candidature for the Chair of Moral Philosophy, but was
soon afterwards brought into the University to fill the then unim-
portant Chair of Civil History. Thomas Carlyle, in the Comely
Bank period of his existence, made the acquaintance of Hamilton,
and he speaks of him with an appreciation which he accorded to
very few; he mentions “the bright, affable manners of Sir William,
radiant with frank kindliness, honest humanity, and intelligence
ready to help ;" his “fine, firm figure of middle height; one of
the finest cheerfully serious human faces, of square, solid, yet
rather aquiline type;" of "his simple, independent, meditative
habits, ruggedly-athletic modes of exercise, fondness for his big
dog," etc. ; of his “strong, carelessly-melodious tenor voice, the
sound of it betokening seriousness and cheerfulness; occasionally
something of slightly remonstrative in the undertones, indicating
well in the background possibilities of virtuous wrath and fire;
seldom anything of laughter, of levity never anything; thoroughly
a serious, cheerful, sincere, and kindly voice, with looks corre-
sponding." In 1829 Hamilton's career of authorship began with
the appearance of the well-known essay "On the Philosophy of the
Conditioned,” the first of a series of articles contributed by him to
the Edinburgh Review, which attracted great attention, and made
Hamilton known on the Continent as the man of highest philo-
sophical genius and greatest philosophical learning in Britain.
When Hamilton returned from Oxford he was perhaps the only
man in Scotland who knew anything about Aristotle; to his
>
334
[1836.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
a
>
Oxford knowledge he proceeded to add the results of a voracious
reading of scholiasts and commentators upon Aristotle and mediæ-
val schoolmen, so that he acquired an almost unparalleled erudi-
tion in the history of Aristotelian philosophy. In the meanwhile
he was thinking out his own system, which he based upon Reid,
with whom he felt an intellectual affinity; and the great work of
his life was an elaborate edition of Reid's Works, with notes and
dissertations, which was begun about 1836, brought out in 1846 in
incomplete form, owing to his having been affected by paralysis,
and though subsequently added to, never finished.
Of the great
learning and acuteness of this work it is needless to speak.
On Dr. Ritchie's resignation of the Logic Chair, in 1836,
there were four candidates for the Chair—Isaac Taylor, author of
The Natural History of Enthusiasm ; Sir W. Hamilton ; George
Combe, the phrenologist; and Patrick Campbell Macdougall,
afterwards Professor of Moral Philosophy. The contest resolved
itself into one between the two first-named candidates, and HAMIL-
TON was elected by a majority of four votes over Taylor. The
testimonial given in his favour by M. Cousin greatly contributed
to this result; it was the testimonial of a philosophical antagonist,
but was so fair and just that the estimate of Hamilton's philosophy
which it contained may be taken as sufficient for this sketch.
After stating that he himself differed from Hamilton in thinking
that the human reason was not bound down by the restrictions an-
nounced in "The Philosophy of the Conditioned," and after paying
a high compliment to Scottish philosophy, M. Cousin proceeds:
“What characterises Sir William Hamilton is precisely the Scottish
intellect; and he is only attached to the philosophy of Reid and
Stewart because their philosophy is the Scottish intellect itself
applied to Metaphysics. Sir W. Hamilton never deviates from
the highway of common sense, and at the same time he possesses
great ingenuity (esprit) and sagacity, and I know from experience
that his dialectic is by no means comfortable to his adversary.
Inferior to Reid in invention and originality, and to Stewart in
grace and delicacy, he is perhaps superior to both, and certainly
to the latter by the vigour of his dialectic; I add, and by the
extent of his erudition. Sir W. Hamilton knows all systems,
ancient and modern, and he examines them by the criticism of
the Scottish intellect. His independence is equal to his know-
1708.]
335
PROFESSORS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY.
ledge. He is, above all, eminent in logic. I speak here as a
philosopher by profession."
Hamilton's appointment as Professor was received with great
joy in the University. His lectures on Psychology and Logic
produced a profound impression on the Students; the mode of
their delivery formed a contrast to that of Stewart, Brown, or
Wilson. An exact and severe method was substituted for fluent
eloquence; separate paragraphs were slowly dictated in the
German fashion, each containing some important principle, to
which illustrations were afterwards added. We have seen above
(p. 63) that the Town Council ignorantly interfered with his giving
a second course in Metaphysics. Of Hamilton's letters on this
subject Professor Macdougall wittily said: “He answered the
Edinburgh Town Council as if he had been refuting Porphyry."
Of his other controversies with that body more than enough has
been said already. Hamilton had certainly the præfervidum
ingenium, and on this account was not well qualified for the post
of Secretary of Senatus, which he held from 1833 to 1846. But
in all his contests he showed himself a high-minded, honourable
gentleman, who was contending for a cause and not for any selfish
object. He died in 1856, having founded a school of eminent
pupils, many of whom now fill Philosophical Chairs in Scotland.
It may be mentioned that Hamilton received the unique honour
(for a layman) of the degree of Doctor of Divinity, which, on his
expressing a wish for it, the University of Leyden conferred upon
him. And surely by his learning he deserved it. On Hamilton's
death (7) ALEXANDER CAMPBELL FRASER, the present Professor
of Logic and Metaphysics, was appointed.
XIII.—PROFESSORS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY.
(1) WILLIAM LAW, 1708-1729. This person, who is called
Mr. Law of Elvingston in the City Records, had been appointed
Regent of Philosophy in 1690, after a competitive examination,
to supply the place of Thomas Burnet, who was deprived of his
office at the purging of the College. In 1708 Law was the senior
Regent, and he naturally had assigned to him the Chair of Moral
S
1 The above very imperfect notice of a rich life is taken chiefly from Pro-
fessor Veitch's admirable Memoir of Sir William Hamilton.
336
[1734.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
Philosophy, which was considered to be above all the others.
Attendance on the Moral Philosophy lectures was optional, and
no fees were to be paid by Students who chose to attend them.
Law, therefore, had £50 allowed him, probably as equivalent to
the average class in fees, addition to the ordinary salary of a
Regent or Professor in these days. There are no particulars as
to Law's teaching. He died in 1729, and then (2) WILLIAM
SCOTT, 1729-1734, who had been Professor of Greek for twenty-
one years, claimed the vacancy. He was not allowed simply to
step into the Chair, but although he must have been more than
sixty years old, he was examined by the Principal and several of
the Professors as to his qualifications. Being favourably reported
on, he was appointed by the Town Council ad vitam aut culpam.
Bailie Fenton, however, who had had a passage of arms with the
Senatus the year before (above p. 5), protested (in vain) against
the proceeding; he objected to a "private trial,” said that Pro-
fessors should only be appointed during the Council's pleasure,
and that the Professor of Moral Philosophy should not have a
larger salary than the rest; but he was not listened to. In 1734,
Scott's health having failed, he petitioned that Dr. John Pringle
might be appointed as joint Professor with him. The Senatus
were favourable to this arrangement, but wished Dr. Pringle to
give a specimen lecture. They also drew up, at the desire of the
Lord Provost, regulations for the teaching of Pneumatics and
Moral Philosophy. This was probably because the two first Pro-
fessors, being old Regents, had been somewhat perfunctory in
delivering their unpaid lectures. The new rules laid it down
that the Professor was to lecture between the hours of ten and
eleven for five days a week, from the ist November to the ist
May, to all who shall think fit to hear him. He was to teach
“the Pneumatics: that is the being and perfections of the one
true God, the nature of Angels and the soul of man, and the
duties of natural religion;" also “Moral Philosophy;" also he was
to prelect every Monday on the truth of the Christian religion.
He was to put himself into personal relations with his Students
by examining them at least once a month. All this was a con-
solidation for the first time of the Moral Philosophy class. It was
added that Dr. Pringle must not let his practice as a physician
interfere with his duties as Professor. He was then appointed.
1745.]
337
PROFESSORS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. .
2
1
(3) JOHN PRINGLE, 1734-1745, was youngest son of a
baronet of that name, of Stitchell; he had studied for a year in
the new Medical School of Edinburgh (1727), and had then gone
to Leyden for two years, where he graduated M.D. in 1730, and
then returned to practise in Edinburgh. He evidently sought the
Chair as a merely interim appointment, while he was making way
in his profession. He was doubtless a cultivated and superior
man, but he had no special taste for philosophy. We have
quoted (Vol. I. p. 274) his programme of lectures for 1741.
Bower complains that these lectures were “altogether practical,”
but this feature would after all be only in accordance with the
tenor of the rules laid down for his guidance. Dr. A. Carlyle
says of him: “Dr. Pringle, afterwards Sir John, was an agreeable
lecturer, though no great master of the science he taught. His
lectures were chiefly a compilation from Lord Bacon's works, and
had it not been for Puffendorff's small book, which he made his
text, we should not have been instructed in the rudiments of the
science. Once a week, however, he gave us a lecture in Latin,
in which language he excelled, and was even held equal to Dr.
John Sinclair, Professor of the Theory of Medicine, the most
eminent Latin scholar at that time, except the great grammarian
Ruddiman."
Pringle rapidly pushed his fortunes outside the University.
Lord Stair, then in command of the British army, took him as
his physician, and in 1742 made him physician to the military
hospital in Flanders; in 1744 the Duke of Cumberland appointed
him Physician-General to His Majesty's forces in the Low Coun-
tries, and in 1745 he resigned his Professorship. Sir John
Pringle was author of a great work on The Diseases of the Army.2
(4) WILLIAM CLEGHORN, 1745 - 1754.
For three years,
during Pringle's absence abroad, this person had been employed
to conduct his classes. He was the son of a "merchant burgess"
of Edinburgh. On Pringle's resignation the Town Council tried
to raise the Chair of Moral Philosophy by offering it to Dr.
Francis Hutcheson, Professor of the same subject in Glasgow,
and the founder of the Scottish school of philosophy. But
Hutcheson declined, and on this David Hume offered himself for
the vacancy. It is generally supposed that Hume's philosophical
1 Hist, Un, Ed., vol. ii. p. 291.
3 Ibid, p. 293.
VOL. II.
Z
338
[1754
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
6
3
>
opinions were a bar to his appointment on this occasion, but
another view is given by Chalmers in his Life of Ruddiman.
“Enquiring once of the Rev. Robert Walker, who was his
amanuensis, what classes he had been attending in the College of
Edinburgh, and being told that he had that morning heard a
lecture on Liberty and Necessity, Ruddiman said, 'Well, does
your Professor make us free agents or not?' To which Mr.
Walker answered, 'He gives us arguments on both sides, and
leaves us to judge.' “Very well,' rejoined Ruddiman; "the fool
has said in his heart there is no God,' and the Professor will not
tell you whether the fool be right or wrong.”
“The Professor who acted thus was Cleghorn, a supposed deist,
who had been chosen in opposition to Hume, the philosopher,
who was deemed a Jacobite. The electors preferred Cleghorn to
Hume, sagely considering that, as Scotland furnished no other
choice, a deist might probably become a Christian, but a Jacobite
could not possibly become a Whig." There are no other par-
ticulars of Cleghorn's teaching. Bower, who takes a sunny view
of almost all the old Professors, says that "his colleagues and
1
contemporaries considered him as a young man of the most
promising talents.” However, he lectured on Moral Philosophy
for twelve years without publishing anything on the subject. He
died somewhat suddenly in 1754.
(5) JAMES BALFOUR, 1754-1764. The European Magazine
for January 1783 says that David Hume was a candidate for the
Chair of Moral Philosophy when Balfour was elected, and that
on Balfour's being preferred to Humę "the University felt a dis-
grace which it will never recover. The article in which this
occurs is a disparaging review of “Philosophical Dissertations” by
James Balfour, Esq., of Pilrig. It says that Balfour, who was an
Advocate, by political influence got made Sheriff-Substitute “of
the first county in Scotland.” “In that capacity he was very
patient, laborious, and dull.” In the Moral Philosophy Chair,
which he held for ten years, he was “if possible, less meritorious.
He could not reflect himself, and the transcriptions from printed
books which composed his lectures were ill-chosen, and without
either usefulness or propriety." This is very bitter ; but there
seems little doubt that Balfour was the reverse of a brilliant
1 Hist. Un. Ed., vol. ii. p. 343.
1766.]
339
PROFESSORS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY.
Professor. By an arrangement already mentioned (p. 315) he
was allowed to purchase the Chair of Public Law, so that a better
man might take his place in the Chair of Moral Philosophy.
(6) ADAM FERGUSON, 1764-1785, had been marked out for
this Chair ten years before by Cleghorn, who said "he has my
dying voice”; but there was not influence at the time to make
that voice effective. When at last appointed, in his forty-first
year, Ferguson entered with zeal upon a province for which he
was peculiarly suited, and his lectures were attended not only
by University Students, but by some of the most distinguished
men of the country. A year after his appointment he published
his Essay on the History of Civil Society, which at once established
his fame. It was to some extent a following up of those induc-
tive investigations which Reid had started two years previously
in his Enquiry into the Human Mind. Ferguson introduced the
method of studying mankind in groups, and of considering the
progress of entire societies, in short, the science which is now
called “Sociology." In 1766 he published a syllabus of his
lectures, entitled Analysis of Pneumatics and Moral Philosophy.
On this outline he used to prelect extemporaneously, till in 1792
he gave to the world his completed views under the title of
Principles of Moral and Political Science, being chiefly a Retrospect
of Lectures delivered in the College of Edinburgh. In this work
we have Ferguson's moral system ; accepting, with Hobbes and
Hume, the power of self-interest, he makes it enter into Morals
as the law of self-preservation; he combines Hutcheson's theory
of benevolence, and Smith's principle of sympathy under the
law of society ; but he subordinates these laws to a superior one,
—the idea of perfection. M. Cousin says of Ferguson: "We find
in his method the wisdom and circumspection of the Scottish
school, with something more masculine and decisive in its results.
The principle of perfection is a new one, at once more rational
and comprehensive than benevolence and sympathy, and which,
in our view, places Ferguson as a Moralist above all his pre-
decessors."
The University of Edinburgh in the last century used to
attract the sons of English noblemen, whereas now the sons of
the Scottish nobility go to Oxford or Cambridge.
In 1763
Ferguson had two of the Grevilles, sons of the Earl of Warwick.
340
[1785
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
boarding in his house, and to assist in their tuition, he employed
;
a favourite Student, John M'Pherson, who afterwards became
Governor-General of India, and always retained a warm attach-
ment to his old Professor. In 1774 Ferguson was invited, on
tempting terms, to travel abroad with the young Earl of Chester-
field (nephew to the author of the Letters). He asked the Town
Council to give him leave of absence, which they refused to do;
so he set off without leave. The Town Council deprived him of
his office; but times were different in 1774 from what they
became in 1826,-Ferguson's friends exerted themselves in his
favour; a memorial was drawn up showing that Professors fre-
quently had absented themselves for a year or two; and an order
of the Court of Session was procured, compelling the Town
Council to reinstate him. His absence only lasted about a year,
during which John Bruce, Professor of Logic, conducted his
Chair. In 1778 Ferguson had another expedition : having
pleased the Government by a pamphlet on the American question,
he was appointed Secretary to a Commission sent out to negotiate
with the States Congress. Dugald Stewart then took his class
for a session. After his return he had, in 1780, an attack of
paralysis, but being treated by his relative Professor Black, he
made a wonderful recovery, and for thirty-six years afterwards he
lived on a Pythagorean diet, swathed in furs, and was able to
join the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and to write his History of
the Progress and Termination of the Roman Republic. In 1785,
however, he found it expedient to resign the Chair of Moral
Philosophy. And then, by an arrangement with the Town Council,
he was made nominal Professor of Mathematics, with the salary
of that Chair, and with a joint Professor, Playfair, to do the work.
He died in 1816, in the ninety-third year of his age, at St.
Andrews, where his epitaph by Sir Walter Scott may be seen in
the Cathedral burying-ground.1
(7) DUGALD STEWART, 1785-1810, who next adorned the
Chair, and in it acquired a brilliant reputation for literature,
eloquence, and philosophy, was the son of Matthew Stewart,
the Geometrician, and was born in his father's house in the old
College buildings, 1753. When eight years old he went to the
a
I
1 The above account of Adam Ferguson is taken from Mr. Small's Bio-
graphical Sketch.
1810.]
341
PROFESSORS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY.
High School; at thirteen he came to the University, where he
was trained under John Stuart (a very good Professor of Latin),
his father, John Stevenson in Logic and Rhetoric), and Adam
Ferguson (in Moral Philosophy). At eighteen years of age he
went to the University of Glasgow to get the advantage of Reid's
teaching. This course of education nearly accounts for the
mould which Dugald Stewart's mind afterwards exhibited : he
was classical, literary, clear like a mathematician, a follower and
pusher out of Reid's system, and yet, like Ferguson, rather inclined
to the topics lying between mental science on the one hand, and
jurisprudence on the other, than to the profounder questions
of metaphysics. When nineteen years old he was employed
to teach the Mathematical class for his father, and though so
young, was able to maintain order and teach well. After five
years of this work he was called on, at short notice, to take the
Moral Philosophy class in addition, while Ferguson was absent
in America, and we read of his preparing his lectures every day
while walking up and down in the College garden, now swept away.
In 1785 he became sole Professor of Mathematics, owing to
the death of his father, but in that year (as we have already seen)
Adam Ferguson exchanged Chairs with Stewart; the one by
this arrangement retiring into a sinecure, the other stepping
forward ardently into a position which it had always been his
ambition to fill.
All are agreed as to the extraordinary eloquence and grace
of speech which Dugald Stewart exhibited in his Chair, and on
all occasions when he had to speak in public. Lord Cockburn
said of him : “To me his lectures were like the opening of the
heavens. I felt that I had a soul. His noble views, unfolded
I
in glorious sentences, elevated me into a higher world.” His
career as an author was begun rather late, but when he began he
poured forth a series of well-written productions worthy of the
literary revival in Edinburgh. In 1792 he brought out the first
volume of his Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind;
in 1793 his Life of Adam Smith ; in 1796 his Life of Dr.
Robertson ; in 1802 his Life of Dr. Reid ; in 1810, after his
resignation of his Chair, he published his Philosophical Essays,
of which the first part contains criticisms of Locke, Berkeley,
some French systems, Hartley, Priestly, and Darwin, and the
342
[1810.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
66
politics."1
second part essays in Æsthetics. In 1813 he brought out the
second volume of his Elements, and his Dissertation on the
Progress of Metaphysical and Ethical Philosophy” for the Supple-
ment of the Encyclopædia Britannica ; in 1827 the third volume
of his Elements, and in 1828 his work on the Active and Moral
Powers of Man.
These works, written with classical taste, made the “common-
sense philosophy" popular, and "helped to introduce Reid into
polite society." It was one of the avowed aims of Stewart “ to
stem the inundation of sceptical, or rather atheistical, publications
from the Continent.” No doubt he did something in this way,
but he also “by his lectures, and indirectly by his pupils, con-
tributed as much as any man of his age to diffuse through Scotland
a taste for elegant literature, and enlarged and liberal opinions in
He taught Political Economy as well as Moral
Philosophy, and his classes were attended by Lord Brougham,
Lord Palmerston, Lord John Russell, Francis Horner, Lord
Lansdowne, Francis Jeffrey, Walter Scott, Sydney Smith, Thomas
Brown, Thomas Chalmers, James Mill, Archibald Alison, and
many others who rose to eminence in politics, literature, or
philosophy. Dugald Stewart was thus a powerful magnet for
attracting young men of promise, and his class-room was the
cradle of the Edinburgh Review. In 1806 the Whig party, being
in power, created for him a sinecure office under the name of
“Writership of the Edinburgh Gazette," with a salary of £300,
a year.
In 1810, his health having declined, he got his pupil,
Dr. Thomas Brown, appointed as joint Professor with him, and
retired from the labour of teaching. He died in 1828, and is
commemorated by a monument on the Calton Hill. The philo
sophy of Dugald Stewart, in conjunction with that of Reid, has
been recognised and appreciated by the French, to whom it was
introduced by Roger, Collard, Cousin, and Jouffroy.
(8) THOMAS BROWN, 1810-1820, though the pupil of Stewart,
was by no means his implicit follower. Indeed, he at once
revolted against the authority of the “Common-sense Philosophy,"
attacking it as to its psychological system in a free way, which
annoyed Stewart, and caused him to utter a rebuke in the third
1 The above quotations are from The Scottish Philosophy, from Hutcheson
to Hamilton, by President M'Cosh (1875), pp. 300-302.

PROFESSOR DUGALD STEWART.
FROM A PORTRAIT BY RAEBURN.
1818.]
343
PROFESSORS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY.
а.
volume of his Elements. Brown was an interesting personage, and
enjoyed an ephemeral glory of great brilliancy. Born in 1778,
he lost his father, a Scottish minister, in his infancy; he was sent
by his relatives to school in England, and at the age of fourteen
he was brought back to study in the University of Edinburgh.
He had a very bright, independent, precocious mind, and when
he was fifteen years old, reading with avidity the first volume of
Dugald Stewart's Elements, he detected some flaw in the reasoning,
and did not hesitate to call upon the Professor and point this
out. Stewart's only reply was to read to him a letter from M.
Prevost of Geneva, in which the same objection was stated.
Brown apparently did not attend all the Arts classes, but he was
more than ten years a Student in the University, for he graduated
M.D. in 1803, being then twenty-five years old. His thesis was
De Somno, a subject suited to his philosophic turn, and it is said
to have contained much curious psychological speculation.
: In the meantime he had studied Law as well as Medicine;
and (in 1798) he had brought out a review of Erasmus Darwin's
Zoonomia, which excited much attention. He had been a member
of the Student's Society, called the "Academy of Sciences," which
s
resulted in the production of the Edinburgh Review; in the
second number of this Brown had an article on Kant, which,
while showing acuteness, was said to fail in appreciation of the
German philosopher, and of the depth of the questions at issue.
In 1801 an attempt was made, on the resignation of Greenfield,
to get the Chair of Rhetoric for Thomas Brown, for which he
would have been perfectly fitted.
But Chairs in the University
were then greatly monopolised by Edinburgh Ministers, and one
of them was appointed. In 1805 Brown entered the lists in the
controversy as to the heterodoxy of Leslie, whom the "Moderate"
Clergy wished to exclude from the Chair of Mathematics for
having enunciated something like the Humian doctrine of cause
and effect. Brown published a pamphlet, which in its third
edition (1818) swelled into a bulky treatise--Enquiry into the
Relation of Cause and Effect-defending Hume's theory that this
relation is merely one of constant antecedence and sequence,
though he maintained that the mind has an intuitive belief in the
permanency of the connection. Dr. James Gregory, struck by the
merits and elegant Latinity of Brown's thesis, had taken him as
344
[1820.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
.
an associate, to answer consulting letters from a distance. Such
were his antecedents when he was appointed to be Dugald
Stewart's successor.
Brown's manner in his Chair was at once felt to be something
new; the eloquence of his predecessor had been classical and
manly,--Brown was the Carlo Dolce of lecturers, indulging in a
soft flow of poetic utterances, and at the same time showing great
fecundity of thought and subtlety of analysis. "His amiable look,
his fine elocution, his acuteness and ingenuity, his skill in reduc-
ing a complex subject into a few elements, his show of originality
and independence, the seeming comprehensiveness of his system,
and above all his fertility of illustration, and the glow, like that
of stained glass, in which he set forth his refined speculations,
did more than delight his youthful audience,-it entranced them;
and in their ecstasies they declared that he was superior to all
the philosophers who had gone before him, and, in particular,
that he had completely superseded Reid, and they gave him great
credit, in that he generously refrained from attacking and over-
whelming Stewart."1 After Brown's death in 1820 his Lectures
on the Philosophy of the Human Mind were published in four
volumes, and they were as popular in print as they had been when
delivered orally. No metaphysical book ever had such a run.
By 1851 eighteen editions had been sold in England, and more
still in America. But then came a collapse. Brown's system
declined before the influence of the German schools of thought :
“Judgments on the merits of his book are now as severe as they
were formerly favourable, and the name of Brown may be said to
be a dead letter in the annals of philosophy.” 2 The fact is that
no mere psychology, however acute and refined, can live per-
manently as a philosophical system. Brown's career was pre-
maturely cut short, in the tenth year of his Professorship and the
forty-second of his age. He had always exhibited the character-
istics of a consumptive tendency; he was a sentimentalist and a
lover of nature, and he produced several volumes of poetry, which
have been described as “faint echoes of Akenside and Beattie."
”
Brown's most successful effort in verse was called The Paradise
of Coquettes.
1 M'Cosh, The Scottish Philosophy, p. 322.
? Professor Adamson in the Encyclopædia Britannica.

IM
Wrtison Deze
Sewart Sculp
MR WILSON,

1820.]
345
PROFESSORS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY.
I
a
a
a
(9) JOHN WILSON, 1820-1853, was in many respects a great
contrast to his predecessor. Sir R. Christison says of him: “John
Wilson, best known as Christopher North of Blackwood's Maga-
zine, was the grandest specimen I have ever seen of the human
form,—tall, perfectly symmetrical, massive and majestic, yet agile.
When his bust was exhibited about the year 1842 in London, at
the Royal Academy's Exhibition, I overheard a noble connoisseur
exclaim to a companion: “Look here! This must be Jupiter
‘
under some new transformation." It is as Hercules with the
head of Jove that Wilson's statue is posed in the centre of Edin-
burgh. It is the effigy not merely of a University celebrity, but
of a local, and to some extent a national hero. 1
If, from his stately presence, his bodily puissance, his richness
of ideas, his luxuriant eloquence, his copious literary productive-
ness, his wit, his generosity, his originality of character, and the
largeness of his nature, Wilson was a hero to his countrymen,
still more was he so to his Students, full of the hero-worshipping
tendencies of youth. They could forgive in him a thousand
irregularities : they forgave him for not teaching them Moral
Philosophy at all; they drank in his discursive utterances and
adored him as a man. In all this there was something more than
the mere glamour of rhetoric and of bodily presence. It seems
impossible to find one of Wilson's Students who, on looking back
to his lectures from the calm elevation of after life, does not
acknowledge that they were beneficial to his mind. And this
is the case even with men of a critical and philosophical disposi-
tion; they say they got a stimulus from Wilson which was valu-
able to them. The Chair of Moral Philosophy in a Scottish
University seems to be elastic in its adaptability: Brown made it
a Chair of Psychology; Ferrier, at St. Andrews, a Chair of Meta-
physics; Wilson made it a Chair of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres.
It is true that he treated of the passions, virtues, duties, and so
on, but he dealt with them in the concrete, with illustrations
from literature. He was not without the power of metaphysical
speculation, as was evinced by two papers of his in Blackwood
a
а.
? We have preferred to reproduce in this book the likeness which was
taken of Wilson by Sir J. Watson Gordon, just after his appointment to be
Professor, before he had taken to wearing the ambrosial locks of the Zeus of
Pheidias.
346
[1820.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
one on “Causation,” and one on “Berkeley's Philosophy.” But the
tendency of his nature was towards the concrete and poetical,
rather than the abstract and philosophical point of view. He
was really an eminent critic of literature, as his papers on Homer
and many other subjects sufficiently show. Strictly speaking, he
was out of place in a Chair of Philosophy, but he did a great
deal of good in it, and the only harm he did was perhaps to
encourage in the future preachers and writers of Scotland a too
exuberant style of language. Nothing was more remarkable in
his Professoriate than his conscientious diligence in reading and
commenting on all the essays produced by his numerous class.
His wayward and erratic nature bent itself to this drudgery, and
his kind-hearted words of approval or correction were valuable
to many a youth. Wilson was, before all things, the Students'
friend; his house was constantly open to them in unreserved
hospitality. And this, to youths with so few social advantages
as many of the Edinburgh Students had, was in itself a boon.
How Wilson came to be Professor of Moral Philosophy may
seem a puzzle ; it was on this wise :-He was at first one of
Fortune's favourites, being the son and heir of a wealthy manu-
facturer of Paisley; at twelve years old he went to the University
of Glasgow, as a rich English boy would go to Eton or Harrow.
He studied there for six years, learnt a good deal of Latin and
Greek, and was one of the first persons in Scotland to appreciate
Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads; he then proceeded as "gentleman
commoner" to Magdalen College, Oxford ;1 he there distinguished
himself by athletic feats, by being the first to win Sir Roger
Newdigate's prize for English verse with a poem on "Sculpture,
Architecture, and Painting,” and by passing a brilliant examination
for his degree. He then bought Elleray, a residence overlooking
the lake of Windermere, and betook himself to a life of country
and aquatic pursuits, the cultivation of poetry, and the society of
the “ Lakists." He married the most beautiful woman in the
country, and published his Isle of Palms, when he found that by
the malversation of a trustee his entire fortune was lost. He
accepted the stroke, came to Edinburgh to work for his bread,
and became one of the leading spirits of Blackwood's Magazine.
1 How he looked at that period may be seen from Racburn's portrait of
him in the National Gallery of Scotland.
1850.]
347
PROFESSORS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY.
In the famous Chaldee Manuscript, which was concocted in his
house, he figures as “the beautiful Leopard from the valley of
the Palm trees.” Out of more than 300 articles that Wilson
contributed to Blackwood a very small proportion were political,
yet still he was reckoned among the gladiators of the Tory party.
On Thomas Brown's death in 1820 the Chair of Moral Philo-
sophy was unanimously offered by the Town Council to Sir James
Mackintosh : on his declining to accept it the election resolved
itself into a contest between Wilson and Sir William Hamilton,
both distinguished Oxonians, both Edinburgh Advocates : the
one a Tory poet and essayist; the other a Whig and an Edin-
burgh Reviewer. The struggle became a political one; a Tory
Government, then in office, exerted their influence for Wilson,
and Sir Walter Scott actively supported him. On the other hand,
the Whigs assailed him with calumnies, and Wilson, a most
chivalrous and devoted husband, had to get a certificate from
Mrs. Grant of Laggan that he was a decent family man. When
the Town Council went to the poll 21 votes were given for
Wilson and only 9 for Hamilton. When Dugald Stewart, who
was still alive and nominally joint Professor of Moral Philosophy,
learnt that a Tory had carried the day, he marked his disappoint-
ment by resigning all connection with the Chair. Irrespective
of politics, Wilson's testimonials from Wordsworth, Southey,
Coleridge, Scott, and many other eminent men, quite justified his
appointment, and he was an acquisition to the University, and a
remarkable Professor sui generis.
In 1850, after Wilson had held his Chair for thirty years, he
was struck with paralysis. On the recommendation of Lord John
Russell the Queen granted him a pension of £300 a year; he
then resigned, and lived in retirement till 1854, when he died.
His last public act was in 1851, when feeble and paralysed, to
come into Edinburgh from the country, in order to record his
vote for Macaulay, whom he had formerly regarded as a political
opponent.
(10) PATRICK CAMPBELL MACDOUGALL, 1850-1867, who next
succeeded to the Chair, was the son of the Minister of Killin, and
was born in 1806. Having been Dux of the High School, and
having passed through the Arts curriculum of the University, he
became Classical Master in the Edinburgh Academy, then making
348
(1708.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
I
its start under Archdeacon Williams. Macdougall held this post
for eighteen years, but while teaching the classics he cultivated
Philosophy in his leisure hours, and in 1836 was a candidate for
the Chair of Logic and Metaphysics when Sir William Hamilton
was appointed. After the Disruption, the Free Church in their
“New College” for Theology established, in 1844, Chairs of
Logic and of Moral Philosophy, and Macdougall was appointed
to the latter. Afterwards they resolved to dispense with those
Chairs, and on Professor Wilson's resignation they made great
exertions to get Macdougall appointed in the University. In this,
owing to the ecclesiastical principles of the majority in the Town
Council, they were successful; but, as we have seen above (p. 78),
a difficulty ensued, and Macdougall, as Professor of Moral Philo-
sophy, was not able to take his seat in the Senatus till after the
passing of the Test Act in 1853. Professor Macdougall was of a
retiring disposition, and suffered from weak health. In teaching
his class he adhered generally to the doctrines of the Scotch
school of Psychology and Morals, but his classical habits of mind
led him to give prominence to the great ethical works of the
ancients. In 1852 he brought out a volume of Papers on
Literary and Philosophical Subjects. He died of paralysis in
December 1867. In 1868 (11) HENRY CALDERWOOD, the
present Professor of Moral Philosophy, was appointed.
XIV..PROFESSORS OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY.
(1) ROBERT STEWART, 1708-1742. When Professorships
1
were created and divided among the existing Regents in 1708,
Robert Stewart got that of Natural Philosophy, with the care of
the Magistrand class (see Vol. I. p. 264). This was not owing
to seniority, for three of the Regents were senior to him, but was
a matter of proclivity, each Regent choosing the subject which
suited him best. Robert Stewart had been made Regent in
1703; he was the son of Sir Thomas Stewart of Coltness, and
before he resigned his Chair he succeeded to the title and estate.
He was also nephew to the celebrated Sir James Stewart, then
Lord Advocate of Scotland, and this gave him influence with the
Town Council. On being relieved of the drudgery of Regenting
in 1708, he worked in an enlightened way at Natural Philosophy.
1757.]
349
PROFESSORS OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY.
He was said to have been at first a Cartesian, but he was finally
converted to the school of Newton. We have quoted his pro-
gramme of lectures for 1741 (Vol. I. p. 272). By this time, how-
ever, Sir Robert Stewart was worn out with age, and in 1742 he
applied to have his son, Dr. John Stewart, who was a Fellow of
the College of Physicians and in medical practice, associated with
him as joint Professor. The Town Council, having had John
Stewart examined by a committee, and having taken the avisa-
mentum of the Ministers, made the appointment as requested.
(2) JOHN STEWART, 1742-1749, has, however, left behind him
no trace of his acquirements or his teaching.
The next Professor (3) ADAM FERGUSON, 1759-1764, was
not chosen as by any means being a tried specialist, but as a man
of versatile talent, capable of learning almost anything, and there-
fore capable of learning Natural Philosophy so as to be able to
teach it. He was son of the Minister of Logierait, and having
gone through the Arts course at St. Andrews came to Edinburgh
in 1742 to be trained for the Church under Professors Gowdie
and Cumming. He thus became one of the brilliant coterie con-
sisting of Robertson, Blair, Home, Wedderburn, Carlyle, etc.,
who were then Students in the University, and formed a debating
society together; afterwards they were friends for life. In 1745
he was offered a chaplaincy to the 42d Regiment or Black Watch,
and though only twenty-two years old, and having only completed
two sessions, out of six, of the Divinity course, he got special
grace for ordination from the General Assembly on account of his
high testimonials. He accompanied the Black Watch to the
battle of Fontenoy, and was with difficulty dissuaded from going
into action with a broadsword. He remained with his regiment
till 1754, and obtained a remarkable influence over the Highland
soldiers; he took a great interest in military matters, and acquired
a knowledge of them which was afterwards of service to him as a
historian. He now determined to relinquish the idea of becoming
a Minister, for which he did not feel a vocation. He had not
the qualities necessary for a popular preacher. Such sermons as
he had composed were elaborate disquisitions, full of quotations
from Plato and Aristotle.
Returning to Edinburgh, Ferguson renewed the friendships of
his youth, and in 1757 was appointed to succeed David Hume
.
3
350
[1771.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
I
a
as Keeper of the Advocates' Library. But after a year's tenure
of this office he abruptly resigned it, having been engaged as tutor
to the sons of Lord Bute. In 1858 a negotiation was set on foot
by Hume and Johnstone (afterwards Sir W. Pulteney) to get
Adam Smith to purchase the Chair of Public Law in Edinburgh,
so as to leave the Chair of Moral Philosophy in Glasgow vacant
for Ferguson ; but either Adam Smith would not consent, or for
some other reason the thing broke down. In July 1859, on the
death of Dr. John Stewart, Ferguson was provided for, being pre-
sented to the Chair of Natural Philosophy by the Town Council.
By October of the same year Ferguson was ready to meet his
class, so that "David Hume said Ferguson had more genius than
any of them, as he had made himself so much master of a diffi-
cult science, viz. Natural Philosophy, which he had never studied
but when at College, in three months, as to be able to teach it."
He held the Chair for five years, and is said to have given
universal satisfaction by rendering his subject popular and attrac-
tive; he also published a short analysis of his course for the use
of his class. But it was subsequently in the Chair of Moral
Philosophy that Ferguson won his spurs.1
(4) JAMES RUSSELL, 1764-1773. We have mentioned above
(p. 315) how, with a view to a better adjustment of Chairs, Bruce,
the Professor of Public Law, was bought out in 1764, and how
Balfour, having replaced Bruce, and Adam Ferguson Balfour, the
Chair of Natural Philosophy was left vacant, which Russell now
stepped into, having provided a portion at all events of the pur-
chase money of Bruce's Chair. This arrangement was of course
made with the sanction of the Town Council. James Russell
had previously practised Surgery in Edinburgh. Bower 2 was
unable to collect anything further about his history, except the
following quotation about him from Dugald Stewart's Life of
Reid: “I recollect, too,” says Stewart, “when I attended about
the year 1771 the lectures of the late Mr. Russell, to have heard
high encomiums on the philosophy of Reid, in the course of those
comprehensive discussions concerning the objects and the rules
of experimental science, with which he so agreeably diversified the
particular doctrines of physics.”
I
e
1)
1 The above account is taken from Mr. John Small's admirable Biographi-
cal Sketch of Adam Ferguson (1864).
? Bower, vol. iii. p. 103.
1772.] PROFESSORS OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY.
351
(5) JOHN ROBISON, 1774-1805. A physician and a surgeon
had already held the Chair of Natural Philosophy; on Russell's
death two physicians appeared as candidates for it. One of these
was Dr. Buchan, the author of Domestic Medicine, and it was
thought that he would have got the appointment had it not been
for some passages in his book which gave offence ;' the other
was Dr. Lind, who graduated M.D. in 1768. But Dr. Cullen,
Dr. Black, and Principal Robertson had fixed their eyes upon
Mr. John Robison, who was then in the service of the Russian
Government, as Professor of Mathematics to the Imperial Sea
Cadet Corps of nobles at Cronstadt. The Town Council yielded
to the advice of these authorities, and having kept the Chair
vacant for a year, elected Mr. Robison to it without knowing
whether or not he would accept it.
Robison had previously, during a chequered career, shown
great powers of mind and very versatile talents. He had been
educated from his twelfth to his nineteenth year in the University
of Glasgow, which was then full of brilliant Professors. Moore
(Greek), Simson (Mathematics), Adam Smith (Moral Philosophy),
Dick (Natural Philosophy), and Black (Chemistry) had all stimu-
lated his intellect. In his nineteenth year he had been made
assistant to Dick, and would have succeeded the old man in his
Chair had not his youth been thought an insuperable objection.
A series of events led to his being taken to sea next year by
Admiral Knowles, as instructor in mathematics to his son. They
went out with the force sent to take Quebec, and Robison is said
to have been in the boat with General Wolfe when he made his
famous remark about Gray's Elegy. He then, through Knowles'
patronage, had various employments at sea, and was sent by the
Admiralty on a four months' voyage in charge of Harrison's
chronometer. Getting no permanent appointment, he returned
to Glasgow and was appointed lecturer on Chemistry in the Uni-
versity, in succession to Black, who was transferred to Edinburgh
in 1766.
In 1770 he went out as private secretary to Admiral Knowles,
who had been engaged by the Empress of Russia to reorganise
her fleet. And this led to Robison's appointment, in 1772, as
Professor of Mathematics at Cronstadt. He had an extraordinary
1 Bower, iii. p. 148.
2 Ibid. , iii. p. 158.
2
352
[1797
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY. .
facility in acquiring languages, and is said in nine months to have
become fluent in speaking and writing Russian. When the Chair
of Natural Philosophy in Edinburgh was offered to him the
Russian Government tried, by flattering prospects, to induce him
to remain with them, but he accepted the invitation of the Edin-
burgh Town Council.
In 1774-1775 he gave his first course of lectures, which em-
braced "the sciences of Mechanics, Hydrodynamics, Astronomy,
and Optics, together with Electricity and Magnetism," and which
were "given with great fluency and precision of language, and with
the introduction of a good deal of mathematical demonstration.”
His remarks on the history of science were said to have been
peculiarly interesting and instructive. His lectures, however,
were followed with difficulty, owing to his too great rapidity of
utterance, and as he at the same time introduced very few experi-
nents, the popularity of his discourses was not commensurate
with their intrinsic merit. He was one of the earliest members
of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and in 1786 read a paper on
the “Determination of the Orbit and the Motion of the Georgium
Sidus," deduced from his own observations, which he had carried
on without the aid of an Observatory. Next he contributed a
paper"On the Motion of Light as affected by Refracting and
Reflecting Substances which are themselves in Motion." He
was, in fact, engaged in the same line of inquiry as that with
which Blair, the Professor of Practical Astronomy, was then
occupied.
From 1793 to 1801 Robison contributed a great many
articles to the third edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, for
instance on "Seamanship," "Telescope," "Roof," "Water-works,"
“Resistance of Fluids," "Running of Rivers," etc., all full of
practical information. In 1797 he brought out a curious book
entitled Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Religions and
Governments, to prove, in the words of Disraeli, that "Europe
is honey-combed with secret societies," and that the French
Revolution had been brought about by the Freemasons !
Playfair said: “It is difficult to persuade oneself that the
original documents from which Mr. Robison drew up his
1 Playfair's “ Biographical Account of the late Professor Robison ” in the
Transactions of R.S.E. for 1815.
1816.] PROFESSORS OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY.
353
n
narrative were entitled to the confidence which he reposed
in them.” In 1803 he brought out Black's Lectures on Chemistry,
carefully edited ; and in 1804 he produced his own Elements of
Mechanical Philosophy, of which, however, only the first volume,
on Dynamics and Astronomy, was completed. Robison had long
been in delicate health, and he died in 1805. He was a most
accomplished man, and is said to have possessed "extraordinary
powers of conversation."
(6) JOHN PLAYFAIR, 1805-1819, on Robison's death, was
promoted to the Chair of Natural Philosophy. This Chair,
according to a tradition derived from 1708, was considered the
Senior Chair in the Arts curriculum (see Vol. I. pp. 264-265). It
also offered greater freedom than the Mathematical Chair, and,
comparatively speaking, a post of learned leisure. Playfair
accepted it in his fifty-seventh year, having done all his best work
in the previous twenty years, as Professor of Mathematics.
Thenceforth he did next to nothing in the way of original research,
but contented himself with giving punctually his one lecture a day,
and for the rest with making many contributions to the literature
of science. In 1812, as President of the Astronomical Institu-
tion, he procured the completion of the Observatory on the Calton
Hill. During the session 1816-1817 he obtained leave of absence
from the University in order to make scientific observations on
Mont Blanc and others of the Alps near Geneva. Sir R. Chris-
tison, who attended his lectures on Physics, says : “ Professor
Playfair was a charming teacher, so simple, unaffected, and sincere
in manner, so chaste in style, so clear in demonstration. I retain
a more lively admiration of him as a lecturer than of all my other
Professors, except, perhaps, James Gregory.” Playfair read every
word of his lectures, except when he had to demonstrate, not trust-
ing himself to speak without book. Lord Cockburn, referring
to this period, says: “No one who knew John Playfair can ever
resist basking in his remembrance. The enlargement of his
popularity after he began to verge towards age was the natural
result of that beautiful process by which that most delightful
philosopher increased in moral youthfulness as he declined in
years. Admired by all men, and beloved by all women, of whose
virtues and intellect he was ever the champion, society felt itself
the happier and the more respectable from his presence. Phil
>
VOL. II.
2 A
354
[1833.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
>
andering at the Needles' was a phrase by which Jeffrey denoted
his devotedness to ladies 1 and to rocks."
(7) JOHN LESLIE, 1819-1833, followed Playfair from the
Chair of Mathematics to that of Natural Philosophy. He too
had been almost worked out beforehand. But he made some
contributions to Physics by the employment of the "differential
thermometer,” an instrument the invention of which he contested
with Count Rumford. In 1823 he brought out the first volume
of his Elements of Natural Philosophy, a work which was never
completed. In the same year he proposed to form a class in
“Special Physics,” but the Senatus actually refused to sanction
this, on the ground that it would interfere with other established
Chairs.” He secured a good collection of apparatus for the
teaching of Natural Philosophy. And then his activity took a
new form, that of introducing (1826) popular lectures in the Uni-
versity during the summer session for mixed classes of ladies and
gentlemen. Unseemly results are said to have followed. The
Senatus always protested against the innovation as unsuitable to
the dignity of the University. The Town Council permitted such
a course for one session, after which it was dropped. Leslie,
,
who had a good deal of eccentricity of character, and who from
his personal appearance was compared in the Students' Magazine,
called Lapsus Lingue, to Sir John Falstaff, became Sir John
Leslie in 1832, when by Lord Brougham's recommendation he
received Knighthood in the Guelphic Order.
(8) JAMES DAVID Forbes, 1833-1860. When Sir John
Leslie died he was succeeded in the Chair of Natural Philosophy
by one who ranks among the most eminent Professors of the
University. James D. Forbes was son of Sir William Forbes of
Pitsligo, and of that beautiful lady, the daughter of Sir John
Stuart of Fettercairn, who had been Walter Scott's first love.
She died when her youngest son, James, was in his second year,
and he, being a delicate child, was entirely brought up at home,
living with his father in Colinton House till he was sixteen years
old, when he began to attend the University of Edinburgh, riding
in every day to the classes of Latin and of Chemistry. On account
of his health he had been purposely kept back from Mathematics,
1 In this characteristic, another illustrious savant in his old age--Sir David
Brewster-resembled Playfair.
-
1833.] PROFESSORS OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY.
355
а.
and did not begin Euclid till he was sixteen. But he had secretly
devoured every scientific book he could lay hands on, and had
begun keeping for himself a journal of observations in meteorology
and astronomy, and a record of ideas and inventions.
When he was seventeen he began sending anonymous contri-
butions to Sir D. Brewster's Journal of Science, which were wel-
comed by the Editor. After his first session at the University
Sir W. Forbes took him for a year and a half's travel and sojourn
in Italy and Switzerland. And from abroad he sent papers on
Mount Vesuvius," “ The Climate of Naples," “ Physical Notices
of the Bay of Naples," etc., which were published in Brewster's
Journal under the signature A. Afterwards Forbes revealed his
identity to Brewster, who gave him the warmest encouragement,
and introduced him to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, by whom
he was admitted Fellow on completing his twenty-first year. He
had in the meantime resumed his studies at the University,
especially of Natural Philosophy, under Sir John Leslie, who,
after seeing his work for two years, told the young man that, in
case of his own absence, he had thought of proposing Forbes to
officiate for him. So early was his scientific merit recognised; and at
this time, travelling to England, he was received as a confrère by
Whewell, Airy, Herschel, Babbage, Peacock, Sedgwick, and others.
Forbes had been destined for the Bar, and he was indeed
admitted Advocate ; but on his father's death in 1829, being left
with a competence, he resolved, after much consideration, to
abandon all idea of legal pursuits. It is curious that Brewster
dissuaded him from this course, and especially from looking to a
Professorship. He said: “There is no profession so incompatible
with original inquiry as a Scotch Professorship, where one's income
depends on the number of pupils." This dictum was surely refuted
by the after career of Forbes, who showed that a Professor of Natural
Philosophy, with a vacation of six months, can make himself illus-
trious by the number and importance of his original researches.
When Leslie died Forbes was abroad, but his friends at once
made him a candidate for the Chair, and he thus found himself
pitted against so great a rival as Brewster, who, in spite of the
views expressed two years before, had himself applied for the
Professorship Forbes' testimonials, especially that from Her-
schel, were quite sufficient to justify his appointment; and
.
356
[1836.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
Brewster was known to be deficient in powers of public speaking.
But the election was determined on political grounds; a Tory
majority in the Town Council carried the appointment of Forbes,
who, in order to be prepared on every side for his duties, took
lessons in elocution from Mrs. Siddons before commencing to
lecture. The technical hints which he thus received are said
to have been found useful by him.
Of Forbes as a lecturer Professor Tait has recorded his recol-
lections. He says:
He says: "His clear, cold, unimpassioned style suited
admirably the eternal verity of the laws he enunciated, explained,
and illustrated by well-chosen and invariably successful experi-
ments. From the students' point of view he was regarded as
too strict a disciplinarian, visiting with what we looked upon as
uncalled-for severity very slight infractions of order. This, how-
ever, was but the natural outward expression of his own intense
earnestness of purpose and sense of duty. All of us who came
to know him well found underlying it a grand substratum of
geniality and kindly interest.” Forbes' class were proud of the
discoveries made by their Teacher ; in 1836 they presented to
him a paper signed with all their names, and conveying to him
their congratulations on the honour which he had just received
(the Keith medal of the Royal Society of Edinburgh) for his
important demonstration of the Polarisation of Heat.
In addition to this discovery, Forbes made valuable researches
on the Conduction of Heat by iron bars, and on Underground
Temperatures. But his name will always be chiefly connected
with his long and laborious investigations, conducted during many
successive summers in Switzerland, on the Nature and Motion of
Glaciers, and the formula which he finally arrived at, that A
Glacier is an imperfect fluid, or a viscous body, which is urged down
slopes of a certain inclination by the mutual pressure of its parts.1
Forbes' chief bias seems to have been towards the science of
Geology, to which he made many contributions. But this subject
belonged rather to another Chair.
Forbes was long an indefatigable Secretary to the Royal
Society of Edinburgh. In the University he was for some time
I
I The above particulars are taken from the interesting Life and Letters of
James David Forbes, F.R.S., etc., by Principal Shairp, Professor Tait, and
Mr. A. Adams-Reilly.
1
1762.]
357
PROFESSORS OF RHETORIC.
Dean of the Faculty of Arts, and in that capacity made some
valuable reforms (above, p. 118) in the degree system. When
Sir David Brewster became Principal in the University of Edin-
burgh, Forbes, his life-long friend, succeeded him as Principal of
the United College of St. Andrews, into which new career we
cannot follow him. He was succeeded in 1860 by (9) PETER
GUTHRIE TAIT, the present Professor of Natural Philosophy.
XV.-REGIUS PROFESSORS OF RHETORIC AND BELLES
LETTRES.
>
(1) HUGH BLAIR, 1762-1784, was one of the distinguished
products of Professor Stevenson's class in Rhetoric ; in that class
Blair composed an essay, Tepi TOû kalov, which so much delighted
Stevenson that it was appointed to be read in public at the end
of the session. In 1738 Blair, under encouragement of Principal
Wishart secundus, composed and printed a Thesis for his M.A.
degree: “De Fundamentis et Obligatione Legis Naturæ" (see Vol.
I. p. 277). Being licensed as a preacher in 1741, he at once struck
out a new line in his sermons. He delivered discourses which
were neither incoherent rhapsodies like those of the covenanting
divines, nor dry and formal disquisitions like those of the
Moderates. He delighted the fashionable congregation of the
Canongate Church, to which he was appointed in his twenty-fifth
year, by the novelty of sermons that had a literary style about
them. It was not till thirty-four years afterwards that he was pre-
vailed upon by Lord Kames to offer a volume of these sermons
to the London publisher Strahan, who, with a publisher's common
inability to recognise merit under a new form, would have returned
the MS. had not Dr. Johnson got sight of it and said : “I have
read over Dr. Blair's first sermon with more than approbation ;
to say it is good is to say too little." The volume was then pub-
lished, and had at once a great sale; no devotional work hitherto
produced by Scotland having attracted so much attention as this
did in England. Blair's Sermons were part of the literary revival
in Edinburgh, and, like Robertson's History, they took people in
London by surprise. Admired as Blair was as a preacher, his
sermons were better in print than when delivered by him ; for he
had no graces of delivery, and, “independently of a very strong
.7
358
[1787.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
I
provincial accent, his elocution was but indifferent from a defect
in the organs of pronunciation.”1 He appears to have been
singularly deficient as an extempore speaker, and on this account
declined to be made Moderator of the General Assembly. Dr.
Carlyle smiles at the idea of some one having written to ask Blair
to instruct him in the art of preaching.
The success of Blair's printed Sermons was, of course, long
after his appointment by the Town Council in 1759 to be
unsalaried Professor of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, and his
subsequent appointment by George III., in 1762, to be Regius
Professor of the same subject, with a salary of £70 (see Vol. I.
p. 276). Blair can hardly have been a good Professor: for this
reason, that in the preface to his Lectures on Rhetoric he says :
“The following Lectures were read for twenty-four years in the
University ;" that is to say that, having carefully composed a set
of lectures in his first session, he ever afterwards read them to
his class without alteration or development. The Lectures are
fairly good for those times; but that a Professor should go on all
his time in such a cut-and-dry fashion seems deplorable.
For the rest, Blair published his sermons and brought out
three more volumes of them. Queen Charlotte got hold of some
of them, and was delighted ; and George III., in 1780, granted
Blair a pension of £ 200 a year. He then set up a carriage, being
perhaps the first Presbyterian minister in Edinburgh that ever
did so.
He was very hospitable to strangers, both at his town
and country house, and he was minutely fastidious in dress and
furniture, being a sort of forerunner of the asthetes. He lived in
cheerful friendship with the Robertson, Hume, and Carlyle set.
At one time he had Lord Percy, son of the Duke of Northumber-
land, as a pupil in his house; but he did not like it. He retired
from the duties of his Chair in 1783, and died at the very end of
the eighteenth century, in his eighty-third year.
His joint Professor and successor in the Chair was (2) WIL-
LIAM GREENFIELD, 1784-1801, who was also his colleague in the
High Church of St. Giles'. There is a story that, when Burns
was in Edinburgh in 1787, he was at a party in Blair's house,
I
2
1 Bower, Hist. Un. Ed., vol. iii. p. 17.
2 See the article on “Burns's Unpublished Commonplace Book,” by Prof.
Jack, in Macmillan's Magazine, vol. xxxix. p. 452.
1835.]
359
PROFESSORS OF RHETORIC.
>
and, being asked “from which of the public places he had
received the greatest gratification, he named the High Church,
but gave the preference as a preacher not to Blair, but to his
colleague," which candid remark threw the company into embar-
rassment. Burns thus preferred Greenfield as an eloquent preacher
to Blair.
Greenfield was a man of considerable ability; he was
a member of R.S.E., and contributed to their Transactions a
paper “On the use of Negative Quantities in the Solution of
Problems by Algebraic Equations." He published anonymously
”
Essays on the Sources of the Pleasures derived from Literary Com-
positions, which is a pleasing work, showing an appreciative know-
ledge of some of the best literature. It ranks with Beattie's
Essays, Burke On the Sublime, etc., in its philosophy of Beauty,
the Ludicrous, the Imagination, and so on; but of course it falls
short of the subtlety of Coleridge and the style of Ruskin. There
is a flavour of last century formality and prosiness about the
æsthetic of Greenfield. Owing to an aberration of intellect he
was removed from his Chair at the end of 1798. And Blair
having died in the meantime (3) ANDREW BROWN, 1801-1835,
was appointed Professor of Rhetoric. He, too, was a city
minister (of Old St. Giles), and was said to be "characterised by
the eloquent composition of his writings, the unobtrusiveness of
his manners, and the kindness of his feelings.”I
He appears to
have written “an elaborate History of America," but this was
never brought out, and his only published works were two sermons
and a Notice of the Life and Character of Prof. A. Christison.
Dr. Andrew Brown appeared before the Commission of 1826
and stated that his class averaged from 27 to 37 Students, and
that he never ventured on examinations, or any attempt to secure
regular attendance. Altogether he took a despairing view of the
Rhetoric Class, left, as it then was, out in the cold. His evidence
probably tended to induce the Commissioners to recommend the
abolition of the Chair.
(4) GEORGE Moir, 1835-1840, who was the next brief tenant
of the Chair of Rhetoric, must not be confounded with the con-
temporary and more famous man of letters who wrote under the
signature of “Delta," and whose name was David Macbeth Moir.
George Moir was an advocate, and an accomplished man, being
1 Scott's Fasti, p. 12.
360
[1845.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
I
one of the first persons in this country who had a thorough know-
ledge of the German language and German literature. As Pro-
fessor, he is said to have lectured on Greek tragedy, but the
class being at a low ebb, he resigned it in 1840, in order to
confine himself to legal pursuits. In 1864 he came back to the
University as Professor of Scots Law.
(5) WILLIAM SPALDING, 1840-1845, also held the Chair for
something less than five years. His class only numbered from
20 to 30 Students, and in 1845 he migrated to the Chair of
Logic in St. Andrews, James Ferrier having during the same
year abandoned the then poverty-stricken Chair of Civil History
in Edinburgh, and gone to that of Moral Philosophy in St.
Andrews. Spalding was a man of a good deal of ability; the
Commission of 1858 added the province of English Literature to
the Professorship of Logic in St. Andrews, and Spalding was well
able to teach both subjects. He published both a Logic and a
Manual of English Literature.
(6) WILLIAM EDMONSTOUNE AYTOUN, 1845-1865, was far
the most brilliant and at the same time the most efficient of
former occupants of the Chair of Rhetoric. Born in 1813; of an
old Fifeshire family, he was educated in the University of Edin-
burgh, and then proceeded to Germany, where he imbued his
mind with the literature of the country. In 1840 he was called
to the Scottish Bar, and practised for some time in criminal cases
on the western circuit. But his bent was entirely to literary
pursuits : he began by contributing to Tait's Magazine, and then,
in conjunction with his friend Theodore (now Sir Theodore)
Martin, he produced the Bon Gualtier Ballads, which contained
such “excellent fooling” as at once to establish his reputation
for wit and humour. From 1833 till his death he was a con-
tributor to Blackwood's Magazine, in which he brought out those
Jacobite poems which were afterwards published as the Lays of
Scottish Cavaliers, and had an immense popularity. Without
having any of the divine aflatus which constitutes poetry of the
highest order, the Lays were full of swing and action, and they
dealt with the romantic side of History and appealed to national
sentiment. Altogether, Aytoun contributed 120 articles, in
poetry or prose, to Blackwood, among which were several mirth-
inspiring tales—such as the famous Glenmutchkin Railway,--and
1786.] PROFESSORS OF PRACTICAL ASTRONOMY.
361
1
I
also papers in support of the Conservative party, in reward for
which Lord Derby's Government, in 1852, gave Aytoun the
appointment of Sheriff and Vice-Admiral of Orkney and Shetland,
the duties of which office he performed entirely to the satisfaction
of the islanders. But long previously to this, on Spalding's
departure to St. Andrews, Aytoun had received from the Crown,
in 1845, the Chair of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres.
As a Professor he obtained the most signal success; it was
his characteristic to combine a lively fancy with the most solid
good sense, and he showed this in the management of his class.
He put great life into the lecturing, and also took pains with the
training of the Students, by examining them and correcting their
exercises; and at the same time he showed them much kindness
and sympathy. He became very popular, and the Rhetoric
class, which had hitherto been regarded as hopeless, steadily
increased in numbers under Aytoun from 30 to 150.
This
success struck the Commissioners of 1858-1862; they commented
on it in their Report, and instead of abolishing the Chair, as the
Commission of 1826 had recommended, they consolidated it.
They changed its name to that of the Chair of “Rhetoric and
English Literature ;" they made English Literature a necessary
subject for graduation in Arts; and they added £100 a year
from money voted by Parliament to the salary of £1oo formerly
granted by the Crown. Ever since that time the Chair has
greatly flourished, but it was to William Edmonstoune Aytoun
that the foundation of its prosperity is due. In 1849 he married
Jane, youngest daughter of his great collaborateur in Blackwood,
Professor Wilson, but she predeceased him. His own active life
was brought to a somewhat premature close in 1865, when he
died in his fifty-third year.
He was succeeded by (7) DAVID MASSON, the present Pro-
fessor of Rhetoric and English Literature.
XVI.-REGIUS PROFESSORS OF PRACTICAL ASTRONOMY.
.
(1) ROBERT BLAIR, 1786-1828. We have mentioned above
(VOL I. p. 339) Dr. Blair's appointment as the first Professor of
Practical Astronomy, and how, though “a zealous student and
cultivator of Astronomy and Optics,” he never opened a class,
362
(1834.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
I
owing to the want of an Observatory and instruments; and how
he not only treated his Chair as a complete sinecure, but never
went near the Senatus Academicus. Indeed it is said that he lived
for nearly eight years entirely in London, where his son Archibald
was carrying on the business of an optician. Robert Blair, M.D.,
was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in January
1786, but he did not contribute anything to the Society till 1794,
when he read a paper of “Experiments on the unequal refrangi-
bility of light." In 1797 he contributed “A new method of
constructing Achromatic Telescopes." Sir David Brewster, in
his Edinburgh Encyclopædia (No. XV., Article on "Optics"),
(
”
praised “the ingenious labours of Dr. Blair in the construction
of fluid achromatic object-glasses, and the high degree of per-
fection which he gave to the telescopes that he had constructed."
Brewster added that these experiments had never received their
due share of praise, and that they deserved liberal encouragement.
Thus Robert Blair's forty-two years of endowed leisure were not
entirely thrown away. After his death in 1828 there occurred
an interregnum in the Professorship, till in 1834, an Observatory
having been in the meantime made available, the Government
were prepared to make another appointment. As we have seen
(Vol. I. p. 342), the office was no longer to remain a sinecure, the
Professor of Practical Astronomy was also to be Astronomer-
Royal for Scotland, and in the latter capacity onerous duties
were to be exacted from him.
It is a fact of some little interest that for the vacant post so
constituted Thomas Carlyle was a candidate. In his Recollections
it is recorded how he thought himself ill-used by his friend Jeffrey,
then Lord Advocate, who would not appoint him, but gave the
office to a law-clerk instead. Carlyle had shown some aptitude
for Mathematics, but it is difficult to believe that such a born man
of letters could have so far altered the direction of his mind as
to have done any good service in the Observatory. At all events,
the appointment of a law-clerk by Jeffrey was very far from being
a mere piece of favouritism, as Carlyle seemed to imply.
(2) THOMAS HENDERSON, 1834-1844, who was now made
Professor of Practical Astronomy and Astronomer-Royal for
Scotland, was a man of genius, who had shown the highest
qualifications for the post conferred upon him. He was one of
1844.] PROFESSORS OF PRACTICAL ASTRONOMY.
363
»1
those who seem to arrive unaided and intuitively at a knowledge
of science, for all the teaching which he received in Mathematics
and Natural Philosophy was as a boy in the Grammar School of
Dundee from his thirteenth to his fifteenth year. At fifteen he
became a writer's clerk first in Dundee and afterwards in Edin-
burgh, was employed to classify the burgh records of Dundee,
was highly esteemed as a man of business by Mr. Gibson-Craig,
became clerk to Lord Eldin (one of the Judges), and secretary
to the Earl of Lauderdale. The important thing for him was
that he made the friendship of Professor Wallace, who had then
the care of the Edinburgh Observatory, to which he gave
Henderson free admission; and thus amid his law-work he was
enabled to acquire practical skill in Astronomy, and also to
evolve new ideas in that science. “ The first which he made
public relates to the computation of an observed occultation of a
fixed star by the moon. In 1827 he excited the attention of
Astronomers by detecting an error in the data furnished to Mr.
Herschel for the determination of the difference of longitude of
London and Paris. In 1832 Henderson accepted the appoint-
.
ment of Astronomer at the Cape of Good Hope, where, with
indefatigable exertion, he amassed in little more than a year a
valuable stock of observations. But his labours undermined his
health, his heart was affected, and in May 1833 he returned.
In this country, both before and after his appointment as Astro-
nomer-Royal, he, unremunerated, went through the labour of
reducing the observations which he had made at the Cape. And
when placed in possession of the Edinburgh Observatory he at
once entered upon an arduous and unremitting course of new
observations. Henderson had the glory
Henderson had the glory of being “the first dis-
coverer of our distance from a fixed star," having investigated the
parallax of a Centauri. If he did nothing in the way of teaching
classes as Professor in the University, we must remember that he
was a man of impaired health, who needed all his strength for
the duties which the terms of his Commission, as well as his own
scientific ardour, imposed upon him. His name is certainly an
honour to the University. Henderson died, exhausted, in 1844;
I
I
1 Obituary notice of Henderson, by the late Professor Kelland, in the
Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1845, from which the above
facts are taken.
364
(1745.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
his end was hastened by the death of his lately-married wife, the
accomplished daughter of Mr. Adie, a celebrated optician of
Edinburgh.
(3) In 1846 the present Professor of Practical Astronomy
and Astronomer-Royal for Scotland, CHARLES PIAZZI SMYTH,
was appointed.
XVII.-PROFESSORS OF CIVIL LAW.
(For the circumstances of the foundation of this Chair see Vol. I. p. 284.)
(1) JAMES CRAIG, 1710-1732, was younger son of Lewis
Craig of Riccarton, and great-great-grandson of Sir Thomas
Craig, the feudalist. He thus belonged to a family which for two
centuries has hardly ever been without its representative at the
Bar or on the Bench. James Craig graduated M.A. in Edin-
burgh 1696; his name does not appear in the Album of Leyden,
so probably he studied Law at Utrecht; he passed Advocate in
1701, He then taught Civil Law privately till the Town Council
took him up as a Professor into the College. He lectured on
the Institutes and the Pandects, using for his text-book in the
latter course Van Eck's Principia, of which his own copy, with
MS. notes much more voluminous than the text, is preserved in
the library at Riccarton, Those notes testify to a very large and
accurate knowledge of the Civil Law. On his death (2) THOMAS
DUNDAS, 1732-1745, was appointed. He was member of another
of the legal families of Scotland, that of Arniston, being younger
brother of the first Lord President Dundas. He was admitted
to the Bar in 1730, and sent up by the Faculty in November
17321 on a leet, together with John Erskine, afterwards Professor
of Scots Law, in preference to whom he was elected. As his
name is mentioned by contemporary writers on the Continent,
Dundas must have enjoyed some reputation as a civilian, but he
does not appear to have published any work. In 1741, as we
saw (Vol. I. p. 289), he was lecturing on the Institutes from Van
Muyden's Compend, and on the Pandects from Voet's Compend.
Owing to weak health he resigned his Chair in 1745.
* In the Leyden Album the name of Thomas Dundas occurs as entering
the study of Law in 1733, aged twenty-two. This can hardly have been the
same person.
1800. ]
365
PROFESSORS OF CIVIL LAW.
(3) KENNETH M‘KENZIE, 1745-1754, an Advocate of over
twenty years' standing, who had commenced his legal studies at
Leyden in 1718, became the next Professor of Civil Law. He
was of the family of Delvine. On the same leet with him the
Faculty sent up the name of Alexander Boswell, afterwards
Lord Auchinleck (father of Johnson's "Bozzy"), but the Town
Council preferred M‘Kenzie, about whose teaching, however,
no particulars seem to be recorded. He resigned the Chair
in 1754.
(4) ROBERT Dick, 1755-1792, on appointment, began by
giving two courses annually, in Latin, as his predecessors had
done ; but in 1768 the Professor of Civil Law in Glasgow (Millar)
commenced lecturing in English, and continued to do so, in spite
of a protest on the subject lodged by the Faculty of Advocates
with the Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow. Professor
Dick followed this very proper example, and the lectures on Civil
Law in Edinburgh were subsequently given in English, though
for some time the practice was continued of examining the class
orally in Latin. After thirty-seven years' tenure of his Chair
Dick applied for assistance, and (5) JOHN WILDE, 1792-1800,
was appointed joint-Professor with him, in preference to Adam
Gillies (afterwards Lord Gillies), whose name had also been sent
up by the Faculty. Wilde became sole occupant of the Chair in
1796, but in 1799-1800 he had become so much indisposed as
to be clearly unfit for lecturing; and the Senatus made a repre-
sentation on the subject to the Town Council, between whom and
the Faculty of Advocates it was arranged that Wilde should go
on drawing the salary of the Chair, but that a joint Professor
should be appointed to do the work. A stipend of £100 was
to be provided between the two bodies, but the Town Council
only contributed £30 a year, leaving the Advocates to pay the
Perhaps this was because the Advocates had forced their
hand in the matter of electing the joint Professor, and deprived
them of any choice in the matter, by the ingenious expedient
of sending on their leet the name of a person who, it was known,
would not accept the office. Accordingly, when the leet came
up containing the names of Solicitor-General Blair and Alex-
ander Irving, the Council had no resource but to appoint
the latter.
rest.
366
[1862.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
(6) ALEXANDER IRVING, 1800-1826, during his tenure of
office, gave two courses annually on the Institutes and on the
Pandects, and appears to have been a successful teacher; and he
was also a successful lawyer, which led to his being promoted to
the Bench (under the title of Lord Newton) in 1826. One of
his last acts as Professor was to give evidence before the Royal
Commission. Inter alia, he said that the class in Pandects, which
was always slenderly attended, ought to be abolished. Irving
was said to have had great taste for music, and to have been
a good performer on the violoncello. On his elevation the
Advocates again took the election of a Professor into their own
hands by sending up a dummy name (that of the Dean of
Faculty), together with that of (7) DOUGLAS CHEAPE, 1827-1842,
who was necessarily elected as Irving's successor. Cheape, on
assuming office, gave evidence also before the Commissioners,
and he announced his intention of abolishing (as Irying had
recommended) the class in Pandects, and giving only one course-
on Institutes, supplemented from the Corpus Juris, as a systematic
course on Civil Law. This change had, in fact, been rendered
necessary by the establishment (in 1825) of a Chair of Convey-
ancing, which gave the Law Students an hour's more work per
diem than they had had previously. Cheape also introduced
another sensible innovation by conducting his examinations in
English, instead of in Latin, as had hitherto been the custom.
On his resignation, owing to domestic circumstances, the Faculty
of Advocates recorded "their high sense of the very able and
efficient manner in which he had discharged the duties of the
Chair." It is observable that Bower, who took so much trouble
in finding out biographical details with regard to most of the
Professors, says not a word about any of the old Professors of
Civil Law. Of Irving or Cheape, indeed, he could not speak,
as they were alive when he wrote his last volume. Perhaps he
did not find the others interesting. They seem all to have taught
diligently out of the Dutch text-books, without adding anything
to the literature of the subject. (8) ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL
SWINTON, 1842-1862, succeeded, and is now Emeritus Professor.
(9) JAMES MUIRHEAD, 1862, is the present Professor of Civil
Law.
I
I
1765.)
367
PROFESSORS OF CIVIL HISTORY.
XVIII. —PROFESSORS OF UNIVERSAL CIVIL HISTORY AND
GREEK AND ROMAN ANTIQUITIES.
6
The foundation of this Chair was in all probability part of the
scheme of Carstares for turning the College of Edinburgh into a
complete University (see above, Vol. I. p. 230).
(1) CHARLES MACKIE, 1719-1765, the first Professor, was
son of a sister of Carstares; he had received his education in the
University, living in the house of his uncle the Principal, and had
been admitted to the Faculty of Advocates. It was from materials
contributed by Mackie that the Rev. Joseph M'Cormick drew up
the “Life of Carstares” which was prefixed to the Carstares State-
Papers.' On his appointment Mackie was enjoined to give
“colleges” upon the History of Scotland in particular, and upon
the Roman, Greek, and British Antiquities. We have quoted
(Vol. I. p. 289) his programme of lectures for 1741. His method
was to comment in Latin) upon the Epitome of Tursellinus, a
short chronicle of events from the beginning of the world to the
end of the sixteenth century; but he drew from original sources
in Rymer's Federa, the Grand Corps Diplomatique, etc., and
“detected many vulgar errors in History.” He also lectured on
Roman Antiquities, in reference to the Law Procedure of the
Romans. A copy of notes for his lectures and other MSS. of
his, including a curious Index Funereus, or register of deaths
between 1727 and 1756, is in the Laing Collection in the Uni-
versity Library.
Mackie held his Chair till 1765, but he only worked in it till
the end of 1753.
At his request Mr. John Gordon was then
appointed joint Professor with him, to teach the class, but within
a year Gordon resigned this appointment " that he might be in a
condition to accept of the Professorship of Civil Law, for which
the Faculty of Advocates thought him well qualified, and he was
sensible himself that he was a better civilian than historian."
Mr. William Wallace was then made joint Professor with Mackie,
and so continued till 1765 when Wallace obtained the Chair of
Scots Law; Mackie, who must have been extremely old, resigned
at the same time, and (2) JOHN PRINGLE, 1765-1780, was
1 This implied that Mackie must have studied Law in some foreign Uni-
versity
368
[1801.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
appointed Professor of History. Neither Gordon nor Wallace had
been substantive Professors. How perfunctory was the manner
in which both they and Pringle performed their duties may be
gathered from the fact mentioned by Arnot in his History of
Edinburgh, that prior to 1780 the lectures of the Chair had been
discontinued for twenty years.
There is some reason, however,
to believe that the salary had also been irregularly paid.
(3) ALEXANDER FRASER TYTLER, 1780-1801, son of William
Tytler of Woodhouselee, the defender of Queen Mary, being
appointed joint Professor with Pringle, at once proceeded to
revive the teaching of the Chair.1 In his course of lectures, after-
wards published under the title of Elements of General History,
he described "the condition of society and the progressive state
of mankind from the earliest ages to the beginning of the present
age.” We have seen above (p. 336) that the history of civilisation
was a subject which attracted some of the best minds in Scotland
(Robertson, Adam Ferguson, etc.) in those days. Alexander
Fraser Tytler was raised to the Bench in 1801, under the title of
Lord Woodhouselee. He was a most accomplished man, and
wrote upon a variety of subjects, legal, antiquarian, and literary.
He was an active member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh,
and contributed several papers to its Transactions. One of his
most important works is his Life of Lord Kames (1807), which gives
an account of the progress of literature and general improvement
in Scotland during the greater part of the eighteenth century.
Lord Woodhouselee was succeeded in the Chair of Universal
History by his eldest son (4) WILLIAM FRASER TYTLER, 1801-
1821, whose class return for 1806-7 showed that he was attended
by only 17 Students. But it had become clear by this time that
the Professor of History could not expect to draw a full class, as
the subject was not part of any curriculum, and was not thought
useful for professional purposes. Lord Jeffrey, in evidence before
the Commission (1826), said that Lord Woodhouselee, in one of
the best years of the class, had only 30 Students, "and on a
snowy day not above a dozen.”
William Fraser Tytler ceased to
1
1 If Pringle did not lecture it is curious that he should have asked for a
joint Professor to lecture for him. Perhaps some pressure was put upon him
to do this. We can imagine that Principal Robertson would not be satisfied in
seeing the Chair of History treated as a sinecure.
1828.]
369
PROFESSORS OF CIVIL HISTORY.
quities,”1
"
lecture altogether for some sessions; on attention being called to
this he got permission for his brother, Patrick Fraser Tytler, the
historian of Scotland, to read his lectures for him during one
session, and he then resigned; he had been appointed Sheriff of
Inverness-shire.
(5) Sir WILLIAM HAMILTON, Bart., 1821-1837, then ob-
tained the Chair of “Civil History and Greek and Roman Anti-
as a sort of solatium to him for not getting the Chair of
Moral Philosophy the year before. His great learning qualified
him to make the teaching of his subject solid and profound, and
he entered upon his duties with ard:bur ; but his success was very
limited. · His course of lectures comprised “an historical survey
of the relations of the political system of modern Europe and its
dependencies--with a view of the progress of literature in
different nations;" and for some years he maintained a class of
upwards of 30 Students. His fiery soul chafed in the narrow
scope thus afforded to his energies, and in 1824 he petitioned
the Senatus to give “protection” to his Chair by admitting his
subject to the Arts curriculum. But the Arts Faculty gave him
no encouragement; and in 1828 he stated his views in a letter
to the Royal Commission.2 He said that “while the single
Historical Chairs in our Scottish Universities have been hardly
able to maintain their existence--in Germany from twelve to
twenty different historical courses, in the same University, and
in the same session, are delivered to audiences more numerous
than those in almost any other department of knowledge." He
pointed out the depressing circumstances of his own Chair, and
"to remedy the evil” he suggested that attendance on the
History Class should be made necessary for the M.A. degree.
He estimated that this would add (in the neglected state of Arts
graduation) only 19 or 12 Students to his class. But he thought
that the Faculty of Advocates and the Society of Writers to the
Signet might encourage him by a recognition of his subject. The
Commissioners, as we have seen (p. 43), turned a deaf ear to his
1 So it was called in his Commission, the word “Universal” having been
omitted, apparently through inadvertence.
2 It is curious that Sir W. Hamilton, who was so great an authority on the
history and constitutions of Universities, was not examined before the Com-
mission of 1826.
VOL. II.
2 B
370
(1846.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
I
.
appeal, and instead of “protecting" the Chair of Civil History,
they recommended its abolition. On the City becoming bankrupt
in 1833, the meagre salary of £100 a year attached to the Chair
ceased to be paid, and Sir William then gave up lecturing. In
1836 he was transferred to the more congenial Professorship of
Logic and Metaphysics.
(6) GEORGE SKENE, 1837-1842, son of Mr. Skene of Rubis-
law (Sir Walter Scott's friend), and late brother to the present
Historiographer-Royal for Scotland, then took the Chair, which
had come to be regarded as a subsidiary and temporary appoint-
ment for advocates of a literary turn.
We have mentioned above (p. 67) the disagreeable way in
which the Town Council dealt with Mr. Skene's resignation in
1842, when he was made Sheriff-Substitute of Lanarkshire. He
afterwards became Professor of Law in the University of Glasgow.
(7) JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER, 1842-1846, who had been
educated at Oxford, and was the son-in-law of Professor John
Wilson, was already known when he became Professor of Civil
History as the author of some striking metaphysical as well as
literary productions. With him, as with his friend Sir W. Hamil-
ton, his Professorship of History was a mere episode. In 1846
he went off to the Chair of Moral Philosophy in the University
of St. Andrews. And to that University his fame belongs—the
fame of being one of the subtlest Metaphysical thinkers that
Scotland has ever produced.
(8) The next Professor, COSMO INNES, 1846-1874, was a
born historian, and has made most valuable contributions to our
knowledge of Scottish History. In fact Innes, together with his
.
senior friend, Thomas Thomson, Deputy-Clerk Register, founded
in later times the school of exact study of the original record-
sources of History in Scotland, as Mr. Petrie and Sir T. Duffus
Hardy did in England. His services in the editing of Records
for Government, and of old Chartularies and other documents for
the Bannatyne, Spalding, and Maitland Clubs, cannot be here
enumerated. As a specimen of his teaching in the Chair of Civil
History we may take the volume entitled Sketches of Early
Scottish History (1860), than which nothing of the kind could be
more interesting, and which embodied a course of his lectures.
His first courses of lectures were delivered gratis, and Mr. Innes
1730.]
371
PROFESSORS OF SCOTS LAW.
fee;
I
was gratified by a large attendance. At what appeared to him
the proper time, when he hoped that some taste for his subject
had been aroused, he began to demand the usual fee. His class
instantly dwindled down to a mere handful. He lowered the
it was no use; no one came; he again demanded nothing,
;
and again his benches filled. With these experiences, Cosmo
Innes renounced the effort to make the Chair remunerative, and
discontinued lecturing. We have seen above (p. 128) that in
1862 the Executive Commission changed the title of the Chair
to that of “ History,” and made the lectures of the Professor on
Constitutional Law and History necessary for a degree in Law.
Innes then took up the duties of what was in fact a new Chair,
and fulfilled them till his death in 1874, lecturing to a secured
class on English and Continental Constitutional History.
(9) ÆNEAS J. G. MACKAY, 1874-1881, now Advocate-Depute
for Scotland, was the second “Professor of History." On his
resignation he was succeeded by (10) JOHN KIRKPATRICK, the
present Incumbent.
I
XIX.-PROFESSORS OF SCOTS LAW.
(1) ALEXANDER BAYNE, 1722-1737. We have related above
(Vol. I. p. 288) how, in 1722, the Town Council, on the petition
of Mr. Alexander Bayne of Rives, created a Chair of Scots Law
in the University, and made him the first Professor. The Act
continuing the Ale Duty, of the same year, provided a salary of
£100 for the Chair, and gave the first presentation to the Town
Council ; but enacted that their right afterwards should be re-
stricted to selecting from a leet of two, to be sent up by the
Faculty of Advocates. Bayne had passed Advocate in 1714, and
the terms of his petition show that he had been engaged in
lecturing privately on the Law of Scotland before he was made
Professor. In 1730 he published Institutions of the Criminal
.
Law of Scotland; and soon after a volume of Notes for the use of
the Students of the Municipal Law in the University of Edinburgh,
the preface to which contains the following passage, of some in-
terest as connecting the old system of "Dictates
» with the
modern system of lecturing: "So long," says Bayne, "as Students
would be at the trouble to take them down in writing, I thought
372
(1765.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
it a proper exercise for them, and to keep them to it I have
hitherto avoided the printing of them. But that intention being
now quite disappointed by the increasing number of written
copies, and these having become very incorrect by the added
errata of every new transcriber, I thought it better to provide
correct printed copies for the use of my students, than to let them
take up with the incorrect MS. copies of others. And that those
who shall be disposed to make use of their pen in the course of
their studies may not be without somewhat proper whereupon to
exercise it, let them be assured I shall yet find them suitable
materials in the course of my Prelections explanatory of what is
contained in our Author” (he made use of Sir George Mackenzie's
Institutions as his text-book) "and these notes, to be a fit subject
in their second course whereupon to display their assiduity." On
the death of Bayne (2) JOHN ERSKINE, 1737-1765, having been
nominated by the Faculty together with James Balfour, Advocate
(who “had no desire for the appointment”), was duly appointed
Professor of Scots Law by the Town Council. He was son of
the Hon. Colonel Erskine of Carnock, and grandson of Lord
Cardross. He entered with great ardour on the duties of his
Chair, and his class was more numerously attended than that of
Bayne had been For many years, as we saw by his programme
for 1741 (Vol. I. p. 289), he took as his text-book Şir George
Mackenzie's Institutions, but in 1754 he published his own
Principles of the Law of Scotland, and afterwards lectured on it.
After teaching the Scots Law class for twenty-eight years
Erskine retired, and devoted the last three years of his life to the
completion of his larger work, The Institutes of the Law of Scot-
land, which was published after his death, in 1773, and which
has subsequently been a book of the highest authority on the law
of Scotland. Matthew Ross, Dean of the Faculty of Advocates,
having been once asked how he acquired his great knowledge
of law, replied: “The day that I passed Advocate I walked home
from the Parliament House and buried my nose in Erskine, and
kept it there for three years,” Of the next Professor (3) WILLIAM
WALLACE, 1765-1786, no particulars can be obtained, except that
he was son to a Writer to the Signet, was admitted Advocate in
1752, was appointed to the Chair of Scots Laws in 1765, col-
lected the decisions reported for the Faculty of Advocates from
:
I
1822.]
373
PROFESSORS OF SCOTS LAW.
I
a
1772-1776, and died in 1786, leaving his widow and an only
daughter in great poverty. His successor in the Chair was a man
of powerful mind, and a great legal luminary, namely (4) DAVID
HUME, 1786-1822, who was the eldest son of John Hume, Esq.,
of Ninewells, and nephew of the Philosopher. David Hume was
born 1756, admitted Advocate 1779, and made Sheriff of Ber-
wickshire 1784, at the early age of twenty-eight; he was after-
wards transferred to the Sheriffship of Linlithgowshire, and was
made one of the Principal Clerks of Session. He published a
work of great learning and research on the Criminal Law of
Scotland, which passed through several editions during his life-
time, and has been republished since his death. He also
collected a well-known volume of Decisions, which appeared
posthumously. As a lecturer he had a high reputation ; but he
not only did not publish his lectures, but he left strict injunctions
to his executors to prevent any publication of them. Many copies,
however, of MS. notes of those lectures are in circulation among
the profession, and they are frequently quoted both at the Bar
and on the Bench. We have mentioned above (p. 9) Hume's
sagacious opinion, written in 1816, on the relations between the
Senatus and the Town Council. In 1822 he was promoted to the
office of Baron of Exchequer. He died in 1838. When Prin-
cipal Clerk of Session Hume sat at the same table with Sir Walter
Scott, who thus writes of him in his autobiography: "I copied
over his lectures twice with my own hand from notes taken in the
class, and when I have had occasion to consult them I can never
sufficiently admire the penetration and clearness of conception
which were necessary to the arrangement of the fabric of law,
formed originally under the strictest influence of feudal principles,
and innovated, altered, and broken in upon by the changes of
times, of habits, and of manners, until it resembles some ancient
castle, partly entire, partly ruinous, partly dilapidated, patched
and altered, during the succession of ages, by a thousand additions
and combinations, yet still exhibiting the marks of its antiquity,
and symptoms of the skill and wisdom of its founders, and capable
of being analysed and made the subject of a methodical plan by
an architect who can understand the various styles of the different
ages in which it was subjected to alteration. Such an architect
has Mr. Hume been to the law of Scotland, -neither wandering
I
а.
374
(1832.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
into fanciful and abstruse disquisitions, which are the more proper
subject of the antiquary, nor satisfied with presenting to his pupils
a dry and undigested detail of laws in their present state, but
combining the past state of our legal enactments with the present,
and tracing clearly and judiciously the changes which took place,
and the causes which led to them." Lockhart, in his Life of
Scott, characterises Hume as "a man as virtuous and amiable as
conspicuous for masculine vigour of intellect and variety of
knowledge."
(5) GEORGE JOSEPH BELL, 1822-1843, was the son of an
Episcopal Minister in Perthshire, and was born in 1770; he was
admitted Advocate in 1791, appointed Professor of Scots Law
in 1822, and made a Principal Clerk of Session in 1832. He
published several small, but important, works on the Law of
Bankruptcy and Diligence, and took an active part in promoting
improvements in the procedure of the Court of Session, and the
removal of technical and unnecessary formalities in the system
of titles to land, -having been a member of several Royal Com-
missions appointed to inquire into and report on these subjects.
But his great reputation as a jurist rests on his Commentaries on
the Law of Scotland and on the Principles of Mercantile Jurispru-
dence, and on his Principles of the Law of Scotland, which he
published as a text-book for his Students. Both works have gone
through many editions. Jeffrey wrote to Bell in 1830: "I love
and esteem you beyond any man upon earth, and I look forward
with pleasure, altogether unmingled with envy, to the time when
your exertions shall have placed you in a situation in which your
friendship for me will have something of the air of condescension.”
Unfortunately, the promotion thus prognosticated for Bell was
not in store for him ; but in 1832 he was provided for at the
Clerks' table in the Court of Session, where his predecessor,
Baron Hume, had long sat. Referring to this preferment con-
ferred by Jeffrey, who was then Lord Advocate, Lord Cockburn
writes: “He thought himself almost sufficiently rewarded for
having taken office, by the power which it gave him of obtaining
one of the principal Clerkships in the Court of Session for George
Joseph Bell. He would have made him a Judge if there had
been a vacancy; and certainly no man had ever a stronger claim,
so far as such claims depend on eminent fitness, than Mr. Bell
I
1863-]
375
PROFESSORS OF SCOTS LAW.
a
I
I
I
had for a seat on that Bench, which his great legal work had been
instructing and directing for above thirty years."
(6) JOHN SCHANK MORE, 1843-1861, son of a Seceding
Minister, was born at North Shields in 1784; admitted Advocate
in 1806, in 1827 published an edition of Erskine's Principles,
and in 1832 an important edition of Lord Stair's Institutions,
with notes and illustrations. More had an extraordinary know-
ledge of the literature of Scottish law, which showed itself in these
works. When appointed Professor, he was not only interesting
to his Students by his learning, but he took remarkable pains in
going through and correcting their exercises. He was a great
book collector, and amassed a library of 15,000 volumes. Among
these was a remarkable collection of about 14,000 pamphlets,
bound up into 1400 volumes. He was full of gentle tastes
outside the legal profession ; his books were his companions;
like Southey's scholar he might have said, "My days among the
dead are passed ;” and in old age his chief favourites were the
Episcopal divines, Horsley, Hooker, and Leighton. He exhibited
to his class the type of a Christian gentleman.1
(7) GEORGE Ross, 1861-1863, who next succeeded to the
Chair of Scots Law, held it for the brief space of two years. He
was son of George Ross, Esq., Advocate, and the last Judge of
the Commissary Court; was admitted Advocate 1835, and
afterwards appointed Presenter of Signatures, an office involving
the responsible duty of revising, before they were issued, all
Charters asked for from the Crown. He published various Com-
mentaries on statutes connected with Land Rights, and edited
many volumes of Leading Cases both on the subject of Land
Rights and on that of Commercial Law. He was appointed
Professor of Scots Law in 1861, but died prematurely in
1863.
(8) GEORGE Moir, 1863-1865, was another brief incumbent.
He had before held the Chair of Rhetoric for a short space, and
had gone off to be Sheriff of Ross-shire. In 1863 he was chosen
Professor of Scots Law by a unanimous vote of the Faculty
a
1 The view of Professor Schank More, above given, is taken from Dean
Ramsay's obituary notice of him in the Proceedings of R.S.E., 1861. The
substance of the accounts of the other Professors of Scots Law has been kindly
furnished by Professor Macpherson.
376
(1 825.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
of Advocates, all other candidates having withdrawn on its
being known that he was willing to occupy the Chair. But
he only held it two years, and then resigned, on which (9)
NORMAN MACPHERSON, the present Professor of Scots Law, was
appointed.
XX.-PROFESSORS OF CONVEYANCING.
It appears that about the year 1750 “the institution of a
Chair of Conveyancing was strongly urged by certain individuals
in the legal profession. The foundation of the Chair was then
successfully resisted by the Society of Writers to the Signet, on
the ground that it would interfere with the duties of masters in
the teaching of their apprentices in chambers. About forty years
afterwards the Society had become more enlightened on the
subject,"1 partly owing to the influence of a work entitled Lectures
on the History and Practice of the Law of Scotland, relative to
Conveyancing and Legal Diligence, by Walter Ross, W.S. In 1793
they instituted a Lectureship on Conveyancing, and in 1796 they
tried to get it erected into a Chair in the University, but this was
opposed, and for a time successfully, both by the Senatus (see
Vol. I. p. 292) and by the Faculty of Advocates, on the ground
that such a Chair would interfere with that of Scots Law. In
1825, however, the Town Council set aside these objections and
erected a Chair of Conveyancing, for which the Society of Writers
agreed to provide a perpetual salary of at least one hundred
guineas.
The first Professor of Conveyancing was (1) MACVEY NAPIER,
1825-1847, a learned and philosophical lawyer, who was still
more renowned as a man of letters and a critic.
Born in 1776,
and having been educated at the Universities of Glasgow and
Edinburgh, Macvey Napier passed W.S. in 1799, and in 1805
he was appointed Librarian to the Society. In the same year he
had an article on "Degerando" in the Edinburgh Review, to
“
”
which he continued afterwards to be a contributor. In 1811 he
reviewed Dugald Stewart's “Philosophical Essays” in the Quarterly.
He then commenced making an edition of the works of Sir Walter
Raleigh, of which six volumes were printed, when in 1814 he
1 Lectures on Conveyancing, by Professor Montgomerie Bell, vol. i. p. 14.
I
.
1856.
377
PROFESSORS OF CONVEYANCING.
I
was engaged by Messrs. Constable to act as editor of the “Supple-
ment" to the seventh edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica ;
which work was in his hands till 1824.1 In 1816 Napier was
appointed Lecturer on Conveyancing by the Writers to the Signet.
In 1818 he contributed a remarkable paper to the Transactions
of the R.S.E., entitled "Remarks Illustrative of the Scope and
Influence of the Philosophical Writings of Lord Bacon.” In 1820,
on Dr. Thomas Brown's death, Dugald Stewart wrote a strong
letter to the Lord Provost, recommending Napier for the Chair
of Moral Philosophy; but he, knowing that as a Whig he had
no chance of success, declined to become a candidate. In 1825
he was promoted by the Town Council from being Lecturer to
be Professor of Conveyancing. "Of his qualifications for this
Chair," says Professor Montgomerie Bell, “I can join a numerous
body of his Students in speaking with the highest respect and
gratitude. But he was not able to concentrate his whole atten-
tion on his work as a Professor, having in 1829 been chosen as
editor of the Edinburgh Review in succession to Jeffrey. His
individuality as an author was lost in anonymous contributions to
this Review. An interesting volume of letters to him from emi-
nent contributors, such as Brougham, Macaulay, Carlyle, James
Stephen, Brewster, Senior, M'Culloch, etc., has been published by
his son,2 and shows that he had a somewhat difficult team to
drive. He died in 1847, in the seventy-first year of his age.
(2) ALLAN MENZIES, 1847-1856, who was Napier's successor,
had, like himself, a considerable capacity for literature. We have
mentioned his name above (p. 39) as one of the Students who
were particularly distinguished in producing essays, in competition
for Lord Aberdeen's prize, on the Character of the Ancient
Athenians. Afterwards, belonging to a firm of Writers who were
agents for the Dick Bequest for the benefit of Teachers in the
North of Scotland, he took great interest in the administration of
the Trust, and was accustomed himself to test the qualifications
of the Parish Schoolmasters and the results of their teaching,
In the Chair of Conveyancing his Lectures, which after his death,
1 The edition of Raleigh having been suspended in 1814 was never com-
pleted by Napier. On the Constables becoming bankrupt, in 1825, the volumes
that had been printed were sold off as they were.
2 From the Introduction to this work most of the above particulars have
been taken.
378
[1705.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
in 1856, were published by his son, and went through two editions,
were characterised by literary excellence of style. Menzies intro-
duced the system of examining his class by papers to be answered
in the class-room without the aid of books or notes.
(3) ALEXANDER MONTGOMERIE BELL, 1856-1866, who was
a partner of Messrs. Dundas and Wilson, W.S., had not the
literary tastes of his predecessors, but he was a very able teacher
of Conveyancing, and his Lectures, which were published after his
death, have already gone through three editions. Without being
so well written as those of Professor Menzies, which they have
now superseded, they have a more practical tone, and also bring
the Law down to a later date.
(4) In 1866 JAMES STUART FRASER TYTLER, the present
Professor of Conveyancing, was appointed.
XXI.—PROFESSORS OF BOTANY.
-
The beginnings of the study of Botany in the College of
Edinburgh date far before those of any other medical or scientific
subject, except, indeed, Mathematics. We have seen above
(Vol. I. p. 218) how Sir R. Sibbald and Dr. A. Balfour got hold
of “Mr. James Sutherland, a youth, who by his own industry,
had attained a great knowledge of the plants and of medals," and
employed him to lay out for them, as a Physic Garden, a piece
of ground belonging to Holyrood House about forty feet square;
how next they got "a lease to Mr. James Sutherland” of the
”
garden belonging to Trinity Hospital, which was the second site
of the Physic Garden; and how in 1676 the Town Council gave
Sutherland a salary of £20 sterling, and annexed his profession
to the rest of the liberal sciences taught in the College, and
granted him a convenient room in the College for keeping books
and seeds relative to the said profession. They thus indirectly
.
made him Professor of Botany in 1676, from which we may date
the foundation of the Chair, though it was not till 1695 that the
Council formally appointed Sutherland to be Professor of Botany
in the College, with his former salary of £20, and “all emolu-
ments, profits, and casualties.”
(1) JAMES SUTHERLAND, 1676-1705, was a person about
whose antecedents Bower could find no particulars, except that
I
1707.]
379
PROFESSORS OF BOTANY.
O
"he had followed the honourable profession of a gardener."
That he was a diligent botanist and collector of plants may be
gathered from his Catalogue of some 2000 species and varieties
of plants cultivated in the Physic Garden. In the dedication of
this Catalogue in 1683 to the then Lord Provost, he mentions
with honest pride his exertions during seven years; his foreign
correspondence to obtain seeds and plants from the Levant, Italy,
Spain, France, Holland, England, and the East and West Indies;
and his "painful journeys in all seasons of the year to recover
whatever this Kingdom produceth of variety." In 1695 Sutherland
got himself placed on a better footing than before. He was not
only formally made Professor in the College of Edinburgh, but
the College of Surgeons resolved to assess their apprentices one
guinea each for instruction in Botany. In return Sutherland,
besides teaching the apprentices, was "to wait upon" the Surgeons
“at a solemn public herborising " four times a year. It seems
certain that Sutherland, who had great merits in his own way,
never gave a lecture on Botany within the College. Some of the
Students may have gone to the Physic Garden, as the Surgeons'
apprentices did, and picked up information. In 1705, when he
had served for thirty years, complaints were made of his neglect-
ing his duties both to the apprentices and to the College garden,
which he had been directed to keep in order. The Town
Council reduced his salary as Professor from £20 to £5, and
Sutherland then resigned, on the ground that he “had resolved
to live more retiredly and to quit the said profession, and apply
himself to the study of medals." Bower1 thinks that he must
have died in the same year, since in 1705 “ the Faculty of
Advocates purchased his excellent collection of Greek, Roman,
Scottish, Saxon, and English coins and medals." If he began
life as a common gardener, he must have been a remarkable
man to acquire both the knowledge and the means for such a
collection.
(2) CHARLES PRESTON, 1706-1712, the next Professor, seems
to have been a Doctor of Medicine. A year after his appoint-
ment he issued the following advertisement in the Edinburgh
Courant for 16th May 1707 : “Dr. Preston teaches his lessons
of botany in the Physick Garden at Edinburgh, the months of
1 Vol. i. p. 373.
380
[1712.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
May, June, July, and August 1707. Therefore, all gentlemen
and others, who are desirous to learn the said science of botany,
may repair to the said garden, where attendance will be given.”
This advertisement was an invitation to the general public to visit
the Physic Garden and receive from Dr. Preston the same sort
of instruction which the Surgeon apprentices were in all probability
receiving from him—namely, they were shown the plants, and
were told their names and medical properties, and whether they
were indigenous or exotic. Botany as a science, or as a subject
for systematic lectures in a class-room, hardly existed then. After
the death of Charles Preston in 1711 (3) GEORGE PRESTON,
1712-1738, possibly his sen, was appointed “Professor of Botany
of this city, and Master of the Physick Garden thereof," " with
power to cultivate and possess the said garden and house, at the
New North Port, and pertinents belonging thereto." He was “to
carry on the said profession of Botany," to cultivate the garden,
and "to keep correspondents for procuring plants and seeds from
foreign countries.” For these services he was to have a salary of
£10 sterling, subject, however, to the burden of £40 Scots
(£3:6:8 sterling) ground-duty to Trinity Hospital. In
1712 the Surgeons subscribed a guinea each towards building a
greenhouse, and the Town Council allowed George Preston £10
sterling a year for maintenance of the garden and greenhouse.
His position then was that he had a free house, a clear salary
of £6:13: 4, and leave to make what he could by teaching the
Surgeon apprentices and others, and by the sale of drugs from
the garden. Probably the last-named privilege was considered
to be of some value ; we have seen above (Vol. I. p. 308) that
in 1724 four Physicians of Edinburgh applied for the use of the
College Garden, with the view of raising pharmaceutical plants
therein. George Preston was by profession a druggist and
apothecary. Bower 1 quotes from the Edinburgh Gazette for gth
October 1701 an advertisement of his, announcing that he "is
newly arrived with a parcel of all sorts of drugs newly come from
the Indies, as also all sorts of spices, sugars, tea, coffee, chacolet,
etc., and are to be sold at his shop, in Smith's New Land, on the
north side of the High Street, foregainst the head of Blackfriar's
Wynd." He had seen medical service abroad, and was made
mars
1 Hist. Un. Ed., vol. ii, p. 121.
1751.]
381
PROFESSORS OF BOTANY.
I
3 Mp ni
I
721
Surgeon-Major to the Forces in North Britain, and as such obtained
remission of city taxes on his shop. Alexander Monro primus,
as part of his early medical education, got some instruction about
plants from George Preston.
With (4) CHARLES ALSTON, 1738-1761, the history of the
Chair of Botany, as part of the Medical Faculty in the University,
commences; Sutherland and the Prestons had been Keepers and
Exhibitors of the Physic Garden, rather than Professors. We have
already mentioned (Vol. I. p. 318) the circumstances of Alston's
appointment. He was born in 1683, and spent his youth about
.
Hamilton Palace, under the patronage of the Duchess, who wished
to make a lawyer of him, but he preferred Botany and Medicine.
He seems to have commenced his studies in Edinburgh, but in
his thirty-third year proceeded to Leyden, where, with many
others of his countrymen, he imbued his mind with the ideas
of Boerhaave. Returning, as Doctor of Medicines to Edinburgh 1.pl
in 1720, he began to practiseyqand also obtained, through the in- 'him
,
fluence of the Duke of Hamilton, the sinecure office of King's FR
子
​Botanist and Keeper of the Garden at Holyrood, which he en-
riched with plants procured in Holland; and he began teaching
Botany there in rivalry to G. Preston. On Preston's death, in
1738, the Town Council, with all the air of creating a new office,
“considering that were a Professor of Medicine and Botany elected
and installed in the City's College, it would in a great measure
contribute to the advancement of learning, etc. ; they therefore"
appointed Dr. Charles Alston accordingly. Alston, entering on
his duties in his fifty-fifth year, gave a course of lectures on
Botany every summer, and one on Materia Medica every winter,
for twenty-two years. In 1740 he published, for the use of his
Students, a list of the officinal plants in the Physic Garden, and in
1753 an introduction to Botany, entitled, Tyrocinium Botanicum
Edinburgense. It was at the opening of a new era for Botany
that Alston came to his Chair ; for in 1736 Linnæus published
his Systema Nature, which first definitely established the existence
of sex in plants. Alston was too old to at once adopt the novel
and striking views of Linnæus ; like many other naturalists, he
resisted them, and in the Physical and Literary Essays (1751) he
published a paper controverting the new system. Of course in
this matter Alston was behindhand, but he did good service in
ز
382
[1786.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
inaugurating systematic Botany and Materia Medica in the Uni-
versity. He wrote several papers for the Medical Essays, the
most important of which was on “Opium."
(5) JOHN HOPE, 1761-1786, unlike his predecessor, was
an enthusiastic admirer and apostle of Linnæus, to whose memory
he put up an imposing monument (now standing in the present
Botanic Garden). Hope had studied Medicine abroad, and on
.
his return had graduated M.D. at Glasgow (1 750), after which he
resided in Edinburgh, and joined the College of Physicians. In
April 1861 he was appointed “King's Botanist for Scotland,”
and in the same month was elected by the Town Council “ Pro-
fessor of Botany and Materia Medica” in the University. His
Professoriate was marked by two important changes—(1) having
for seven years given a double course of lectures, like Alston, in
1768 he got a commission as Regius Professor of Botany, and
then resigned the Professorship of Materia Medica, which was
accordingly erected into a separate Chair ; (2) finding the site
for the Physic Garden (where the Waverley Station is now) utterly
unsuited for its purpose-low, swampy, and unexposed to the
sun-he, by great exertions, got the Garden removed in 1776 to
a site on the west of Leith Walk, “where, under his superin-
tendence, the ground was laid out, the plants arranged according
to the Linnæan system, suitable hot-houses erected, and a pond
established for the growth of aquatic plants. For this purpose he
appears to have obtained the assistance of the Government, and
thus to have laid the foundation of that connection with the State
which has so materially furthered Botanical education in Scotland.” 1
These were great services rendered by Dr. John Hope. He was
the father of Charles Hope, the eminent Professor of Chemistry.
(6) DANIEL RUTHERFORD, 1786-1819, was the son of Dr.
John Rutherford, one of the founders of the Medical School of
the University (see Vol. I. p. 308). Fortes creantur fortibus has
been often illustrated in that School. Daniel Rutherford has the
honour of emulating Black by the discovery of one of the gases;
and, like Black, he announced it in his Graduation Thesis, De
aëre Mephitico, in which he observed that "healthy and pure air
by being respired, not only becomes partly mephitic, but also
1 From Professor Dickson's Address to his Students on the opening of the
new Botanical class-room in May 1882.
1819.]
383
PROFESSORS OF BOTANY.
suffers another change in its nature. For after all mephitic air
(carbonic acid gas) is separated and removed from it by means of
a caustic lixivium, that which remains does not thence become
more healthful; for although it makes no precipitate of lime from
water, yet it extinguishes fire and life no less than before.” The
residuum got the name of nitrogen gas, which Rutherford was
acknowledged to have discovered by his experiments. After this
successful début in his twenty-second year (1772) he proceeded
to Paris, various places in Italy, and London, whence he returned
to practise in Edinburgh in 1775. On the death of John Hope
he was appointed " Professor of Medicine and Botany."
Sir R. Christison, who attended his lectures in the Leith Walk
Garden, says: “Tradition had it in my student years that he was
disappointed at not being made Assistant and Successor to Black
in 1795, when that office was given to Dr. Charles Hope; and
he again, son of the botanical predecessor of Rutherford, was
said to have preferred to step into his own father's University
shoes than into those of Dr. Black. However that may have
been, Hope highly distinguished himself in his Chemical Chair;
while Rutherford in that of Botany, which he filled for thirty-four
years, always seemed to lecture with a grudge, and never contri-
buted a single investigation to the progress of the science which
he taught." "His lectures, however, were extremely clear, and full
of condensed information, his style was beautiful and his pro-
nunciation pure and scarcely Scotch.” But disability from gout
prevented his giving his Students any practical training in the field, a
duty which Sir R. Christison thinks that he should have devolved on
his excellent head-gardener and henchman, Mr. William Macnab.
Daniel Rutherford was uncle to Sir Walter Scott, his sister
having married Scott's father. There are numerous mentions of
him in Lockhart's Life of Scott, and especially there is a letter
from Sir Walter, dated 22d December 1819, in which he relates
the sudden deaths of three of the Rutherford family--his own
mother, his uncle, and his aunt—within one week. And, strange
to say, neither of them could hear of the other's death : Mrs.
Scott was seized with paralysis and lost speech and consciousness
on the 12th December, but lingered to the 23d; Professor
Rutherford visited his sister on the 14th, but dropped down dead
from gout in the stomach on the 15th; and Miss C. Rutherford,
384
(1820.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
1
who had been in failing health, died suddenly on the 17th, before
her brother's death had been communicated to her.
(7) ROBERT GRAHAM, 1820-1845, was an enthusiastic Botanist,
a high-minded gentleman, and a most successful Professor. He
had the honour of establishing two Botanic Gardens-one in
Glasgow, and one in Edinburgh. Born in 1786 of a good
Stirlingshire family, Graham graduated M.D. (1808), and went
to practise in Glasgow, to be near his parents. He was distin-
.
guishing himself there in his profession when, in 1817, he was
invited to take the place of Dr. Brown (late of Langfyne) as
Lecturer on Botany in the University. In 1818 the Crown
created a Chair of Botany in Glasgow, and appointed Graham to
fill it, and his first act was to get by private subscription a
Botanic Garden of nearly eight acres, at the west end of Glasgow,
in lieu of a very insufficient one adjoining the old College. Little
more than a year afterwards the death of Daniel Rutherford
occurred. The Town Council then offered the Edinburgh Chair
to Robert Brown, Librarian to Sir Joseph Banks. On his
declining it Graham became a candidate. On the 31st December
1819 he was gazetted Regius Professor of Botany in Edinburgh,
and Keeper of the King's Garden. In January 1820 he was
unanimously elected by the Town Council Professor of Medicine
and Botany. He thus became the first of three Professors who
have been successively transferred from the Chair of Botany in
Glasgow to that in Edinburgh.
When he came to his new appointment the question of
moving the Botanic Garden from Leith Walk was under discussion,
owing to the growth of the City northwards. The Government
proposed to place it by the Duke's Walk, near Holyrood; but
Graham, by great exertions, got for it its present site in Inverleith
Row, where it occupies fourteen and a half acres. All the trees
and plants were removed there, and among them a fine yew-tree,
which grew in the Physic Garden under Sutherland, and which
has been twice successfully transplanted. Sir R. Christison said
that "it proves its own age by the modulaus of De Candolle,
according to which it must be above two hundred years old.”
“The morning walk to the Botanic Garden," writes a former
a
1 This was superseded in 1841 by the splendid Garden of twenty-two acres
on the banks of the Kelvin.
1733.]
385
PROFESSORS OF ANATOMY.
pupil, “the large, light, conservatory-looking lecture-room, sur-
rounded by fine shrubs and beautiful flowering plants, the abun-
dance of newly gathered flowers, with which the lectures were
illustrated, and the lecturer himself, simple, unaffected, cordial,
and joyous, with no dulness or tedium in him, but as fresh and
healthy, and full of life, as the youths around him, remain as a
permanent picture in the mind's eye, from which so many scenes
have altogether faded." Graham lectured at first according to
the Linnæan principles, but he gradually adopted more and more
the Natural System. He introduced the practice of giving a
winter course in Botany in addition to the summer one. One
great feature of the summer course was the botanising expeditions
on the Saturdays, which were enjoyed alike by the teacher and
the taught. Graham carefully described in scientific journals all
new plants, on their first flowering in Edinburgh, and in journeys
through Great Britain and Ireland he made several additions to
the flora of the Kingdom. In 1836 some of his old pupils,
headed by Dr. Hutton Balfour, founded the Botanical Society of
Edinburgh, and made him President. In 1845 his health rapidly
succumbed to the effects of a tumour on the thoracic duct, and
he died in the fifty-ninth year of his age.
(8) JOHN HUTTON BALFOUR, 1845-1879, succeeded to the
Chair of Botany, which he held for thirty-four years. He retired
in 1879, and is now Emeritus Professor. (9) The present Pro-
fessor of Botany, ALEXANDER DICKSON, was then elected by the
Board of Curators.
1
XXII.-PROFESSORS OF ANATOMY.
We have sufficiently related (Vol. I. pp. 295-300) the founda-
tion of the Anatomy Chair in Edinburgh,—at first in a tentative
way in 1705, afterwards permanently in 1720. Of the first three
so-called Professors—(1) ROBERT ELLIOT, 1705-17:16; (2) ADAM
DRUMMOND, 1708-1720; (3) JOHN M'GILL, joint Professor
1716-1720—there is nothing special to tell, except that M'Gill,
in 1733, thirteen years after his resignation of the Chair, published
1 The above particulars are taken from a Biographical Sketch of Professor
Graham, by C. Ransford, M.D., being an address to the Harveian Society
(1846).
VOL. II.
2 C
1
386
(1733
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
in the Edinburgh Medical Essays an account of an operation
which,“ with evident dexterity and familiarity with the anatomy
of the parts,” he had performed on a large false aneurism at the
bend of the arm. (4) ALEXANDER MONRO primus, 1720-1758,
was not only the first systematic Professor of Anatomy in the
University, and the "father of the Edinburgh Medical School,”
but also the first Professor of any kind who drew great attention
to the University of Edinburgh from without, and gave it the
beginnings of its celebrity. The circumstances of his education
and early career have been mentioned previously. “ His course 2
extended from October to May, and embraced surgery as well as
anatomy His lectures were illustrated by dissections of the
human body and also, for comparison, of the bodies of quadru-
peds, birds, and fishes. After giving the anatomy of each part,
,
he treated of its diseases, especially of those parts requiring opera-
tions. He showed the operations on the dead body, and the
various bandages and apparatus; and concluded the course with
some lectures on physiology. He continued to give such a
course uninterruptedly for thirty-eight years." He did not read
”
his lectures, the tradition being that, having learnt his first dis-
course by heart, he was thrown into confusion by the sight of the
distinguished audience assembled to hear it, and forgot the words
which he had committed to memory; having brought no notes,
he was compelled to lecture extemporaneously, and he ever after
continued to do so. From this it must be concluded that he
lectured in English.
Monro's first and principal work was his Osteology, published in
1726, when he was under thirty years of age ; it was translated
into most of the languages of Europe. He was a promoter of
Medical literature by others, and founded a Society in Edinburgh
for the publication of Medical Essays, which first appeared in
1733, and the scope of which was afterwards enlarged by
M'Laurin. Monro contributed many papers to this series, the
last of which was on “The Success of Inoculation in Scotland.”
He was very social and “clubable.” He was a member of the
“Select Society," and took an active part in the intellectual
revival which was going on in Edinburgh during his lifetime.
1 Professor Struthers' Sketch of the Edinburgh Anatomical School, p. 15.
.
I
2 Ibid. p. 23.
1758.]
387
PROFESSORS OF ANATOMY.
I
Hutchinson, in his Biographia Medica (1799), vol. ii. p. 156,
records the character drawn by Lavater of Monro from the inspec-
tion of the engraving of his portrait by Allan Ramsay, which we
have reproduced. Lavater was not told whose portrait it was, and
his physiognomical art was completely baffled. He saw nothing
in Monro's face but "a good, gentle, peaceable character, of a
sanguine-phlegmatic temperament,” “not what is usually denomi-
nated a great man," but a "respectable personage," to whom
with much verbiage he attributed many amiable virtues. Perhaps
if Lavater could have seen the living man he might have made a
better guess. But, after all, people do not bear all their qualities
stamped upon their countenance.
When A. Monro primus was fifty-seven years old he persuaded
the Town Council to appoint his son as joint Professor with him
(1754), but he did not resign his Anatomical Chair till 1758, and
he lived nine years after that, devoting himself still to practice, of
which he had always enjoyed a large share, and to teaching as
one of the Professors of Clinical Medicine.
(5) ALEXANDER MONRO secundus, 1758-1798, so far from
being overshadowed by the eminence of his father, surpassed him
in scientific merit. He had gone through the Arts course, and
through two sessions of the Medical curriculum under Alston,
Whytt, Rutherford, Plummer, and his father, when in 1753-1754
he was employed, when only in his twentieth year, to deliver his
father's evening lecture. Owing to the insufficient size of the
class-room Monro primus had to repeat his lecture in the evening
for those Students who had failed to get admission in the morning.
He was relieved of this duty when his son, having attentively
listened to the morning lecture, was able to reproduce it; and
this he did most successfully. Monro primus, representin to the
Town Council the high qualifications of his son, engaged that, if
they would give him the reversion of the Chair, he should be
educated further under the best masters in Europe, and this
George Drummond's Council wisely assented to. Monro secundus
graduated M.D. in 1755, and then proceeded to London, Leyden,
Paris, and Berlin, where for two years and a half he studied
Anatomy, chiefly under Hunter, Albinus, and Meckel. Returning
to Edinburgh in 1758, at the age of twenty-five, he took his
father's place in the Chair of Anatomy. He at once showed his
388
[1779.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
independence by controverting Leuwenhock's doctrine respecting
the blood, which his father had always accepted and taught.
“The novelty of his manner combined with the clearness of his
style, is described by one who was present as having acted like an
electric shock on the audience. It was at once seen that he was
master of his subject and of the art of communicating knowledge
to others; his style was lively, argumentative, and modern com-
pared with that of his more venerable colleagues; and from the
beginning onwards, for half a century, his career was one of easy
and triumphant success.” 1
From 1760 to 1790 the average attendance on the class of
Monro secundus was, during the first decade of years 194, during
the second decade 287, during the third 342.2 He continued
lecturing till 1808, and during the present century his class rose
to the number of 400. He was said to pour out to his Students
a " copious stream of information-medical, surgical, physiologi-
cal, and pathological-that flowed from him almost without art
or effort.” He appears to have followed the practice of medicine
rather than that of Surgery. On his return from the Continent
in 1758 he at once joined the College of Physicians, and Dr.
James Gregory describes him as his “very ideal of a practical
physician and consultant.” He never operated as a surgeon,
though he used to be consulted in important surgical cases. And
yet in 1777 he claimed the monopoly of surgical teaching in the
University, and resisted the establishment of a separate Professor-
ship of Surgery. In 1798 his son was associated with him in the
Chair of Anatomy and Surgery, but he still continued to give the
greater part of the course till 1808, when he delivered his last
lecture, and retired from work to the enjoyment of a peaceful old
age. In 1779 he had bought the estate of Craiglockhart, and
took great pleasure in planting and ornamenting it. He did not
reside there, however, as the dwelling-house was only built in
1835 by his son. Monro secundus died in 1817, in his eighty-
fifth year. Though he belonged to an era of great men in the
University, and had as colleagues in the Medical Faculty Cullen,
Black, the Gregorys, the Rutherfords, the Homes, John and
e
$
i Struthers, p. 28.
% This information is given in a document deposited in a bottle under the
foundation-stone of the new Anatomical Theatre in 1790 (see above, p. 202).
1798.]
389
PROFESSORS OF ANATOMY.
I
Charles Hope, and Dr. Duncan senior, he was acknowledged by
all as their head. Abroad as well as at home he had a great
reputation, and was admitted member of the Academies of Paris,
Madrid, Berlin, Moscow, etc. His chief works were three folio
volumes : On the Structure and Functions of the Nervous System
(1783); The Structure and Physiology of Fishes explained and com-
pared with those of Man and other Animals (1785); and A
Description of all the Bursæ Mucose of the Human Body (1788).
He succeeded his father as secretary to the Philosophical Society
till 1782, when it was merged in the Royal Society of Edinburgh,
and he contributed many papers to their Essays. He is said to
have possessed great anecdotal powers, and to have been “an
enthusiastic admirer of the theatre." I
(6) ALEXANDER MONRO tertius, 1798-1846. The three
Monros held the Chair of Anatomy for no less than 126 years,
and for 11 years they retained the teaching of Surgery also in
their hands. Sir Robert Christison, in his Recollections, says
of the third of the name, that "he must have felt the fame of
his father and grandfather a great load upon their successor, and
indeed it appeared as if he did.” “His manner betrayed an
impassioned indifference, as if it were all one to him whether
his teaching was acceptable and accepted or not." "Yet he
lacked neither ability nor accomplishments. But apathy in a
teacher cannot stir up enthusiasm in a student. A lecturer who
seldom shows himself in his dissecting room 2 will scarcely be
1
ables
Struthers, p. 33.
2 Both in the time of the second and the third Monro there was always a very
Prosector," as it was called in those days, who took charge of the dis-
secting room, and demonstrated to the Students. The first of these was John
Innes, 1757-1777, who published a treatise “On the Muscles.” The second was
Andrew Fyfe, 1777-1814, who was a voluminous writer of anatomical text-
books. Sir Astley Cooper recorded of him that "he was a horrid lecturer,
but an industrious worthy man, and good practical anatomist.” Sir R.
Christison says:
“Andrew Fyfe, one of the last in Edinburgh to wear a pig.
tail, was my teacher of Practical Anatomy. Practical students in those days
were not numerous, and subjects' were plentiful. I believe I made fair use
of my opportunities; and the good old Fyfe took care of this by going every
afternoon, attended by all his dissectors, over what each had done with his
‘part' during the day, and making us demonstrate our work. Duty over, we
all gathered round him at the fireside, where he entertained us with anecdotes
of the departed Medical Worthies who had adorned the University or City in
his day."
事
​t
390
[1815-
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
looked up to as an anatomist.” “ He lost command of his class
which in his latter years became the frequent scene of disturb-
ance and uproar. Nevertheless," adds Sir Robert, " Monro gave
a very clear, precise, complete course of lectures on Anatomy
when I attended him (1815); and certainly I learnt Anatomy
well under him.”
Monro tertius had the disadvantage of being compared not
only with his illustrious predecessors, but also with a brilliant
extra - Academical rival, Dr. John Barclay, who lectured on
Anatomy in Edinburgh from 1797 to 1825, and who, by assidu-
ous attention and great ability, attracted the University Students
to come to him, even after they had paid a fee for the same sub-
ject to Monro. From 1804 onwards Barclay had a class of about
300. Sir R. Christison attended him, after one session with
Monro, and records some of his witticisms (for he was a wit as
well as a man of science). The following is a specimen : “Gentle-
)
men, while carrying on your work in the dissecting room, beware
of making anatomical discoveries; and above all beware of rush-
ing with them into print. Our precursors have left us little to dis-
You may perhaps fall in with a trifling supernumerary
muscle or tendon, a slight deviation or extra branchlet of an
artery, or perhaps a minute stray twig of a nerve,--that will be
all. But beware! Publish the fact, and ten chances to one you
will have it shown that you have been forestalled long ago.
Anatomy may be likened to a harvest field. First come the
reapers, who, entering upon untrodden ground, cut down great
store of corn from all sides of them. These are the early
Anatomists of modern Europe, such as Vesalius, Fallopius, Mal-
pighi, and Harvey. Then come the gleaners, who gather up
ears enough from the bare ridges to make a few loaves of bread.
Such were the Anatomists of last century, Valsalva, Contunnius,
Haller, Winslow, Vicq d'Azyr, Camper, Hunter, and the two
Monros. Last of all come the geese, who still contrive to pick
up a few grains scattered here and there among the stubble, and
waddle home in the evening, poor things, cackling with joy
because of their success. Gentlemen, we are the geese." It
was proposed to make a Chair of Comparative Anatomy in the
University for Barclay, but this attempt was successfully resisted
by Monro tertius and Jameson, and gave rise to Kay's celebrated
cover.
1846.]
391
PROFESSORS OF ANATOMY.
>
»
caricature of Barclay trying to ride the skeleton of an elephant
into the University gate.
After Barclay's retirement from lecturing Monro had to
encounter the still more formidable rivalry of Robert Knox, the
morphological Anatomist and paragon of lecturers, to whose dis-
secting room (without any connivance on his part) the victims of
the Burke and Hare murders were brought as “subjects ;” and
Knox for a time had a class of 500 Students.
The writings of Monro tertius were voluminous, but need not
be here specified. His largest work was his Outlines of the
Anatomy of the Human Body, in 4 vols. (1813). Monro tertius
practised as a physician. “He spoke Latin well, and was fond
.
of paintings.” 1 He resigned his Chair in 1846, and died in
1859, aged eighty-five.
(7) JOHN GOODSIR, 1846-1867, having as a youth gone
through a course of Arts at St. Andrews—where he is said to have
shown a taste for metaphysics, and to have imbibed the doctrines
of Coleridge, which coloured his subsequent thoughts and specu-
lations came to Edinburgh, and was apprenticed to Nasymth,
the eminent dentist. At the same time he studied Medicine,
learning Anatomy under Knox, and making the friendship of
Edward Forbes, with whom he shared a fondness for researches
in Natural History. In his twenty-fourth year (1838) he brought
before the British Association his Observations on the Development
of the Teeth. He was then made Conservator of the Museum of
the College of Surgeons, while holding which office he produced
many papers on animal form and structure in both healthy and
morbid conditions. In 1842-43 he delivered lectures at the College
of Surgeons, in which he enunciated his views on various physio-
logical and pathological processes, and especially his theory as to
the nucleus of the cell; these lectures were afterwards published.
In 1844 he was appointed Demonstrator of Anatomy in the
University by Monro tertius, whom in 1846 he succeeded as
Professor.
Goodsir was a remarkably successful teacher, his lectures
being rendered attractive by his practice of going beyond the
dry details of Anatomy, and pointing out its relation to kindred
Struthers, p. 37. To Professor Struthers' charming Historical Sketch the
preceding pages owe great obligations.
I
3
392
[1713.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
I
sciences. He worked “in a high-toned philosophic spirit," 1.
in that spirit we may suppose which he had caught from Coleridge.
By his labours in Comparative Anatomy the museum which the
University had received from Monro secundus was greatly aug-
mented. In 1850 he projected and edited the Annals of
Anatomy and Physiology, but his health gave way, and after three
years he was obliged to relinquish the undertaking. A paralytic
affection now undermined his constitution, though he continued,
intermittedly, to do some good work. In 1867, at the early age
of fifty-three, he died, and was succeeded by (8) WILLIAM TURNER,
the present Professor of Anatomy.
>
XXIII.--PROFESSORS OF MEDICINE AND CHEMISTRY.
(1) JAMES CRAUFURD, 1713. Chemistry was first recog-
nised in the University of Edinburgh owing to Dr. James
Craufurd, a pupil of Boerhaave, suggesting to the Town Council
that he should be allowed to teach the subject (Vol. I. p. 297).
They acquiesced in his views, gave him the title of “Professor
of Physic and Chemistry," and provided him with rooms, but no
salary. He then gave occasional courses, of which nothing is
recorded beyond the fact of their having been given. It is a
remarkable thing, showing how small a claim the Chair of
Chemistry was expected to make upon Craufurd's time, that in
1719 he (being a very accomplished man) was appointed to the
Chair of Hebrew also. He held both these important and
utterly unconnected Chairs together. Joseph Gibson, the first
Professor of Midwifery, records that he was assisted in a post-
mortem examination by “Dr. James Craufurd, late Professor of
Hebrew and Medicine in the University of Edinburgh,” and
eulogises his “universal literature and consummate medical
knowledge” and his “beautiful character, as a good man and
sincere friend.” 2
But the modern science of Chemistry had not then come into
? The whole of the above account of Goodsir is taken from Pro-
fessor Turner's obituary notice of his predecessor in the Proceedings of the
R.S.E., vol. xvi.
2 Medical Essays and Observations, vol. ii. p. 301.
1755.]
393
PROFESSORS OF CHEMISTRY.
existence; and what was known as Chemistry was for the time
under a cloud in Edinburgh owing to the powerful attacks made
by Dr. Pitcairne at the end of the seventeenth century upon the
“ Iatro-Chemists." " Pitcairne, while a Professor at Leyden,
before he settled in Edinburgh, had become disgusted with the
absurdities of Iatro-Chemistry, and employed all his eloquence,
learning, and logic to effect its overthrow. So unpopular did he
make the science of chemistry that half a century elapsed before
it was restored to favour in this Capital. Students had learnt to
look on it with contempt, and the professors did not encourage
its study."1 Chemistry, which had fallen into neglect through
its ill-assorted union with Medicine, was restored to favour by
Cullen.
Whether Craufurd had died, or resigned, or simply given up
lecturing, we know not; but in 1726 the Town Council pro-
ceeded, as if the coast were clear, and they appointed Drs.
Andrew Plummer and John Innes to be Professors of “Medi-
cine and Chemistry.” Innes appears to have acted as if he
had been “Professor of Medicine" simply, and he taught no
Chemistry.
(2) ANDREW, PLUMMER, 1726-1755, on the other hand, who
.
had been a graduate of Leyden and a pupil of Boerhaave, lec-
tured zealously for twenty-nine years, chiefly upon Chemical
Pharmacy. He was the author of a preparation of antimony and
mercury, which for nearly a century was in repute under the
name of Plummer's Pill. He analysed the Moffat Water, and
was the cause of so many patients resorting to that spring. He
contributed several papers to the Medical Essays, for the editing
of which he was joint-secretary with A. Munro primus. Of
Plummer Dr. Fothergill recorded “such was his universal know-
ledge that in any disputed point in science the great M‘Laurin
always appealed to him as to a living library."
(3) To succeed him WILLIAM CULLEN, 1755-1766, was
brought from Glasgow, and thus commenced his brilliant Pro-
fessorial career in this University. Cullen had had no foreign
teaching Born in Lanarkshire in 1710, he had served an
2
1 A Century of Chemistry in the University of Edinburgh, by Lyon Play-
fair, C.B., etc. (1858), being his Inaugural Address, p. 8.
2 Bower, vol. ii. p. 216.
p.
394
[1755.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
>
apprenticeship to a Surgeon in Glasgow, had made various
voyages as ship's Surgeon to the West Indies, had practised
awhile in the moorland district of Shotts, and then had come,
already a man of experience and independent thought, to be for
two years a Student of Medicine in the University of Edinburgh,
where, even as a Student, he signalised himself by being one of
the founders of the Royal Medical Society. Circumstances then
drew him to the West. In his thirtieth year he obtained the
degree of M.D. from the University of Glasgow, where he found
two nominal Professors (of Anatomy and of Medicine), neither
of whom lectured. Cullen saw that a School of Medicine might
be established there, and he got leave to lecture in the Univer-
sity on the Theory and Practice of Physic, on Chemistry, and on
Botany—so comprehensive was his grasp. His courses of
Chemistry, which began in 1747, attracted much attention, and
procured him the acquaintance of Lord Kames, who was then
taken up with the idea of applying chemistry to agriculture. In
1751 Cullen was made Professor of Medicine in the University
of Glasgow, but he still continued to prosecute Chemistry, espe-
cially in its application to the useful arts. He published a paper
on the various doctrines of heat in the Edinburgh Philosophical
and Literary Transactions, sent "Some Reflections on Chemistry"
to the Edinburgh Philosophical Society (1753); and to the Board
of Fisheries, etc., “Remarks on Bleaching" (1755). When Dr.
Plummer became paralytic several candidates for his Chair
appeared among them Dr. Home and Cullen's illustrious
pupil, Joseph Black. Through the exertions of Lord Kames,
and the influence of the Duke of Argyll, Cullen was appointed
joint Professor with Plummer (1755), and on Plummer's death,
next year, became sole Professor of Medicine and Chemistry.
Cullen's first course in Edinburgh was attended by 17 Students,
his second by 59, and so on increasingly till he had a class
numbering 145, several of whom had attended three, four, five,
or even six of his courses. He thus made Chemistry attractive,
and he has also the merit of being the first in Great Britain to
assign its proper position to Chemistry as an independent science
of the greatest importance and capable of the widest application,
and not, as had hitherto been conceived, a mere appendage to
Medicine.

2
3
W
Painted by Sir Henry Racburn
Eng. by Rogers
JOSEPH BLACK M.D.

1766.]
395
PROFESSORS OF CHEMISTRY.
1
2
I
Sir Lyon Playfair says 1 that “Chemistry owes but little to
Cullen as a discoverer, but much to him as a clear and philoso-
phical expounder." . “Like other Chemists of his time, he seems
to have accepted only four primary elements (fire, earth, air, and
water) as the basis of his prelections." "He, of course, taught
the theory of phlogiston, which was then doubted by no one."
But his mode of teaching made a new era in the Professorial
system. “He saw? that a science like Chemistry was not to be
taught by mere lectures, but that there must be a free and un-
reserved communication between the teacher and the taught.
He cultivated the personal acquaintance of his pupils, and
zealously aided them to overcome their first difficulties.” His
clearness of exposition was remarkable; and, as a specimen
of his methods, it may be mentioned that he was the inventor
of those diagrams, now universally used, which by means of
connecting lines show the affinity of bodies to each other.
In 1766 Cullen was transferred to the Chair of the Institutes
of Medicine, and was succeeded in the Chair of Chemistry by
(4) JOSEPH BLACK, 1766-1795, a great genius, who first
opened the road to the modern science of Chemistry, a road
which his own feeble health prevented him following up.
Lavoisier, as is well known, entered victoriously on the path,
and became the founder of modern Chemistry ; but that he
acknowledged Black to have been the pioneer may be seen from
a letter which he sent to Black, together with his researches on
respiration, saying: “Il est bien juste, Monsieur, que vous soyez un
des premiers informés des progres qui se font dans une carrière que
vous avez ouverte, et dans laquelle nous nous regardons tous comme
vos disciples." The remarkable thing is that Black's discovery,
which revolutionised former ideas, was announced to the world in
a Graduation Thesis, written when he was twenty-four years old.
Joseph Black was born in 1728 at Bordeaux, where his
father, a native of Belfast, but of Scottish extraction, was settled
as a wine merchant. Black's mother was of an Aberdeenshire
family, and was cousin to Adam Ferguson, Being sent home
.
for his education to a school in Belfast, Black afterwards pro-
ceeded to the University of Glasgow, where he was initiated into
Chemistry by Cullen, and showed such aptitude that he became
1 A Century of Chemistry, p. 10.
2 Ibid. p. II.
查
​I
396
[1 766.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
"
Cullen's assistant. It was even said that Cullen evinced a
certain jealousy of his remarkable pupil, and was reticent towards
him about some of his experiments. But they were afterwards
firm friends throughout life. In 1751 Black came to Edinburgh
to complete his Medical studies, and in 1754 he presented to the
Faculty for his degree a Thesis De humore acido a cibis orto, et
Magnesia alba. “The text of the Thesis treats chiefly of the
acidity of the stomach, and of the greater usefulness of magnesia
than of other antacids; but to it are appended a series of experi-
ments of the greatest chemical interest. He there fully explains
and proves the doctrine of the relation of the caustic to the mild
alkalies, which he afterwards published in a more completely
developed form in 1756 in the Essays and Observations, Physical
and Literary, read before a Society in Edinburgh.”I
It was this doctrine of the relation of caustic to mild alkalies
that upturned former ideas. It was by introducing for the first
time quantitative as well as qualitative analysis into Chemistry
that Black had obtained his results. While every one had
imagined that mild alkalies gained causticity by burning, he
showed, by weighing them, that they lost something by the pro-
cess, and that causticity was a minus quantity, a principle evoked
by the loss of something which had counteracted it. That some-
thing, the presence of which he demonstrated in various bodies,
Black called "fixed air"; but afterwards it came to be called by
the French chemists “carbonic acid gas," which was thus revealed
to the world, and led the way to a host of other discoveries.
In 1755, on Cullen's coming to Edinburgh, Black succeeded
him in the Chair of Medicine at Glasgow. He lectured there
on Chemistry as well as Medicine, and in 1761 he made his
second great discovery, that of Latent Heat, which he deduced
from experiments, showing that ice in being melted absorbs 140°
of heat, which becomes latent in the water produced, and is ren-
dered insensible to the thermometer. This remarkable discovery
was accompanied by researches into the laws of boiling and
evaporation, which were very suggestive to Black's friend James
Watt, and thus laid the foundation for the practical application
of steam power.
1 The Development of the idea of Chemical Composition, Inaugural Lecture
by Professor A. Crum Brown, 1869, p. 20.
1798.]
397
PROFESSORS OF CHEMISTRY,
When Cullen vacated the Chair of Chemistry in Edinburgh
Black succeeded him at the age of thirty-eight; but Black's work
as a discoverer was already finished. He contented himself
thenceforward with being a perfectly lucid and successful teacher.
“He took no part in the heavy conflicts which followed the dis-
covery of oxygen, and the downfall of the phlogistic theory. He
loved rest and the quiet society of his friends." Among these
the chief were Adam Smith, Hume, A. Carlyle, Hutton, and
Adam Ferguson. With very delicate health, Black “husbanded
out life's taper" by the most careful regimen. He died in his
seventy-first year, while sitting alone at table, and so completely
without a struggle that a cup of milk was found resting on his
knees and steadied by his hand, without a drop having been
spilt
. He carried his ideas of quantitative exactness into his
Will, by dividing his property into 10,000 shares, so as to be able
to allot to his various relatives, with the utmost minuteness, the
amount which he thought each could claim.
(5) CHARLES HOPE, 1795-1844, was son to Dr. John Hope,
the Professor of Botany, and was holding the Lectureship on
Chemistry in Glasgow, which Cullen and Black had adorned,
when he was called upon to become joint Professor with the
latter, and relieve him of the labours of teaching. Hope was
fully alive to the importance of the quantitative age in Chemistry,
which was slowly though steadily unfolding itself; he had learnt
Lavoisier's views from himself, and in personal communication
with Dalton had imbibed his ideas of atomic constitution.I He
was not deficient in the powers of an investigator, and his name
is associated with two discoveries : first in 1798) of the proper-
ties and salts of the previously unknown earth called Strontia;
secondly, of the curious property of water to attain its maximum
density at 39°•1.2 This was a beautiful supplement to Black's
discovery of latent heat, which had thrown great light on the
economy of the Universe and the arrangement of the Seasons.
Hope revealed a wonderful device of Providence; for “if water
contracted and became heavier at low temperatures, like other
fluids, the top water chilled by the air would always cool and
Sir Lyon Playfair, A Century of Chemistry, p. 23.
? Hope, having less delicate thermometers, had fixed it at 39'5, but Sir
Lyon Playfair and Dr. Joule afterwards showed the exact point to be 39'I.
1
398
[1844.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
There was,
fall down, until the whole of a sea or lake became of a freezing
temperature, when it would become a solid mass of ice. Not
only would vegetable and animal life be thus destroyed, but the
heat of the warmest summers would be insufficient to melt such
vast quantities of ice.”1
But after these achievements Hope abandoned the career of
investigation, and made it his chief aim to improve the mode of
lecture, and to make his science attractive. His success in this
respect was triumphant. “His manner and his diction," says
Sir R. Christison, were somewhat pompous, but this was more
than counterbalanced by uncommon clearness of exposition, and
unexampled splendour, and success of experimental demonstration.
To be visible to a class of 500 Students in 1823 he had 575)2
his experiments required to be performed on a very large scale,
which every one conversant with experimental lectures knows to
increase greatly the difficulty of exact manipulation. Neverthe-
less, when I attended Hope in 1814, there was not a single
failure to attain exactly what he announced.”
however, for a long time a deficiency in Hope's system; for
many years he afforded his Students no opportunity of practical
instruction, and his laboratory was only open to his class-assistant.
Some of the Students, headed by Christison and Syme, formed
a Chemical Society for making experiments, in order to meet this
deficiency. At last, in 1823, the teaching of Practical Chemistry
was begun by Dr. Anderson, Hope's assistant. In 1833 a move-
ment was made, and favoured by the Town Council, for the
establishment of a separate Chair of Practical Chemistry; but
this the Senatus, perhaps with reason, opposed. In 1826 Professor
Hope represented to the Senatus that he “had been solicited to
give a popular course of lectures on Chemistry to ladies as well
as gentlemen," and the Senatus sanctioned his doing so. There
was at that period a decided, but short-lived, movement in favour
of popular lectures in the University, to which ladies were to be
admitted. We must not here omit to mention that Hope,
who had derived large emoluments from his Chair, founded by
bequest a prize of £50 per annum to encourage investigation in
Chemistry.
1 A Century of Chemistry, p. 25.
It was owing to Hope's large classes that the Chemistry class-room was
made the largest of all the class-rooms in the Adain-Playfair building.
1
1869.]
399
PROFESSORS OF CHEMISTRY.
I
After Dr. Hope's long Professorship of forty-nine years (6)
WILLIAM GREGORY, 1844-1858, succeeded to the Chair, but
under a new title, for the Town Council now judiciously omitted
"Medicine" from its province, and elected Dr. Gregory to be
“ Professor of Chemistry.” He was the son of Dr. James
Gregory, long Professor of the Institutes, and then of the Practice
of Medicine. In early youth William Gregory, on seeing Hope's
experiments, had been filled with a feeling of emulation. And
he is said to have steadily kept before him the idea of succeeding
Hope. “It was not, however, until he had made his name
known throughout Europe as a chemist, as a favourite pupil and
friend of Baron Liebig, and the approved translator of several of
his works, and had established his reputation as a teacher of his
favourite science in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dublin, and King's
College, Aberdeen, where he was appointed Professor of Chemistry
in 1839," that he at length, in 1844, realised the object of his
ambition. His teaching was marked by clearness and power of
condensation, as well as by "his just perception of the many
important discoveries by which the science of Chemistry was
advanced during his lifetime.” But he was himself rather an
expositor than a promoter of science. From the effects of a fever
in his youth, he, though a large and powerfully-made man, was
precluded from much walking, and was condemned to an almost
sedentary life. He devoted much of his time to the acquisition
of various languages, to the practice of music (for which he had
a refined taste), and to microscopical observation. He contri-
buted several memoirs on the “Diatomaceæ," to the Royal Society
of Edinburgh, of which he was one of the secretaries. His last
chemical work consisted in Notes on the Action of the Soil in
Vegetation, which he drew up only a few days before his death,
when he was with difficulty supported in bed, so as to enable him
to write. 1
He was succeeded in 1858 by (7) Dr. (now the Right Hon.
Sir) LYON PLAYFAIR (now K.C.B., and M.P., etc.), who held
the Chair for eleven years.
On his resignation in 1869 (8)
ALEXANDER CRUM BROWN, the present Professor of Chemistry,
was appointed.
1 The above particulars are from Professor Alison's obituary notice of
William Gregory, in the Proceedings of the R.S.E., 1858.
a
"
400
(1692.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
XXIV.-PROFESSORS OF THE INSTITUTES OF MEDICINE.
.
Some persons wish to date the foundation of the Medical
Faculty in the University from 1685. But this is hardly correct;
we have related (Vol. I. pp. 217-229) the beginnings of a Medical
School in Edinburgh about that time, the establishment of the
Physic Garden and of the Royal College of Physicians, and how,
in 1685, Sir Robert Sibbald, and Drs. James Halket and Archibald
Pitcairne, were appointed by the Town Council to be “Professors
of Medicine in the University." But these appointments were
honorary ; Halket and Pitcairne never lectured at all, and all
that we know of Sibbald's teaching is, that twenty-one years after
his appointment as Professor he advertised his willingness to give
some private lectures in Medicine and Natural History. These
three distinguished physicians, then, were only nominally University
Professors. The foundation of the Medical Faculty really dates
from 1726. Much gratitude, however, is due to Sir Robert
Sibbald for all that he did for Edinburgh. Scientifically, he
appears not to have been very strong. He published an account
of the fauna and flora of Scotland, under the title of Prodromus
Historia Naturalis, which Dr. Pitcairne unmercifully reviewed
in a pamphlet called Dissertatio de legibus Historia Naturalis,
holding up to ridicule the wild oxen with manes, the beavers, the
badgers resembling swine, the nightingales, etc., which Sibbald
had discovered in Scotland. The fact appears to be that
Sibbald's book had been compiled out of the answers to questions
circulated, which answers had often been furnished by ignorant,
or perhaps roguish persons. Dr. Halket was not a person of any
great eminence; but Dr. Pitcairne deserves especial mention in
this place, not only as one of the greatest physicians of his time,
but on account of the honour which he reflected on his country
by being chosen as Professor of Physic in the University of
Leyden, a distinction which he gained partly by a learned treatise
vindicating for Harvey the discovery of the circulation of the
blood. He only remained a year in his Chair at Leyden, because
his wife's friends did not wish her to reside abroad. It may be
mentioned that his Leyden appointment was made in 1692, seven
years after he had been made honorary Professor in Edinburgh.
Pitcairne followed the principles in Medical science of Bellini,
1747.] PROFESSORS OF INSTITUTES OF MEDICINE. 401
who dedicated a volume of Opuscula to him. He had an exten-
sive practice in Edinburgh; he was a great wit, and also an
excellent scholar, and the author of many Latin poems, chiefly
of a satirical character ; being an Episcopalian and a Jacobite,
and also somewhat ribald in his jokes, he was accused (unjustly)
by the Presbyterians of being “a confirmed Deist." He was a
great friend of Principal Carstares, but Bower mistakes in saying
that he had been " of the same standing” as Carstares at college,
for Carstares graduated in 1667, and Pitcairne in 1671. He
died in 1713
By the arrangements made in 1726 (see Vol. I. p. 315), when
four Professors then appointed divided the Medical teaching
among themselves, the Chair of the Institutes of Medicine was
allotted to (1) ANDREW SINCLAIR, a physician who had graduated
at Angers. In lecturing he took for his text-book the Institu-
tiones Medicæ of Boerhaave, and did not go beyond what was
therein contained. His lectures were delivered in Latin, as
indeed all those of the Medical Faculty then were, with the ex-
ception of those on Anatomy; Sinclair's Latin was considered
remarkably elegant. His health failed in 1747, and his place
,
was taken by (2) ROBERT WHYTT, 1747-1766, who became a
bright luminary in the rising University, and left a name great in
the history of physiological science. Whytt was the son of
Robert Whytt, Esq., of Bennochy; he had a good fortune, and
in 1743 married the sister of James Balfour of Pilrig (afterwards
Professor of Moral Philosophy); their son, inheriting the entailed
estate of General Melville of Strathkinness, took the name of
Whytt-Melville, or Whyte Melville, and was grandfather to the
late Mr. Whyte Melville, of Mount Melville, St. Andrews.
Whytt pursued Medicine for the love of science; he graduated
M.D. at Rheims in 1736, having studied under Monro primus
and his colleagues in Edinburgh, Cheselden in London, Winslow
in Paris, the aged Boerhaave and Albinus in Leyden. About
that time Sir Robert Walpole and his brother Horace being both
troubled with the stone, public attention was called to this disease,
and the Government paid a Mrs. Joanna Stephens £5000 for
the secret of her Medicine for curing “all calculous complaints,"
in order that it might be sold cheaply to the poor, It proved, of
course, to be a quack preparation containing a number of useless
VOL. II.
2 D
n
402
[1766.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
I
ingredients. In 1743 Whytt contributed a paper to the Edin-
1
burgh Medical Essays on the “Virtues of Lime Water in the cure
of Stone"; it was afterwards published separately, ran through
several editions, and was translated into French and German.
Whytt treated the stone by administering an ounce daily of
Alicant soap in three pints of lime water. It was as a sedative,
rather than as a solvent, that this treatment, now exploded, had
any success. The treatise, however, led Black, then at Glasgow,
to study the nature of different kinds of lime water, and so had
fruitful results.
Whytt, on succeeding to the Chair of "Institutes," at first
used Boerhaave's Institutiones as his text-book, but in 1762 he
exchanged this for the Pathologia of Gaubius. In the meantime
he had brought out in 1751 his treatise On the Vital and other
Involuntary Motions in Animals, which attracted the attention of
physiologists throughout Europe. In this, throwing aside the
doctrine of Stahl that the rational soul is the cause of all involun-
tary motions in animals, Whytt ascribed such movements to "the
effect of a stimulus acting on an unconscious sentient principle."
Haller called Whytt a "semi-animist,” and indeed he was not very
distinct in his utterances; but he traced involuntary movements
to an anima, which, whether identical or not with the rational
soul, is, at the moment of its supplying the stimulus, without any
reason, intention, or consciousness. Thus Whytt's doctrine may
,
be taken as a comprehensive expression for the reflex action of
the spinal cord and brain; and he was on the threshold of enun-
ciating that law as it is now known. He initiated also one or two
principal steps towards the generalisation that "one animal surface
receives impressions and another originates movements.”
In 1764 he brought out his greatest practical work On Nervous,
Hypochondriac, or Hysteric Diseases, and on the Sympathy of the
Nerves, a treatise which was in advance of its age, and contributed
to the rapid strides made by Medicine in the latter half of the
eighteenth century. Whytt died in 1766, in the fifty-second year
of his age. 2
(3) WILLIAM CULLEN, 1766-1773. This great Professor,
1 Bower, Hist. Un. Ed., vol. ii. p. 348.
2 Most of the above account is taken from Dr. William Sellar's Memoir of
the Life and Writings of Robert Whytt, etc., 1862.
I
2

LAURA
WILLIAM CULLEN, M.D.
FROM A PORTRAIT BELONGING TO THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS.
1773.] PROFESSORS OF INSTITUTES OF MEDICINE. 403
I
who had held the Chair of Chemistry for more than ten years,
had also given proofs in other and more congenial departments of
his capacity; from 1757 onwards he had delivered Clinical lectures
in the Infirmary, in the place of Rutherford, whose strength was
failing; in 1760, on the death of Dr. Alston, he had given a
course of lectures in Materia Medica. When Rutherford wished
to retire in 1765, Cullen offered himself for the Chair of Practice
of Physic, which was indeed his proper sphere; but Rutherford,
from some feeling of jealousy, declined to resign in his favour,
and persuaded the Town Council to bring from Aberdeen, as
successor to himself, Dr. John Gregory, who was an accomplished
Physician, and the author of a Comparative View of the Faculties
of Man with those of the Animal World. Next year Whytt died,
and the Students, who had a strong appreciation of Cullen as a
Clinical teacher, petitioned that John Gregory might be transferred
to the Chair of Institutes, and Cullen placed in that of Practice
of Physic, or else that they should be jointly appointed to the two
Chairs, and instructed to teach the two subjects in alternate
sessions. The Town Council did not immediately accede to
this; they appointed Cullen in 1766 to be Whytt's successor,
bringing Black over to be Professor of Chemistry; but in 1769
they adopted the second suggestion, and appointed Cullen and
Gregory to be joint Professors of Medicine, and to lecture alter-
nately on the Theory and Practice of Physic. By this arrangement
the Medical Faculty was strengthened. Till Gregory's death in
1773 Cullen, each alternate year, lectured on the Practice of
Physic. He gave altogether five courses on the Institutes or
Theory of Medicine; but he told his Students at the outset that
by “Theory” he did not mean “hypothesis”; “my general
doctrines,” said he, "are to be only so many general facts.” His
“general facts” were the product of a life of extraordinary
laboriousness in reading and observation ; but at the same time it
must be noted that Cullen, in every department in which he pre-
lected, was extremely speculative. His chief contribution to
physiology was bringing into prominent notice the nervous system,
especially in reference to disease. Former systems had regarded
the human body in a mechanical way, as “a chemical mixt," or
a hydraulic machine;" Cullen added a third way of viewing
it, as “an animated nervous frame.” From this he developed a
a
as or
404
[1776.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
9
I
I
more correct classification of disease, introducing the hitherto un-
tabled class of neuroses. It is said that the good Provost Drum-
mond came to him one day, begging him not to damage the
rising University by opposing the doctrines of Boerhaave. But
Cullen, basing himself to some extent upon Hofmann and still
more on his own experience, had passed beyond Boerhaave, and
he was soon recognised in England and on the Continent as a
leader in Medicine. It may indeed be claimed for him that in
his time he was the foremost physician in the world. In 1773, on
John Gregory's death, he became sole Professor of the Practice of
Physic, and held the Chair for seventeen years, during which time
he was one of the most illustrious Professors that the University
has had to boast of. It is impossible here to enter into all his
scientific merits, which are minutely recorded in the Life of Cullen
by the late Professor John Thomson. Cullen was instrumental
in the drawing up of the first Statuta Solennia for Medical Degrees
in the University in 1767 (see Vol. I. p. 330), which were indeed
much wanted, for an unfortunate case had occurred in 1766 of an
impostor named Leeds, who having attended the Medical Lectures
without knowing a word of Latin, in which language they were
delivered, and having, by a Thesis written by some one else, got
a degree as M.D., was on the strength of this made Physician to
the London Hospital, where his ignorance brought disgrace on
the University of Edinburgh. Cullen's chief works were his
Synopsis Nosologiæ Methodicæ (1766), his Practice of Physic (1775),
and his First Outlines of the Practice of Physic, which work is
even yet used and quoted. Cullen was not only a supreme
physician, but also most admirable as a lecturer, and he trained
up a large number of very eminent physicians. He was kindly,
generous, and sociable, and of evenings fond of a rubber of six-
He had a country-house at Ormiston Hill, near
Kirknewton, and enjoyed country pursuits. He resigned his
connection with the University, after holding Chairs in it for
thirty-four years, at the end of 1789. The Town Council
then presented him with a piece of silver plate. He died
a few weeks afterwards, and was buried in Kirknewton Church-
yard.
(4) JAMES GREGORY, 1776-1789. On Cullen's moving into
the Chair of Practice of Physic in 1773, the Town Council
penny whist.
I
.
1789.] PROFESSORS OF INSTITUTES OF MEDICINE. 405
offered the Chair of Institutes to Dr. Alexander Monro Drum-
mond, whose very Edinburgh names indicate that he was pos-
sibly a relative of the great Provost, and certainly named after the
great Anatomist. But Drummond was at this time settled in
Naples, and Physician to the King. After waiting for two sessions
the Town Council made another choice, and it unanimously fell
upon James Gregory, who, though only twenty-three years old,
had great personal qualifications, and an extraordinary pedigree to
justify his election. He was son of John Gregory, late Professor
of the Practice of Physic, grandson of the Professor of Medicine
in Aberdeen, and great-grandson of James Gregory the great Pro-
fessor of Mathematics. Altogether, he was the sixteenth Professor
that had sprung from the loins of David Gregory, Esq., of Kinairdy
in Aberdeenshire. Born in 1753, he had come with his father
from Aberdeen to Edinburgh, had gone through the Arts course,
had then spent some time at Christ Church, Oxford, had gradu-
ated M.D. in Edinburgh, and had spent two years in Medical
studies in Holland, France, and Italy. While he held the Chair
of the Institutes of Medicine he was engaged in drawing up for
his Students a text-book of the subject; this he brought out in
1788, under the title of Conspectus Medicinæ Theoreticæ, which
was "a model for perspicuity, exactness, completeness for the time,
and classical elegance. It was for a long time a standard work
for examination in Latinity at the various examining boards of
the Kingdom, and was adopted as a text-book even at some
German Universities. Its extraordinary success, however, did not
tempt him to any new effort of authorcraft in his second Chair ”i
---that of the Practice of Physic, which he obtained in 1790, on
Cullen's retirement, and held till 1821, thus serving in the Uni-
versity as Professor for forty-five years. Sir R. Christison says of
him : "He was the most captivating lecturer I ever heard.” Large,
powerful, and handsome, he was full of combativeness; and on
questions about Infirmary management he was involved “in
deadly life-long feud with many estimable brethren, both in and
beyond the University." "His measures for the cure of disease
were sharp and incisive. In acute diseases there was no Médecine
1 Sir R. Christison's Recollections. James Gregory, though writing nothing
more on Medicine, was the author of two volumes of Literary and Philosophical
Essays (1792), and of a Theory of the Moods of Verbs (1787).
406
[1790.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
Expectante for Gregory. He somehow left us with the impression
that we were to be masters over nature in all such diseases. The
consequence was that Gregorian Physic, free blood-letting, the
cold effusion, brisk purging, frequent blisters, the nauseating action
of tartar-emetic, came to rule medical practice for many years in
all quarters throughout the British Islands and the Colonies."
Gregory's influence has now passed away; blood-letting, of which
he was the apostle, has been superseded. But his name still lives
as a household word in connection with that milder remedy-
Gregory's mixture.” He died in April 1821, and received a
public funeral in Edinburgh.
(5) ANDREW DUNCAN primus, 1790-1819, having graduated
in Arts at St. Andrews, became a distinguished Medical Student
in the University of Edinburgh, 1762-1768. Especially he was
a leading member of the Royal Medical Society, of which he was
President in 1764; and after his return from a voyage to China,
in 1769, he was four times successively re-elected to the same
office, while holding which he carried through the building of the
Society's hall, where his portrait now hangs. He always regarded
the Royal Medical Society as an important adjunct to the Uni-
versity, and throughout his long life he was in the habit of occa-
şionally attending its meetings. Andrew Duncan was the first
extra-mural lecturer on Medicine of any importance in Edinburgh.
In 1774, while Drummond was still expected from Naples to take
the Chair of the Institutes of Medicine, Duncan was appointed
to teach the class, which he did for two sessions, at the same
time giving Clinical lectures in the Infirmary. On Drummond's
ultimate declinature Duncan naturally applied for the Chair, but
he was set aside in favour of the brilliant young James Gregory.
Mortified by this rejection, he announced his intention of lectur-
ing extra-murally on Medicine; he attracted a certain number of
Students, and his class during fifteen years gradually increased.
At this period he published his Elements of Therapeutics, his
Medical Commentaries, and his Heads of Lectures on the Theory
and Practice of Physic. He thus made himself so solid a name
that in 1790 he was chosen to succeed James Gregory as Pro-
fessor of the Theory of Medicine. He was a respectable and
respected Professor for twenty-nine years. Every Sunday evening
during the session he used to entertain twenty or thirty of his
1821.] PROFESSORS OF INSTITUTES OF MEDICINE. 407
1
a
I
Students at his own house, thus going through the whole class.
He was also a valuable member of the Senatus Academicus,
always taking broad and liberal views of the questions that arose.
In 1797, in a Memorial to the Town Council, he suggested the
establishment of a Chair of Medical Jurisprudence, and after ten
years' opposition he saw his idea realised. It is astonishing how
many good things in Edinburgh Dr. Duncan primus originated.
First, the Dispensary, which was entirely his creation; Second,
the Lunatic Asylum at Morningside; Third, the Horticultural
Society; Fourth, the Harveian Society; Fifth, the Esculapian and
Gymnastic Clubs; Sixth, the Medical and Philosophical Com-
mentaries, which he started and edited, till in 1804 this periodical
became the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal under the
editorship of his son. Dr. Duncan's vigour was prolonged into
extreme old age. For more than half a century it was his prac-
tice every May-day morning to walk to the top of Arthur's Seat.
This feat he accomplished for the last time in 1827, when he was
in his eighty-third year. Next year he did not feel himself equal
to the task, and he died soon after the May-day of 1828. In
1819 he had resigned the teaching of the Chair of the Institutes
of Medicine to his son.
(6) ANDREW DUNCAN secundus, 1819-1821, only held this
Chair for two years, preferring to take that of Materia Medica,
when it became vacant, so that an account of him will be more
appropriate elsewhere.
(7) WILLIAM PULTENEY ALISON, 1821-1842, was not only an
eminent Professor, and for a time head of the Medical profession
in this country, but his name deserves to be kept in remembrance
as a great philanthropist, and the author of the improved system
of the Poor Laws in Scotland, by which the misery of the poor
has been alleviated, and the tendencies to disease diminished;
while all have been taught the important lesson that their own
safety and happiness are indissolubly linked with those of other
men. William Pulteney Alison was son of an Episcopal Minister
in Edinburgh (author of the celebrated Essay on Taste, which in
1811 produced so much discussion on the Philosophy of Beauty)
and of the sister of Professor James Gregory; his younger brother
r
1 Sir R. Christison, in his Recollections, describes one of these entertain-
ments as "a dull enough tea and talk party."
408
[1845.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
9
I
was Sir Archibald Alison, Sheriff of Lanarkshire and Historian of
Modern Europe. In early life he had the advantage of the best
literary and scientific society in Edinburgh, which gathered in his
father's house. He was himself a devoted follower of Dugald
Stewart, and much given to Metaphysics; as late as 1817, in his
thirty-seventh year, he defended the system of his master in
Blackwood's Magazine. Alison, in his ardent youth, fired by the
events of the European war, had wished to join the army; but
he obeyed the counsels of his uncle, studied Medicine, and
graduated M.D. in 1811 with a Thesis De Viribus Naturæ
Medicatricibus. After a short tour, in which he witnessed the
entry of the Allied Armies into Paris, and which he described in
a volume of Travels in France, he settled to practise in Edin-
burgh, especially as Physician to the New Town Dispensary. His
constant work among the poor in this capacity, and his observa-
tion of the epidemic fevers of 1817-1819, of 1827-1828, of 1832,
1837, and 1838, impressed him with the conviction that there
was a direct connection between destitution and epidemic disease.
This led him to a series of long-continued, and finally successful,
exertions for the amelioration of the Poor Laws of Scotland.
The systems of England and Scotland for a long time erred in
opposite directions, that of England in too easy largesses, that of
Scotland in a too griping economy. Scotland swarmed with
beggars, and epidemic fevers alarmingly increased. The national
sentiment, however, supported the national system, and the
General Assembly reported in favour of it. In 1840 Dr. Alison
brought out his Observations on the Management of the Poor in
Scotland, which won the public ear, and the result was the Act
of 1845, and the appointment of the Board of Supervision.
Such was Alison's great service to his country, outside of the
University. And what he did was not done as by a mere Political
Economist with a clear view; it was the outcome of his great
sympathy with and compassion for the poor. He gave away half
his fortune to charitable objects, and devoted half his time to
unremunerated attendance on the poor. His benevolence was
often indiscriminate, and doubtless often abused, but he showed
a divine spirit in common life. It is curious that in theory he
should have been diametrically opposed to Dr. Chalmers, whose
voluntary system for the relief of pauperism was nobly carried out
1848.] PROFESSORS OF INSTITUTES OF MEDICINE. 409
by himself and Edward Irving in one parish of Glasgow, but for
a whole country was impossible.
In 1820 Alison was appointed by the Crown to the Chair of
Medical Jurisprudence, but he only held this for a year; and he
was then removed by the Town Council into the Chair of the
Institutes of Medicine, in which he taught for twenty years. In
1831 he published his Outlines of Physiology, embodying the
substance of his lectures, and in 1833 expanded this into his
Outlines of Physiology and Pathology, which formed a complete
text-book. “The idea of a life-force or forces, of something dis-
tinct from and superadded to the physical forces of dead matter,
was the ruling idea of all Dr. Alison's physiological specu-
lations."1
I
In 1842 Alison succeeded Dr. Home as Professor of the
Practice of Physic. In the following year he published his Out-
lines of Pathology and Practice of Medicine. In 1846 his health,
undermined with excessive labours, began to give way; in 1855
he resigned his Chair, but was still able to take an interest in
scientific pursuits. In 1858 he presided over the meeting of the
British Medical Association in Edinburgh, and was enthusiastic-
ally hailed by many hundreds of practitioners. In 1859 he
received a public funeral from the Magistrates, the University, and
the citizens of Edinburgh.
(8) ALLEN THOMSON, 1842-1848, the second son of John
Thomson, Professor of Military Surgery and afterwards of Patho-
logy in the University of Edinburgh, succeeded Dr. Alison in
the Chair of the Institutes of Medicine. In 1848 he migrated
to the Chair of Anatomy in the University of Glasgow, of which
he is now Emeritus Professor.
(9) JOHN HUGHES BENNETT, 1848-1874, was an Englishman
by birth and early education, and even went through a Medical
apprenticeship at Maidstone; but in his twenty-first year he came
to Edinburgh for more thorough Medical study, and after that he
became naturalised in the place. He was made President of the
Royal Medical Society, and in 1837 graduated M.D. with the
highest honours, receiving a gold medal for his Thesis on "The
Physiology and Pathology of the Brain.” He then spent four years
1 From the obituary notice of Professor Alison in the Edinburgh Medical
Journal, vol. v. p. 475, from which the above facts are taken.
410
(1874.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY. .
on the Continent. He acquired French so perfectly as to write
in the Medical journals of Paris, and to be made President of the
Parisian Medical Society. In Germany he acquired great expert-
ness in the use of the microscope in practical Medicine. Return-
ing to Edinburgh in 1841, he for some years gave extra-
mural
courses of lectures on Histology, and at this time published a
treatise on the use of cod-liver oil as a therapeutic agent in certain
forms of gout, rheumatism, and scrofula, as he had seen it applied
in Germany. It may be mentioned here that Bennett's Medical
teaching was a reaction, in some respects, against that of James
Gregory. He discouraged the practice of blood-letting, and in-
troduced into this country the invigorating treatment of pulmon-
ary consumption, which had before been ignorantly treated as
an inflammation by depletory measures. Bennett, on the other
hand, was the apostle of cod-liver oil. In 1848, on the departure
to Glasgow of Dr. Allen Thomson, he was unanimously elected
to be Professor of the Institutes of Medicine.
He was an admirable teacher, being very clear and full of
incisive eloquence. His excellent elocution was said to have been
partly due to his early training by a gifted mother, who caused
him to read aloud to her the plays of Shakespeare. He was a
very keen, capable man, fond of controversy, and perhaps too
stubborn an opponent of the recognition of extra-Academical
teachers. Apart from such burning questions, he was very
pleasant to his colleagues. He was an honour to the University,
because his scientific merit was known and acknowledged far and
wide in Europe and America. Besides more than a hundred
memoirs on various anatomical and pathological subjects, he
published Clinical Lectures on the Principles and Practice of
Medicine, which was translated into foreign languages; Introduc-
tion to Clinical Medicine ; Outlines of Physiology; Text-Book of
Physiology; a small work on Pulmonary Consumption, and
another on Cancerous and Canceroid Growths. His life was
probably shortened by excess of work. In 1874, his strength
being prostrated, he resigned his Chair, and then (10) WILLIAM
RUTHERFORD, the present Professor of the Institutes of Medicine,
was appointed by the Curators.
I
1773.) PROFESSORS OF THE PRACTICE OF PHYSIC. 411
XXV.-PROFESSORS OF THE PRACTICE OF PHYSIC.
-.
1 6
I
By the arrangement made in 1726 the teaching of the Practice
of Physic in the University was allotted to Drs. Rutherford and
Innes. (1) JOHN RUTHERFORD, 1726-1766, lectured, as before
mentioned, on the Aphorisms of Boerhaave. When the Infirmary
was opened in 1746 for clinical teaching, Rutherford, in addition
to his systematic courses, in the twentieth year of his Professor-
ship, commenced giving clinical lectures. For twenty years more
he continued these combined duties. “He was possessed,” says
Bower,1 " of very respectable talents, exceedingly cautious in his
practice as a physician, and the students reposed the utmost con-
fidence in the opinions which he delivered.” Dr. Buchan, the
author of Domestic Medicine, who had been his pupil, said of him:
“Rutherford is slow but absolutely sure.” He resigned his
Chair in 1766, John Innes, who acted as his colleague, and of
whom nothing special is recorded, having retired, owing to failing
health, in 1746. The circumstances of the appointment of (2)
JOHN GREGORY, 1766-1773, have been already mentioned (above,
p. 403). He was son of an Aberdeen Professor, and a very worthy
member of the great Gregorian family. He was first cousin to
Reid, the psychologist. He learned Medicine in Edinburgh and
afterwards at Leyden, and subsequently to this was Regent of
Philosophy in King's College, Aberdeen, but soon resigned the
appointment. He then went to London as a Physician, had the
friendship of Lord Lyttelton and Lady Wortley Montague, and
was made F.R.S. He returned to Aberdeen in 1756, to succeed
his father as Professor of Medicine. On being called to succeed
Rutherford in the Chair of Practice of Physic, he gave some in-
troductory lectures on The Duties and Qualifications of a Physi-
cian, which were afterwards published. In 1770 he brought out
his Elements of the Practice of Physic for the use of his class. On
the death of his wife (the daughter of Lord Forbes) he wrote, in
her memory, a charming little work entitled A Father's Legacy to
his Daughters. In 1773, at the age of forty-nine, he was sud-
denly cut off by an attack of gout, to which he had been subject
Hist. Un. Ed., vol. ii. p. 214.
2 In the MS. correspondence of David, 11th Earl of Buchan, a little trait
of Dr. John Gregory is recorded. There was a letter from Gregory to Lord
2
1
412
(1821.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
from his eighteenth year. He appears to have been a most able,
accomplished, and refined man. Beattie, in the last stanzas of
his Minstrel, deplores his loss.
(3) WILLIAM CULLEN, 1773-1790, and (4) JAMES GREGORY,
have been already characterised. On the death of the latter (5)
JAMES HOME, 1821-1842, applied for the Chair of Practice of
Physic. Of him Sir Robert Christison says, in his Recollections:
“In Materia Medica my instructor was Dr. James Home, who
was then a popular lecturer, with a class-room so crowded that
some twenty students had to stand every morning inside the door,
notwithstanding his early hour of 8 A.M. in the dark winter season.
Such testimony may surprise those who know that, when translated
in 1821 to the Chair of the Practice of Physic, he failed from the
first as a lecturer, and lost eventually all hold on the attention of
his Students, his class-room becoming a scene of negligence, dis-
respect, noise, and utter confusion for a few years before his death
in 1842.
But in his first Chair, although his lectures were not
enlightened by well-defined general principles, or illustrated, as
now, by experiment and demonstration, or enlivened by any of
the flowers of oratory,—they were a mine of useful facts, laboriously
collected, sifted with care, and well put together. His delivery
was quiet but earnest, and his whole soul was evidently in his
duty. Moreover he gave much of his time to examining, at an
.
extra hour, such of the Students as were willing to undergo the
trial,—a voluntary task, which at that time few Professors under-
took. It was a great mistake, however, in Dr. Home to change
his Professorship at the age of sixty-three. It was a double error
to take the place of so consummate a Professor and so eminent
1
a
a
Cardross (afterwards Earl of Buchan), apparently written in December 1766,
acquainting his Lordship that the degree of Doctor of Medicine in the Univer-
sity of Edinburgh had been conferred upon him. This unusual honour for a
nobleman was awarded on the recommendation of Dr. Boswell, President of
the College of Physicians. Lord Buchan carefully preserved Gregory's letter,
and some years afterwards annotated upon it a few particulars about the writer,
ending with the remark : “Dr. Gregory, like Hobbes, was timorous in dark-
ness, and was wont to have an old woman, after his wife's death, to hold his
hand in bed till he fell asleep. He was found dead in bed, where he had
expired in a moment without any pain or struggle.” This was kindly com-
municated by Colonel A. Fergusson, the biographer of Henry Erskine.
1 There is a tradition that the Students used to diversify the lecture hour by
occasionally singing Home, sweet Home!
>
1855.] PROFESSORS OF THE PRACTICE OF PHYSIC.
413
a physician as Dr. Gregory. But if it was a mistake on Dr.
Home's part to desire translation to the Chair of Practice, it was
a greater one for the Patrons to translate him. A keen, bitter
struggle "arose for the vacant Professorship.” The candidates
were Dr. Abercrombie, then of great eminence as a physician;
Dr. John Thomson, the Professor of Military Surgery; and Home.
Sir Robert indicates that Abercrombie should have been ap-
pointed; but the contest lay between Home and Thomson, and
was decided on political grounds, a majority of the Town Council
being Tories, and Home being a Tory.
(6) WILLIAM PULTENEY ALISON, 1842-1855, has been already
characterised.
(7) THOMAS LAYCOCK, 1855-1876, was perhaps the first
Professor in the Medical Faculty of Edinburgh who was not only
an Englishman by birth, but had received none of his Medical
education in any Scottish University. Born in Yorkshire, he went
through the full Medical curriculum of University College, London,
then studied at Paris under Velpau and Lisfranc, and finally
graduated M.D. at Göttingen. He then settled as a general
practitioner at York, and in 1846 became Lecturer on the Theory
and Practice of Medicine in the York Medical School.
a prolific contributor of papers to the Medical journals, and
presently brought out his Treatise on the Nervous Diseases of
Women, in which he developed original views as to the reflex
action of the brain, explaining thereby the phenomena of mes-
merism, dreaming, and insanity. Ultimately, this work was
extended and completed as a system of Practical Philosophy, in
a work in two volumes, entitled Mind and Brain, or the Correlation
of Consciousness and Organisation. Whatever may be thought of
the system as a whole, there is no doubt that particular views,
advocated by Laycock, contributed to the advance of Physiology
and of Mental Pathology. He himself became more and more
absorbed in the investigation of mental phenomena approached
from the physical side. In 1855 he was appointed by the Town
Council as successor in the Chair of Practical Physic to Professor
Alison. He gradually made this Chair, to a considerable extent,
one of Mental Diseases, and thus gave to that important subject
a too predominant share of his attention. The province of
Mental Diseases was very properly separated by the Senatus in
He was
414
[1726.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
1881 from the Chair of Practice of Physic, and assigned to a
separate lecturer. Laycock, however, did good service in training
his Students for the supervision of Lunatic Asylums, and in
imparting to them methods for alleviating the saddest of human
afflictions. It used to be an interesting thing to accompany him
and his class to the inspection of one of the great Lunatic Asylums
of Scotland. One scheme of which Laycock was an active pro-
moter was the setting up of a Hall for the residence of University
Students; this project, however, which will be mentioned else-
where, did not prove successful. Laycock died in 1876, in his
sixty-fourth year.
(8) THOMAS GRAINGER STEWART, the present Professor, was
then appointed by the Curators to the Chair of the Practice of
Physic.
.
XXVI.-PROFESSORS OF MIDWIFERY AND THE DISEASES
OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN.
(1) JOSEPH GIBSON, 1726-1739. We have related above
(Vol. I. p. 315) the circumstances under which “Mr. Joseph
Gibson, chirurgeon in Edinburgh," was appointed “City
Professor" of Midwifery, in connection with regulations by
the Town Council for the proper education of Midwives, who
were not to practise henceforth without a certificate, signed by
a Physician and a Surgeon, that they were acquainted with
the "grounds and principles” of their art. This movement of
the Town Council came at an opportune moment, when the
battle of Accoucheurs versus Midwives had fairly been engaged ;
and, as Professor A. R. Simpson? shows, Joseph Gibson was
probably the first person who ever had the title of " Professor of
Midwifery.” On this ground he has been placed at the head of
the present list of Professors, though he did not belong to the
University, and probably had none of the Students among his
pupils. “ It is always taken for granted that he lectured only to
women; but where they gathered, and what instruction he gave, ,
is all unknown.” Some traces of Joseph Gibson still remain in
1
I See his learned and interesting lecture on the History of the Chair of
Midwifery (1883), p. 10.
1756.]
415
PROFESSORS OF MIDWIFERY.
1
66
"
three contributions to the Medical Essays and Observations, pub-
lished by a Society in Edinburgh. They “cannot be said to be
the productions of a master mind. The most important of them
discusses the question of the mode of nutrition of the fætus in
utero." In this Gibson supports the doctrine of the aliment being
received both by the mouth and the navel, whereas A. Monro
primus, who has also a paper on the same subject, refutes (and
rightly) the arguments of his "ingenious, valuable friend, Mr.
Gibson.”
(2) On the death of Gibson ROBERT SMITH, 1739-1756, was
appointed “Professor of Midwifery in the City's College," " with
the same privileges and immunities which the other Professors in
the said College do enjoy." Beyond this nothing is known of
him. “ It is taken for granted that he duly taught midwifery to
classes of nurses. But if he ever wrote anything, the product of
his pen has perished.” 2
(3) THOMAS YOUNG, 1756-1780, who next succeeded, has left
no writings except his graduation Thesis, De Lacte, in which he
treated milk as a sovereign remedy for all sorts of ailments. But
MS. notes of his lectures still remain, and “bear evidence to his
wide acquaintance with the literature of his subject, and his
excellent power of observation and exposition.”3 Young was the
first to give regular courses in Midwifery to Medical Students,
and he made efforts to obtain the means for their clinical instruc-
tion. In the year of his appointment "a ward in the attic story
of the Royal Infirmary, by the permission of the Managers, but
at Dr. Young's expense, was fitted up for four lying-in women, or
as many more as Dr. Young could accommodate. But in addition
to his work with Students, Young did great service by dissipating
the prejudice which existed against the necessity of instructing
Midwives. Professor Hamilton, his successor, speaking of this,
said: "Even they who pretended to the sacred name of philo-
sophers, joined in the prejudice. Dame Nature, they said, is the
proper midwife, and nobody can be better qualified to attend to
her dictates than Dame Ignorance. Dr. Young might, with
great facility, by publishing a few of the horrible blunders com-
mitted by the midwives resident in Edinburgh when he began to
practice, recorded in his note-book, have offered powerful argu-
Ibid. p. 11.
2 Ibid. p. 13.
8 Ibid. p. 14.
416
[1792.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
1
a
6 One
ments against such opinions, but he preferred the more philan-
thropic and dignified method of showing by its effects the utility
of his own plan. Such has been the public conviction on this
subject, that in the present day there is scarcely a parish in
Scotland the midwife of which has not been regularly taught.”
After twenty-four years of teaching Young asked for assistance
in his Chair, and Dr. Alexander Hamilton was appointed (1780)
as joint Professor, and three years later became sole occupant
of the Chair.
(4) ALEXANDER HAMILTON, 1780-1800, "is the first of the
Edinburgh Professors of Midwifery whose name is known to the
outside world, so that Siebold, in his Versuch einer Geschichte der
Geburtshilfe, mentions him as an active man who has done good
service for the promotion of this department.' Five years before
his appointment Hamilton had published a text-book, Elements of
the Practice of Midwifery, and at later periods he brought out
more complete treatises on midwifery and the management of
female complaints, which were translated into German.”ı
of Kay's portraits gives what is probably a correct impression of
this really remarkable man. Wearing the wig and shovel hat, the
long coat, knee breeches and buckle shoes of the period, we see
this active little man trotting about, swinging freely the dainty
hands with ruffles round the wrists. He is of short stature, for
he looks no taller than one of the ladies whom the artist has
introduced with the projected muff, and the exaggeratedly up-
right bearing of a pregnant female. When we look at his face
more closely we are impressed with the power of the large lower
jaw; and the compressed lips seem to bespeak the determined
character of the man."
Alexander Hamilton, like his son after him, was a man of war,
not flinching in the support of his opinions. In 1777, as Deacon
of the Surgeons (equivalent to the President of the College now),
he made a strenuous and very proper attempt to have the separate
teaching of Surgery introduced in the University, and he did not
hesitate to declare the great Professor A. Monro secundus "unable to
give the rudiments of the art of Surgery," because he did not practise
on living bodies (see Vol. I. p. 322). Afterwards, in 1792, when
,
Hamilton was himself a Professor, the attention of the Senatus
1 Professor A. R. Simpson's Lecture, p. 15.
:
1800.]
417
PROFESSORS OF MIDWIFERY.
was called by Professor James Gregory to a pamphlet entitled A
Guide for Gentlemen studying Medicine in the University of Edin-
burgh, by J. Johnstone, Esq., the purport of which was to cry up
the merits of Dr. Hamilton, Professor of Midwifery, and to bring
charges against Professors Rutherford (Botany) and. Playfair
(Mathematics); and Gregory charged Hamilton with the author-
ship. The latter positively denied having had anything to do
with the pamphlet, and the Senatus exonerated him, while pro-
nouncing the remarks on Rutherford and Playfair to be calum-
nious. At a subsequent meeting Gregory renewed his attack,
but he now assigned the authorship of the pamphlet to James
Hamilton, the Professor's son, who, indeed, if he did not write it,
had probably inspired it. The Senatus, however, declined to
take further notice of the matter, as having become extra-
Academical
Among other things said in praise of A. Hamilton by the
Guide, was a mention of his efforts for the foundation of the
Lying-in Hospital. This through his exertions was established
in 1791, and “for nearly a century it has held an honourable
position among the charitable and educational institutions of
Edinburgh."1
(5) JAMES HAMILTON, 1800-1839, who had been trained by
his father, and, who from his twenty-first year had assisted him
in his practice, seems to have very much resembled his father
both in appearance and character. He was a very eminent
Professor ; and when, in 1839, he published his Practical Observa-
tions, the book was acknowledged "to embody the result of an
experience extending to upwards of fifty years, and comprehending
a practice the most extensive, perhaps, that was ever enjoyed by
any single practitioner in this department of medicine."2 But
his great abilities were marred by his pugnacious and uncom-
promising disposition. The following is Sir Robert Christison's
description of him in the Professorial Chair: “His voice was
harsh, and his intonation Scotch, pure and unsophisticated.
Nevertheless he was a man of great energy and alertness, and a
powerful lecturer.
His delivery, though plain, was forcible and
1 Professor A. R. Simpson's Lecture, p. 17.
2 British and Foreign Medical Review, quoted by Professor A. Simpson,
p. 17.
VOL. II.
2 E
418
[1830.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
ز
easy; and his information was inexhaustible, drawn as it was from
the stores of vast experience as long the acknowledged head of
Obstetrics in Scotland. His personal means for teaching were in
fact so unbounded, that he had scarcely to seek for resources in
any other treasury but his own. Nor did he-unless to criticise.
As a critic he seemed to be in his favourite element, and a snarl-
ing, unfair, unfeeling critic he was. For Dr. Hamilton was always
in the right-dissentients ever in the wrong--so wrong, too, that
no terms were to be kept with them. His language was apt to
be unmeasured, whence quarrels arose.” It is easy to believe
that Hamilton's manner, arising out of his disposition, was irritat-
ing to his colleagues; and it came about that he brought actions
at law against two of them : against Dr. Gregory for beating him,
and against Dr. Hope for using very strong language towards
him. In the first case he got damages of £100, in the second
of one farthing.
James Hamilton's faculty of making things disagreeable had a
great deal to do with bringing on the embroilment between the
Senatus and the Town Council which has been related in Chapter
VI. Hamilton was undoubtedly quite right in pressing to have
his subject made part of the Medical curriculum ; but had he
been on good terms with his colleagues he might probably have
got this done without setting them and the Town Council by the
He first applied to the Senatus on this subject in 1815,
and Sir R. Christison says that “the Faculty then denied his
request, being guided by its three senior members, who had long
been on no friendly footing with the applicant." Nine years
.
afterwards Hamilton renewed his application, but this time he
went direct to the Town Council, which, Sir Robert says, was a
mistake," because several Professors, hostile to him in 1815, had
in the interval been succeeded by others, who, like myself, were
in his favour ; so that his case would positively have been carried,
had it been renewed in the Senatus.” But in all the pugnacity
'
between the Senatus and the Town Council there was a good
deal of fault on both sides, and the Senatus were actuated by
pique against Hamilton, as well as by desire to maintain their
own independence, when they resisted having Midwifery made
necessary for a Medical qualification, which in consequence was
not done till 1830.
ears.
I


SIR JAMES YOUNG SIMPSON, BART.
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY MOFFAT.
1840.]
419
PROFESSORS OF MIDWIFERY.
As a
I
To the more important qualities of James Hamilton Sir R.
Christison pays a high tribute : “Apart from his quarrelsomeness
and its results, there was much to approve and little to blame in
his character." Sir Robert dwells on his humanity in supporting
the Lying-in Hospital at his own expense; on his kindliness to
his patients; and on his refusing to desert his town patients in
order to dance attendance on great ladies expecting confinement
in the country. “They must come," he said, “to me."
”
lecturer, he attracted crowds of Students at a time when his sub-
ject was not necessary for graduation. He died, as Professor A.
Simpson says, "
1 “full of years and honour.” The Senatus, in
November 1839, forgetful of any unpleasantness in the past,
recorded their regret for the loss of so distinguished a colleague.
(6) JAMES YOUNG SIMPSON, 1840-1870. On James Hamil-
ton's death there was a lively contest for his Chair-such a con-
test as used to be possible and common when there was open
and secret canvassing of thirty-three Town Councillors, with the
solicitation and promise of votes, the interference of outsiders,
and a variety of unseemly practices which are now a thing of the
past. There were five candidates, but the struggle ultimately
.
resolved itself into one between Simpson and Dr. Kennedy of
Dublin. A majority of the Medical Faculty in the University
took an attitude hostile to Simpson, and did all they could to
prevent his election. But, as had sometimes happened in other
matters, the Town Council were guided somehow to be wiser
than the Professors, and on this occasion they elected Simpson
by a majority of one vote, and thus gave the University one of
the greatest Professors of Obstetrics that has ever taught in any
School of Medicine.
Simpson, being the youngest son of a small tradesman in
Bathgate, had, by the generosity of his elder brothers, received a
better education than the rest of the family, and had come to the
University of Edinburgh at the age of fourteen. In his second
session he obtained the Stewart Bursary of £10 per annum for
three years, which was given by preference to candidates of the
name of Stewart or Simpson. With this assistance he went
through the whole of the Arts course, with the exception of Logic
and English Literature, the Professors of which were at that time
Professor A. R. Simpson's Lecture, p. 18.
1
420
[1840.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
I
undistinguished. He took two sessions in Latin and three in
Greek. He was led to the study of Medicine by the example of
John Reid, a Bathgate friend, with whom he shared lodgings, and
who afterwards became the distinguished Professor of Anatomy
in St. Andrews. He attended Medical classes in the University,
but studied Surgery extra-murally under Liston. He passed the
examination of the College of Surgeons in 1830, in his nineteenth
year; and in 1832 he presented to the Medical Faculty a Thesis
for graduation, De Causa Mortis in quibusdam Inflammationibus
proxima. This Thesis was referred for examination to Dr. John
Thomson, the new Professor of Pathology, who was so much
struck by the merits of the paper that he not only recommended
Simpson, with whom he was unacquainted, for the degree of
M.D., but also offered to take him as his class-assistant. This
opportune proposal kept Simpson in the University, and prevented
him from seeking some small appointment in the country or on
board ship. By Professor Thomson's advice he turned his atten-
tion to Midwifery; and when, in 1835, his fellow-Students showed
their high opinion of him by electing him Senior President of the
Royal Medical Society, he delivered an inaugural address on
“ Diseases of the Placenta,” which immediately attracted attention
in the Medical world, and was translated into German, Italian,
and French. Other important papers followed in subsequent
years, gradually confirming Simpson's claim to be an original
genius and a discoverer in his own department. In 1838-39 he
established himself as a Lecturer on Midwifery in the extra-mural
school, and gave proof of brilliant teaching powers, as well as of
great learning and ability.
The Town Council then were not without full warranty for
what they did when they appointed Simpson to be Professor of
Midwifery, and the appointment was more than justified by its
results. “For thirty years Simpson lectured with an enthusiasm,
the contagion of which is evidenced by the numbers of young
men whom he stirred to the pursuit of his branch of study. Not
only in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen are his pupils now
teaching Midwifery, but seven out of the eighteen present pro-
fessors and lecturers on the subject in England were once
members of his class.” 1 In him, however, the Teacher fades
1 Professor A. R. Simpson's Lecture, p. 19.
"
1847.]
421
PROFESSORS OF MIDWIFERY.
into insignificance in comparison with his glory as a Discoverer
and Inventor of new modes of practice. The very name of
“Chloroform” reflects honour on the University of Edinburgh.
It is no light boast that the most beneficent discovery of modern
times was made by a Professor of this University. And not only
have pain and suffering in countless cases been obviated by the
blessing of chloroform, but also it is well known that by chloro-
form, in conjunction with the Antiseptic Treatment—the dis-
covery of another Professor of this University-operations in
Surgery, which would formerly have been impossible, have been
rendered practicable.
As early as 1837 Simpson's active mind had started the prob-
lem—"Cannot something be done to render the patient uncon-
scious while under acute pain without interfering with the free
and healthy play of the natural functions?" For ten years the
idea of anæsthesia was present with him. As so often happens
in scientific discovery, other minds had been working in the same
direction. In 1846 sulphuric ether was used in America as an
anästhetic in dentistry. Simpson at once jumped at this, and in
January 1847 he wrote to his brother that he was “less inter-
ested” in having been made Physician to the Queen than in
having delivered a woman without pain while inhaling sulphuric
ether. He was the first person to have used ether in obstetrical
practice; but he was not satisfied with it, and renewed his search
for anæsthetic agents.
Chloroform, as a substance, had been discovered and de-
scribed, almost simultaneously, by Soubeiran in 1831 and by
Liebig in 1832. Its composition was accurately ascertained by
Dumas in 1835. But the world remained unconscious of the
physiological effects which it was capable of producing. It had
been used as an injection into the veins to produce insensibility,
but no one had tried inhaling it. In 1847 a Mr. Waldie of
Liverpool, with whom Simpson had communicated, sent him a
bottle of chloroform, which for some time he neglected as
heavy, unvolatile looking" fluid. But one evening he took down
the bottle to his supper-table, where he filled a glass for himself
and for each of his two assistants, Drs. Keith and Duncan; they
each inhaled it, and all were “under the table in a minute or
two.” At once Simpson recognised the properties of the fluid
422
(1853
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
which he had obtained, and lost no time in communicating his
Eureka to the world. Within a short time operations under
chloroform had been performed in the Infirmary of Edinburgh,
and its fame had been blazed abroad. A few absurd objections
to its use were started, on the ground that it would be wrong to
interfere with the curse of pain ; but mankind in general accepted
the boon which had been conferred upon it. And this, in few
words, is the story of the introduction of chloroform.
For thirty years, down to May 1870,—when after a brief
illness he succumbed, Simpson's life was almost like that of
a creature placed in a vase of oxygen, so vividly and intensely
did he live. His practice became enormous, so large in fact that,
being immethodical in his habits, he fell under the accusation
of forgetting his engagements, and of disappointing and even
sometimes of neglecting his patients. His house was attended
daily by a stream of anxious consultors, who drew lots for pre-
cedence, and whose cases he dealt with (often five or six hours
consecutively) by rapid diagnosis, and, where necessary, by im-
mediate operation. His services were in request all over the
country, and he was eagerly welcomed by some of the greatest
families in the land. At the same time he showed remarkable
benevolence and consideration towards the poor. He amassed,
of course, a considerable fortune, though careless and imprudent
in money matters, and he became a sort of public administrator
of hospitality, keeping open house for all sorts of people in
Edinburgh, and for learned foreigners, especially those interested
in Medicine or Archäology. All this time his important dis-
coveries were going on,—not only that of chloroform, but also
many others in his own department which are too technical for
description here. He had always a number of irons in the fire;
and people were astonished at his producing large volumes on
Homeopathy, The Catstane, The Leperhouses, and a variety of
archæological topics (archæology being his pet diversion), in the
midst of Professorial duties, immense practice, frequent journeys,
and often sleepless nights.
In 1866, by the advice of Earl Russell, Simpson was created
a baronet. He had been previously covered with honours by
his foreign contemporaries. One of the greatest of these was
conferred as early as 1853, when the Academy of Medicine of
1870.]
423
PROFESSORS OF MATERIA MEDICA.
1
Paris, setting aside the list proposed to them by their governing
body, insisted on making him an "Associate" over the heads of
,
Owen, Faraday, and Bright. He received honorary titles from
other Academies or Societies in France, Belgium, Prussia,
Bohemia, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Turkey, Greece, Egypt,
India, and North and South America. When some one from
Edinburgh was introduced at the Court of Denmark the present
King said: “You come from Edinburgh ? Ah ! Sir Simpson
was of Edinburgh ;" as though the achievements of Simpson
were the association which the name of Edinburgh most
naturally called up.
Simpson's life for thirty years was essentially that of a public
man. And this was the rôle for which he was by nature quali-
fied. He might have said with M. Renan (whom indeed in
appearance he somewhat resembled): "I live for the public and
not for friends." He had a diffusive geniality, and an incapacity
for hating any one, but friends were not necessary to him. With
several of his colleagues in the Senatus he was never on cordial
terms; and for some cause or other Professors who had greater
powers both of loving and hating than he possessed, cherished,
justly or unjustly, an antipathy towards him. But by the larger
world of Edinburgh he was for the most part idolised. His statue
and the excellent Maternity Hospital erected in his honour per-
petuate the feeling towards him entertained by his fellow-citizens.
(7) In 1870 ALEXANDER R. SIMPSON, nephew to Sir James,
was elected to be his successor in the Chair of Midwifery.
XXVII.-PROFESSORS OF MATERIA MEDICA.
2
Materia Medica was originally a province of the Chair of
Botany in the University of Edinburgh, and separate courses
on it were given annually by Professor Alston and John Hope.
Alston at his death left his Lectures on Materia Medica ready for
publication, and they were brought out by his successor in two
1 The above facts have been chiefly taken from the Memoir of Sir James Y.
Simpson, Bart., etc., by J. Duns, D.D., Professor of Natural Science, New
College, Edinburgh (1873).
2 After Alston's death, and before Hope was appointed, Cullen lectured for
a session on Materia Medica. He appears to have been boldly speculative on
the physiological action of drugs.
424
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY[1832.
.
.
I
quarto volumes.
They described 400 medicinal substances,
mostly still in use; but “those who are curious regarding the
fantastic remedies of ancient medicine, such as snails and earth-
worms, pearls, he-goat's blood, the distilled water of cow-dung,
etc., will find all that is worth knowing about them " in Dr. Alston's
Lectures. He was himself too advanced to assign to them much
value. John Hope, who edited this work, probably used it as
his text-book. After seven years Hope resigned the department
of Materia Medica, and the Town Council appointed (1) FRANCIS
HOME, 1768-1798, Professor of the subject. Home had served
from 1742 to 1748 as Surgeon to Sir John Cope's regiment in
Flanders, where he had been commended by Sir John Pringle,
and he had taken the opportunity to study Medicine at Leyden.
He then quitted the army, and graduated M.D. at Edinburgh in
1750; he joined the College of Physicians, and commenced pro-
ducing several works; in 1757 he obtained a gold medal which
was offered for the best treatise on the Principles of Agriculture
and Vegetation. In the Chair of Materia Medica he followed
Cullen into speculations beyond what the state of knowledge at
that time justified, but he also "fully considered the physical
characters and mode of administration of drugs” which Cullen
»
had omitted. He was made a Clinical Professor of Medicine,
and in 1780 he brought out Clinical Experiments, Histories, and
Dissections, in which work he related the effects produced by
many new remedies tried by him in the Infirmary. He thus
contributed to the advance of Therapeutics. He died in 1813,
more than ninety-three years old; but in 1798 he had resigned
his Professorial duties to his son (2) JAMES HOME, 1798-1821,
“whose great success as a teacher raised the Chair of Materia
Medica to a height of prosperity which has never been surpassed.
In his father's time the average attendance was 50 pupils.
When Dr. James Home resigned the Chair to take that of Prac-
tice of Physic he left a class of 310 Students.” 1
(3) ANDREW DUNCAN secundus, 1821-1832, had previously
held the Chair of Medical Jurisprudence for thirteen years, and
that of Institutes of Medicine for one year. His life and char-
acter are elsewhere summarised. He was a man of most
1 The above quotations are from Professor T. Fraser's Address in inaugur-
ating the new class-room of Materia Medica on the 26th October 1883.
I

SIR ROBERT CHRISTISON, BART.
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY MOFFAT.
1832.]
425
PROFESSORS OF MATERIA MEDICA.
.
versatile genius, but he had chosen the province of Materia
Medica as being more congenial to him than that of Physiology,
and his success in teaching it was conspicuous. An early work
of his on Materia Medica, entitled the Edinburgh Dispensatory,
was for many years a standard authority in every Medical school
in Europe.
Among Dr. Duncan's contributions to Medical
knowledge we may specially mention his experiments on
Peruvian bark, whereby he discovered cinchonin, and paved the
way for the discovery of the vegetable alkaloids so important to
the advancement of pharmaceutical science.
(4) ROBERT CHRISTISON, 1832-1877. This is a name, the very
mention of which has often excited enthusiasm. Should these
volumes come into the hands of any old Medical Students of
the University of Edinburgh, they will very likely turn first to see
what is here said of one who was to them a hero, whether they
knew him as Professor” or as Sir Robert” Christison. Many
a one may be inclined to say of him-
" This was the noblest Roman of them all!
His life was gentle, and the elements
So mix'd in him, that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, “This was a man.
No Professor, out of all the long list, ever made so great an
impression by his character on the University—that is to say,
both on the Students and on his colleagues--as Robert Christison.
There was in him a combination of Roman virtue with the
qualities of a man of science; he united physical with mental
excellences; he was an athlete and the performer of feats of
agility in his youth, and in his sixty-fourth year became the smart,
jauntily - marching Captain of the University Corps of Rifle
Volunteers; he was skilled in music, and an excellent singer, with
a rich bass voice; he was extremely well educated, had an excel-
lent literary style, and spoke in public with great appropriateness
as well as force; he was very quick, firm, and adroit, and most
skilful in all manipulations, so that he succeeded in many emer-
gencies where other men had failed; he was totus, teres, atque
rotundus, and almost devoid of weaknesses. He was entirely
devoted and loyal to the University, and unwearied in promoting
its interests; he was the considerate friend of his Students, and
zealous for their welfare ; he was utterly upright and pure in all
426
(1871.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
a
relations of life, sans peur et sans reproche ; he was a warm friend,
and, though it was said that he was cold and somewhat stern in
exterior, this feature was mellowed by age, and the writer of these
pages, during the thirteen years and more that he had the privi-
lege of knowing him, never found him otherwise than genial and
sympathetic; he was very generous in his nature, and quite above
all petty jealousies, but high-spirited, sensitive in points of
honour, and prone to do battle à outrance for what he deemed to
be a righteous cause. His mind was thoroughly scientific, and
all his interests intellectual; he was an ardent mountaineer, and
had a deep love for Nature in all her aspects; to his last moment
he was always making observations and researches; he greatly
advanced the two departments of which he was successively
Professor ; and he became the acknowledged head of the Medical
profession in Scotland. Such were some of the qualities, of
organisation or acquirement, which have caused the name of Sir
Robert Christison to be almost adored by several generations of
his pupils and friends.
Robert Christîson actually served for fifty-five and a half years
as Professor in the University; his Professorial career spans more
than one-sixth of the whole history of the University, more than
one-third of the history of the Medical Faculty. No other
Professor has quite completed half a century of service, though
Jameson was within a few months of doing so. In 1871, by the
advice of Mr. Gladstone, Christison was made a baronet; he
accepted this hereditary rank after some hesitation, and next
year, at the jubilee dinner in his honour, which was attended by
250 gentlemen coming from far and wide, he alluded playfully
to his Scandinavian name as having been originally brought to
Scotland by some plundering “piratical rogue,” and added that
by the honour which the Queen had conferred upon him the
name of Christison had for the first time “ become the name of
a family."
In the spring of 1871 he sat down and wrote as follows :-
Having lately entered on the 50th year of my Professorship,
and having just finished my University lectures for the session
with a week of fatiguing work, I find I require relaxation from
routine toil in my professorial and professional duties, as well as
from a very unusual amount of the turmoil of public strife in this
1871.]
427
PROFESSORS OF MATERIA MEDICA,
turbulent city during the last six months. Could I as easily
reach the foot of a Highland mountain, or the shore of a Highland
loch, as I can betake myself to this sheet of paper, climbing the
mountain and rowing on the loch would be my choice for repose
and refreshment. I must stick to town, however, for some
months longer, before earning a right to the pleasures of idle-
ness; and it has occurred to me that there may be complete
mental distraction from ordinary mental pursuits, as well
as the relief always derived from amusement, in thus recall-
ing something of what I have done, or witnessed from a posi-
tion of some little prominence, in which I was placed at a very
early age."
Thus were commenced what we may call the Recollections of
Sir Robert Christison, though he himself gave no title to what he
wrote. Continuing his task from time to time, he filled 471
pages of notepaper with firm, small, exquisite handwriting, clearer
and more beautiful than print, and with hardly an erasure, con-
taining a genial autobiographical account of his own education
and first successes in life, and of his mode of procedure in the
Chair of Medical Jurisprudence, especially with reference to
various trials in which he gave scientific evidence.
There are
also descriptive notices of several of his teachers and early
colleagues in the University, from which extracts have been
made 1 into these pages. It is very much to be regretted that this
record is only a fragment, stopping short in the year 1830, and
therefore giving no account of Christison's election to his second
Chair, or of interesting events in the University which occurred
subsequently. There is, however, a narrative of the great quarrel
between the Senatus Academicus and the Town Council, which
agrees substantially with what has been given, from other sources,
above; though of course Christison, as a leading combatant,
could hardly enough recognise that there was a certain amount
of right, as well as wrong, on both sides, The strife was a mis-
fortune for him, as he came to be regarded as an antagonist to
1 By the kind permission of Sir Alexander Christison, Bart., and his
brothers, Dr. David and Mr. John Christison. It is to be hoped that the
remainder of this charming autobiographical fragment may be given to the
public. The account of Robert Christison's studies in the Medical School of
Paris (1820) is specially interesting.
428
[1819.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
I
the Town Council, and this probably prevented his being placed
in the Chair of Practice of Physic in 1855, and made Principal
in the University in 1868, for both which appointments he had
great claims. Christison's filial piety, as exhibited in his Recol-
lections, is very beautiful. In recording the death of his father,
Professor A. Christison, in 1820, he speaks of “his noble char-
acter, his evident strong attachment, and the constant interest
he had taken in my studies, so that in his own favourite branch,
the higher Mathematics, he made of me almost a fellow-student.
Consequently his figure, carriage, and gait, his countenance and
its varying expression in conversation, his very mind, were all so
impressed on me, that they seemed, as it were, ever with me or
within call. Time, which tries all things, has tested me for a
term fast approaching to sixty years, but has left that inward
feeling unblunted. When my father left this life I could well
have said of him, Questo qui mai da me non fia diviso."
Christison entered the High School, under Pillans, during his
father's first year as Professor in the University, and he spent
six years there, always near the top of his class, and ended by
pleasing Pillans with a set of Latin verses.
Sir Robert was
always a warm advocate for a classical education. At fourteen
he proceeded to the University, and went through the entire Arts
course, after which, as he says: “I was entitled, by the rules of
the University, to receive the M.A. degree without examination.
But that very privilege made the degree no object of ambition to
the great mass of the Students, and especially to the best class of
them. I declined the honour when offered, and even pressed
upon me, and it was a common saying among us, that nobody
took it but 'a Dominie.'"
It is unfortunately not possible here to reproduce Christison's
anecdotes of his Student life. We will only quote his account of
his examination for the M.D. degree in 1819. A prelude to this
ceremony occurred two days before, when he walked with three
companions to Rosslyn, Hawthornden, and Lasswade. Unluckily
one of the party imbibed too much of the Lasswade ale, which
led to a fray with the inhabitants of Liberton. Christison,
endeavouring to rescue his friends from the mêlée, was “struck
“
down by a heavy blow on the outside of the left eye." Returning
to Edinburgh he became alive to the horrors of his probable ap-
1819.]
429
PROFESSORS OF MATERIA MEDICA.
.
pearance before his examiners with a black eye. “I therefore,”
says he, “determined to lie awake all night with cold wet cloths
constantly over my bruise. I succeeded till morning approached,
when I dropped asleep. But instantly I started broad awake,
dreaming that I was before my examiners, and that Dr. Gregory's
first question was, 'Dic mihi, Domine, unde venit hicce oculus
cæruleus ?' I was delighted, however, to find at dawn that there
was no discoloration. The custom then was for the Medical
Faculty to meet for examination successively at one another's
houses, and for the host to bear the chief brunt of duty. Dr.
Gregory examined me for an hour on the anatomy, physiology,
and diseases of the stomach, their treatment, and the chemistry
of some of the remedies mentioned. I have not since heard so
masterly an examination, so thorough and yet so fair a scrutiny.
Each of the five other Professors then put a few questions on
desultory subjects. Of these I recollect only Monro's and Ruther-
ford's. Monro chose for his subject concretions in the stomach.
Never having heard of such a thing I have never met with a
case of the kind, but once saw at a Medico-Chirurgical Society
meeting a large ball of human hair which had been taken after
death from the stomach of a hysterical girl —my answers were
taken from acquaintance with intestinal concretions, a favourite
study both of Dr. Monro himself and of his father. The Doctor
was satisfied, although assuredly no such concretion has ever been
formed in the stomach; and, as I knew these concretions well,
my answers were accepted until he arrived at the treatment. This
I had to spin out of my own brain, and, on being pushed by him
for more remedies, I proceeded with the aid of my old engineer-
ing propensities to invent an instrument for the extraction of
offensive substances. Monro, thereupon, wound up the dialogue
by asking,' Vidistine unquam, Domine, tale instrumentum usita-
tum ?' To which I replied somewhat coolly, and in doubtful
Latin, 'Nec vidi, nec audivi.' Dr. Rutherford, who followed last
of all, probably regarding me as too confident and easy, resolved,
as it seemed to me, to cool my conceit with a subject very much
out of a tyro's way. Throwing Botany aside, which it was said
he never cared for, he asked me the symptoms of the descent of
a calculus from the kidney into the bladder. But fortune had
favoured me by presenting a characteristic case of the kind about
430
[1842.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
a fortnight before, so that I had the needful answer at my
finger-ends."
During the year and a half previous to the examination so
graphically described, Christison had been employed as Assistant
in a Fever Hospital attached to the Royal Infirmary, and his
Thesis for graduation was De Febre Continua, quæ nuper in hoc
urbe Epidemica fuit, ex exemplis apud Nosocomium Regium trac-
tatis deducta. His Recollections are full of disquisitions on the
fevers of those days, and he himself was repeatedly seized by them
during subsequent attendance on the Infirmary. An Insurance
Company once made these frequent fevers an objection to taking
his life, but he pointed out that it had been rather proved that
no fever was too much for him.
After graduating he proceeded to London for a time, and then
to Paris, whence returning he was appointed Professor of Medical
Jurisprudence, as related elsewhere. After ten years' tenure of
that Chair he was transferred in 1832 to that of Materia Medica.
In all probability he owed his election on that occasion to his
Tory politics. A misfortune attended the first years of his new
Professorship, for the numbers of Medical Students in the Uni-
versity, owing to various causes, had greatly fallen off, and this so
reduced the incomes of the Professors that Christison found him-
self unable to do that which he had proposed to hiinself, namely,
to devote himself to his Chair, and to carry out a long and costly
inquiry in the “untrodden field of Therapeutic Physiology.”
The glory of this investigation was denied to Christison, and he
bequeathed it to his successors. A great Medical and consulting
practice was opened to him, and in the Chair of Materia Medica
he contented himself with being an admirable teacher, and with
bringing out in 1842 his Dispensatory, which superseded, by the
new lights which it contained, the similar work of his predecessor,
Dr. Duncan junior. He also prepared the last edition of the
Edinburgh Pharmacopæia; and, in connection with his Medical
practice produced a valuable work on Granular Degeneration of
the Kidneys, besides many papers on Medical topics. Christison
performed valuable services to the Senatus : he was for a long
time Dean of the Medical Faculty ; as soon as the University got
the control of its own property he became Convener of the
Finance Committee, and managed the pecuniary affairs of the
1877.]
431
PROFESSORS OF NATURAL HISTORY.
Senatus with great prudence and skill; his clearness of mind ap-
peared conspicuously in the annual budgets which he drew up;
he was elected and re-elected by the Senatus as their Assessor in
the University Court, from its outset till 1877, when a severe
illness induced him to resign his Chair. And after that he was
elected by the General Council as their Assessor in the Court till
the time of his death. No man can have rejoiced more than
Christison in the new regime of the University, introduced by the
Act of 1858. After his resignation of Professorial duty his mind
was ever occupied with scientific interests, and he continued to
contribute papers to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, of which in
1869 he had been made President. In 1878, when over eighty-
two years of age, he ascended Ben Vrackie in Perthshire. The
winter of 1881-1882, during which Sir Robert Christison was
stricken with mortal illness, was exceptionally mild; it so hap-
pened that the aged philosopher had prophesied that this would
be the case, from meteorological symptoms in the early autumn;
when the writer of these pages visited him on his deathbed, he
found him in all the peace of a Christian, sorrowing somewhat to
leave so interesting a world, but still diligently recording the daily
temperatures and cheered by the circumstance that his prophecy
had come true. It is needless to recount the honours which in
his lifetime were heaped upon Sir Robert Christison; the great
public funeral which followed his remains on the ist February
1882 testified to the feeling towards him entertained by his
fellow-citizens in Edinburgh.
As his successor (5) THOMAS R. FRASER, the present Pro-
fessor of Materia Medica, was appointed in 1877 by the
Curators.
XXVIII.--REGIUS PROFESSORS OF NATURAL HISTORY.
(1) ROBERT RAMSAY, 1767-1779. We have seen above (Vol.
I. p. 319) that in 1770 Dr. Robert Ramsay presented to the
Town Council a Commission from George III., dated 13th March
1767, appointing him Regius Professor of Natural History and
Keeper of the Museum in the University of Edinburgh, with a
salary of £70 per annum. What the history of this transaction
may have been we know not. Perhaps Dr. Ramsay may have had
432
[1779.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
Court influence as a Medical man, and may have devised this
appointment for himself as suiting his tastes. When he had
got his Commission he may have suited his own convenience in
presenting it. The Town Council admitted him as Professor on
condition that he should conform to their regulations and deliver
to their clerk an inventory of the curiosities in the University.
In the account before given (Vol. I. p. 374) of the Natural
History Museum it was omitted to be mentioned that in 1765,
the Library having been moved back into the upper hall, Principal
Robertson petitioned the Town Council to fit up the room which
Jossie had built for the Library (above, pp. 171, 188), and which
was now vacated, as a Museum. The Town Council then granted
£150 for the purpose; so there was some sort of a Museum for
Ramsay to be keeper of, but it was so meagre as to be useless
for teaching purposes. Partly perhaps from this cause, but prob-
ably also from want of zeal, Ramsay hardly attempted lecturing.
For more than eight years he treated the Chair as a sinecure.
On his death (2) JOHN WALKER, 1779-1804, was appointed to
2
the Professorship, for which public opinion marked him out,
owing to the reputation which he had already acquired as a
naturalist. Walker, son to the Rector of the Canongate grammar
school, had as a young man become Minister of Glencross in the
Pentlands, where he used to astonish the parishioners by bring-
ing home quantities of what they called weeds from the hills. In
1764 he was sent out by the General Assembly on a mission to
the benighted inhabitants of the Western Highlands and Islands.
In performance of this duty he drew up an admirable statistical
account of the country which he passed through. He was after-
wards appointed to the Ministry of Moffat, and while there
received, in 1779, his Commission to the Chair of Natural History.
Some discussion then arose as to whether he could perform both
duties, whether, in short, he could be allowed to live half the year
away from his parish. He did so, however, until Lord Lauder-
dale made matters easier for him by presenting him to the living
of Colinton, only four miles from Edinburgh, so that he was able
to perform parochial duties though residing in the Canongate.
Walker's course of lectures, as we learn from his published
syllabus, included Meteorology, Hydrography, Geology, Miner-
1 The above particulars are from Bower, vol. iii. pp. 218-226.
1
1826.]
433
PROFESSORS OF NATURAL HISTORY.
alogy, Botany, and Zoology. The Students were first taken
through the "Fossil Kingdom" before commencing on Natural
History proper. In Zoology Walker used a primitive classification,
under the heads of Mammals, Birds, Amphibia, Fishes, and
Invertebrates. His Amphibia included reptiles (and among these
were frogs and toads), serpents, and a group called “Nantes,"
differing from ordinary fish in the structure of their lungs. 6. Thus
sharks and rays, reptiles and serpents, were all included in the
same group as the frogs and toads." Among the Invertebrates are
mentioned animalculæ, and it is interesting to find that Walker,
even in those days, pointed out that "animalculæ are the chief
cause or concomitants of exanthematous disease." “ Much that
he said of what he called 'animalculæ' would in all probability apply
to the minute organisms which now so deeply interest alike the
Biologist and the Physician.” Notwithstanding the very primi-
tive classification adopted by Walker, he seems to have possessed
a fairly typical museum, and to have made occasional dredging
expeditions in the Firth of Forth."1 His lectures, though not
'
necessary for the Medical degree, seem to have attracted a fair
number of Students, as well as a sprinkling of auditors not other-
wise connected with the University,
(3) ROBERT JAMESON, 1804-1854, the next Professor, was
born in Leith, and was for some time a Surgeon apprentice; he
studied Natural History under Walker in 1792, and thenceforth
devoted himself to the subject, especially to that branch of it
which has now been separated from the Chair, namely Miner-
alogy and Geology, which he studied under the celebrated Werner
at Freiberg. This was no doubt Jameson's favourite pursuit; he
wrote a Treatise on the Characters of Minerals, which he used as
a text-book for his class. But his syllabus, which was printed in
the Report of the Commission of 1826, shows that he gave
interesting lectures also on Meteorology, Hydrography, Botany,
and Zoology. In the latter department his course was full, com-
mencing with the natural history of man. His classification of
animals was far more scientific than that of Walker, and he used
to finish up with lectures on the “ Philosophy of Zoology," of
which the first was on “The Origin of the Species of Animals.”
1 The above quotations are from Professor J. Cossar Ewart's Inaugural
Address (1882).
VOL. II.
2 F
434
(1854.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
1
Jameson has two great glories--first, that he created that
splendid Museum of which so much has been already said in
these pages; second, that he founded a great school of Natural
History “ Amongst Jameson's pupils may be mentioned his
successor, Edward Forbes; Dr. Grant, Professor of Natural
History in University College, London; Macgillivray and Nicol,
both Professors of Natural History in the University of Aber-
deen; and Darwin, who worked with Jameson from 1825 to
1827. Forbes, referring to Jameson, says : ‘The value of a
professor's work should chiefly be estimated by the number and
excellence of his disciples. A large number of the best naturalists
of the day received their first instruction from Professor Jameson.'
'The greatest praise of a great professor is that which proclaims
the foundation of a school; and where else in the British Empire
has there been, for the last half century, a school of natural
history?' In all probability it was because of the fame of
Jameson that Darwin found his way to the University of Edin-
burgh.”
(4) EDWARD FORBES, 1854-1855. After Jameson's long and
distinguished Professorship of nearly half a century he was suc-
ceeded by a brilliant genius, whose light, however, was extin-
guished, having just shown itself above the horizon, after a few
months' tenure of the Chair of Natural History. Edward Forbes,
a Manxman by birth, but of Scottish extraction, had been from
his earliest years an ardent naturalist. Coming to the University
of Edinburgh, he studied with great success in the classes of
Botany and Natural History, but could not overcome his repug-
nance to Medicine as a profession. He took every opportunity
of accompanying Graham and Jameson on their excursions, and
delighted in “dredging the Firth of Forth under the guidance of
a shrewd strong-handed and strong-armed Newhaven fisherman.”
He continued his studies in Edinburgh from his sixteenth till his
twenty-third year. During that period, however, he accompanied
Principal Campbell of Aberdeen in a naturalising expedition
round the coast of Norway; roamed through the south of France,
and crossed to Algiers; dredged round the north coast of Scot-
land with Professor Goodsir ; and during one winter studied
under Blainville and St. Hilaire at Paris.
He then gave many
1 Professor Cossar Ewart's Inaugural Address, p. 9.
1870.]
435
PROFESSORS OF NATURAL HISTORY.
lectures on Natural History to popular institutions. Next he
accompanied Captain Graves as naturalist on board the Beacon
to Syria. From 1843 to 1845 he was Professor of Botany in
King's College, London, and Curator to the Geological Society.
In 1845 he was attached to the Geological Survey, and was
appointed Lecturer on Zoology and Palæontology at the Royal
School of Mines.
On the 15th May 1854 the goal of his ambition was attained,
and, surrounded by rejoicing friends, he delivered his inaugural
lecture in the University of Edinburgh “to a brilliant audience,
which had representatives from all parts of the country to wel-
come him and do him honour.” After his first session he pre-
sided over the Geological section of the British Association at
Liverpool. During the meetings he suffered from the return
of a remittent fever by which he had been prostrated when
in Greece. He met his class at the opening of the winter
session, 1854-55, but after a week was compelled to suspend
his lectures, and died a few days afterwards at the age of thirty-
nine.
Edward Forbes" had the faculty of carrying on elaborate
investigations, as well as the power of generalising ; and, being a
good draftsman, he was able to impress the main facts of his lec-
tures by happily conceived and marvellously executed black-board
sketches. He had a great unwritten influence in his day, and he
still lives in his numerous memoirs and papers.
Of these, per-
haps the most important are the Papers on the Mollusca, the
Monograph on the British Naked-Eyed Meduse, and the History
of British Starfish.” 1
(5) GEORGE JAMES ALLMAN, 1855-1870, the recent distin-
guished President of the Linnæan Society, succeeded Forbes, but
owing to ill-health resigned the Professorship in 1870.
(6) WyviLLE T. C. THOMSON, 1870-1882, was born in
1830, and, having studied in the Medical School of the Univer-
sity of Edinburgh, was, when only twenty years old, appointed
Lecturer on Botany in King's College, and afterwards in Mari-
schall College, Aberdeen. Then he went in 1853 to Queen's
College, Cork, as Professor of Botany and Zoology, and in the
I
1 The above account of Edward Forbes is taken from Professor Cossar
Ewart's Address, pp. 9-12.
436
[1881.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
following year to Queen's College, Belfast, as Professor of Minera-
logy and Geology. At this period his researches were mainly
zoological, and “by-and-by he was led to study the lily-star group
of Echinoderms. This may be looked upon as the turning-point
in his history. Owing to his intense interest in the crinoids, he
was brought in contact first with Sars and afterwards with Car-
penter, and he was led to the conclusion that “the land of pro-
mise for the naturalist, the only region where there were endless
novelties of the most extraordinary interest, was the bottom of
the deep sea."
“With the spirit of a crusader he burned to win glory on the
great ocean plains. Through the influence of Carpenter and the
Royal Society he succeeded in 1868 in obtaining the use of
H.M.S. Lightning, and in 1869 that of H.M.S. Porcupine." The
interest in deep-sea explorations excited by these expeditions
induced the Government in 1872 to resolve upon sending out
the great Challenger expedition round the world, and Wyville
Thomson was appointed Director of the Scientific Staff. This
was only the second year of his Professorship in Edinburgh, but
he obtained leave of absence, and during the next four years his
classes were conducted first by Professor Huxley and then by Pro-
fessor Carus of Leipsic. Wyville Thomson was eminently fitted
by moral, as well as scientific, qualities for the conduct of this
scientific expedition, which was the means of collecting a mass of
new facts relative to the deep-sea fauna, and to the extent and
nature of the great ocean-beds; and which reflected credit on the
Government of Great Britain. On his return from the voyage of
the Challenger he received a gold medal from the Royal Society;
he was knighted by Queen Victoria ; he was entertained at a
public banquet in Edinburgh ; and when he attended the cele-
bration of the fourth centenary of the University of Upsala, he
was created a Knight of the Order of the Polar Star. But he
returned from the expedition with broken health, and the labour
of reducing the materials which had been collected, combined
with his Professorial duties, was too much for his strength. He
became disabled by illness, and died at the end of 1881, much
regretted as a very lovable man, both by his colleagues in the
University and by his Students. He did not live to see the
results of his explorations fully worked out; when they are so,
1803.]
437
PROFESSORS OF CLINICAL SURGERY.
I
they 6 will no doubt form an epoch in the history of Biological
Science."1
(7) In 1882 J. CoSSAR EWART, the present Regius Professor
of Natural History, was appointed. It may be mentioned here
that in 1871, by the creation of Sir Roderick Murchison's Chair
of Geology, that subject, together with Mineralogy, was taken out
of the province of the Natural History Chair. Also, that in
Professor Ewart's Commission, for the first time, an appointment
to be Regius Keeper of the Natural History Collections in the
Museum of Science and Art was omitted. Owing to Wyville
Thomson's long absence it had been suggested to the Govern-
ment that a Keeper of those Collections, not connected with the
University, should be appointed—and this was done. But the
Science and Art Department of the Privy Council recommended
that, in lieu of the University Professor acting as Keeper, a Com-
mittee of the Senatus should annually report on the Collections ;
which seems a very reasonable plan.
XXIX.-REGIUS PROFESSORS OF CLINICAL SURGERY.
I
We have mentioned (Vol. I. p. 322) the circumstances under
which à Chair of Clinical Surgery was erected by the Crown
in 1803, and bestowed upon (1) JAMES RUSSELL, 1803-1833,
a Surgeon of the City. Sir R. Christison comments on the
“singular manner" in which Clinical Surgery was taught by him.
“Mr. Russell was not an Acting Surgeon in the Infirmary, as the
Clinical Professor has always been since. He received, however,
the appointment of permanent Consulting Surgeon, in which
capacity he regularly accompanied the attending Surgeons in their
visits, was cognisant, therefore, of everything going on in their
wards, and, moreover, was in some measure answerable for all acts
of surgical interference which required to be authorised by a con-
sultation. Having thus no Hospital cases of his own, Russell
nevertheless undertook, and by the acting Surgeons was allowed
to discharge, the delicate duty of lecturing on the cases of others.
In such a method criticism is of course impossible. Mistakes
cannot be acknowledged. Better methods cannot be suggested.
Even commentary must often tread on tender ground, unless it con-
1 From Professor Ewart's Address, pp. 25-28.
438
(1833.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
sist entirely of approval, or at least of assent. Thus the Student
will be led to suppose that Surgery is a sure and easy-going
art, which either always attains its object, or if not, fails through
no fault of its own or of the surgeon. Russell, however, piloted
his way skilfully among these quicksands, and gave much useful
information to well-attended classes. But I must say he was a
somnolent lecturer—a quality which was fomented by an evening
class-hour, and betrayed by an inveterate habit the Professor had
of yawning while he spoke, and continuing to speak while he
yawned." In his eighty-first year, with the sanction of the Lord
Advocate, Russell sold his Chair to (2) JAMES SYME, 1833-1869,
who, under a simple and unpretentious exterior, concealed extra-
ordinary powers, which made him the first Surgeon of his day in
Great Britain, and entitled him to rank among the greatest Pro-
fessors of the University of Edinburgh. His life was characterised
by sagacity, decision, and truthfulness. His “heroic” operations
were never made for display, but only when his penetrating
diagnosis recommended them as the best and only chance in
extreme cases. And he was all but infallible; he was the
Wellington of Surgery—almost without a reverse.
As a boy at the High School, he was noted for naturalistic
tastes, and for his adroitness in picking out the skeletons of small
animals. When he came to the University and had studied
Chemistry under Hope he distinguished himself in his nine-
teenth year (1818) by discovering that a distillation of coal-tar
formed a cheap solvent for caoutchouc, by means of which cloths
might be made waterproof. He published this invention in a
scientific journal, and it was immediately patented by a Glasgow
manufacturer. Thus waterproofs are now called “Mackintoshes,"
whereas they ought in justice to be called "Symes."
Syme did not graduate in Medicine, but became assistant and
demonstrator to Barclay, the brilliant extra-mural lecturer in
Anatomy. Afterwards he became assistant to Liston, who set up
a rival Anatomical school. But both Liston and Syme took more
and more to Surgery; after five years of friendship they separated
under some misunderstanding. Syme studied for a year in Paris,
especially practising surgical operations on dead bodies, under
Lisfranc. In 1826 Syme, who had hitherto been teaching
Anatomy, resolved finally to abandon it. He was moved to this
1847.]
439
PROFESSORS OF CLINICAL SURGERY.
I
}
.
by two circumstances-(1) the difficulty of obtaining “subjects"
in those days, before the Anatomy Act of 1832 ; and (2) the
emulation which was excited in his mind by seeing the perform-
ances of the Irish Surgeons, and especially Cusack, during a visit
tò
to Dublin. He opened an extra-Academical class in pure Surgery,
and soon was attended by 250 Students.
For complete success he required to have some wards of a
hospital at his disposal ; and in 1829 a vacancy occurring among
the Surgeons of the Royal Infirmary he applied for it. But, owing
to his feud with Liston, the managers, fearing discord, declined to
appoint him He at once took one of those bold and decisive
steps which were characteristic of his career : with slender means
at his disposal, but with hope and courage, he hired Minto House,
the old residence of the Elliot family, between what is now
Chambers Street and the Cowgate, and there opened the “Edin-
burgh Surgical Hospital," with twenty-four beds. As this was
to be a charity as well as a school for science, he obtained about
£250 a year in subscriptions towards its maintenance. For four
years and a half Minto House Hospital flourished triumphantly, and
in it Syme developed his system of clinical teaching. A literary
interest attaches to Minto House, because that exquisite writer, Dr.
John Brown, was Syme's assistant there, and the main incident in
the affecting tale of Rab and his Friends took place within its walls.
In 1833 Professor Russell wished to resign his Chair of
Clinical Surgery in the University, but as there were then no
retiring pensions he had to be bought out. He demanded £300
a year for his lifetime, and on these terms offered to make way
for Liston, who contemptuously rejected the proposal. Syme, on
the other hand, at once accepted it, and on his appointment by
the Crown the Managers of the Infirmary placed three wards at
his disposal, and the Senatus made Clinical Surgery necessary for
graduation. Syme revolutionised the teaching of the subject, for
whereas before it had been the practice for the Professor merely
to lecture on and describe groups of cases which had come under
his notice, Syme had the patients brought in one by one, explained
the principles of treatment, and did what was necessary before
the eyes of the Students.
In 1847 Liston, who had taken the Chair of Clinical Surgery
in the University of London, died suddenly. Syme, being invited
440
[1868.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
a
to succeed him, decided to do so with a view to the wide field of
practice in London. To the regret of his friends he departed;
but, though successful with his London class, he found the sur-
rounding circumstances of the London University not congenial.
Promptly and without vacillation he threw up his appointment
and returned to Edinburgh. His Chair in the University had
not been filled up, and the Lord Advocate was glad to reappoint
him to it; the Infirmary Managers welcomed him back to their
wards; even his delightful house at Milbank was not yet sold;
so that he returned to his old duties, his old friends, and his
Penates, in July 1848. From that time forth he held the Chair
of Clinical Surgery for twenty-one years, and taught his Students
in a manner unsurpassed by any one. His chief work was his
Principles of Surgery (1832), but he also produced from time to
time more than two hundred papers on various professional
points. He introduced many improvements in surgical practice,
as for instance in the treatment of incised wounds, of strictures of
the urethra, and of aneurisms of the arteries; a new method of
amputating the ankle goes by his name. Of him Sir James Paget
said: “I doubt whether anything has done more good to the
London schools than the honour Professor Syme has won ; with
him we have been rivals. We may doubt whether in all the con-
flicts there has been one more useful for good to the world
than that which rages between the English and the Scotch."
Syme had an extraordinary sagacity about practical matters,
and on several occasions spoke "the word in season."
(as we have seen, p. 68) he was the first to advocate the recog-
nition of extra-
mural teaching; in 1855 he published a letter to
Lord Palmerston which led to the Medical Act of 1858; in 1856
he procured the removal from Edinburgh of the Chair of Military
Surgery; in 1868, by a piece of glorious inconsistency, he turned
round on his own strongly-expressed views, and at the eleventh
hour urged that the Royal Infirmary, for rebuilding which £68,000
had been collected, should not be rebuilt on its old site, but re-
moved to a larger and better ventilated space by the Meadows.
The battle of the sitęs" was waged for four months, but Syme's
lucid and straightforward statement of reasons carried the day.
He was said to be “ a man who never wasted a word, a drop of
ink, or a drop of blood.” . He was uncompromising, and had
In 1840
I
.
1806.]
441
PROFESSORS OF MILITARY SURGERY.
generally one or more feuds on hand; but he was always con-
spicuously a man of honour and a gentleman. And he cherished
the warmest friendships ; in fact he lived for his friends. The
favourite by-work and diversion of Syme's life was horticulture.
In the seclusion of Milbank, away from the streets of the "gray
metropolis," he would be often among his plants before the
gardener, and when daylight was hardly in. And of an evening,
returning to the same spot, the great Surgeon would solace his
mind, after the scenes of horror through which he had passed,
with the gentle beauty of the flowers which he loved. On his
deathbed he requested a particular orchid to be brought into the
room and placed within his sight. He died in his seventy-first
year, in 1890. The “Syme Surgical Fellowship" was established
in his honour by the contributions of English and American
Surgeons. He was succeeded by his son-in-law (3) JOSEPH
LISTER, the distinguished introducer of the Antiseptic System;
on whose removal to London in 1877 (4) THOMAS ANNANDALE,
the present Professor of Clinical Surgery, was appointed by the
Crown.
XXX.--REGIUS PROFESSORS OF MILITARY SURGERY.
a
a
(1) JOHN THOMSON, 1806-1821, had the singular honour of
procuring the establishment of, and himself inaugurating, two
new Chairs in the University of Edinburgh, the one a Surgical
and the other a Medical Chair. He was the son of a silk weaver
of Paisley, and was born in 1765. He had been apprenticed to
his father, but his intellectual capacities and ambitions soared
above a mechanical employment. He privately got himself taught
Latin, and his father consented to make him over as apprentice
to a local Medical practitioner. At the age of twenty-three he
found himself attending Medical classes in Glasgow, and next
year, with the help of some patrons, he got to the classes of
Munro secundus and Black in Edinburgh. In 1790 he was ap-
pointed Assistant-Apothecary to the Royal Infirmary. In 1798
he published an edition of Fourcroy's Elements of Chemistry and
Natural History In 1799 Lord Lauderdale came to study
Chemistry in Edinburgh, and Thomson was introduced to him as
a person qualified to assist him, a circumstance which ultimately
1
442
[1814.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
proved very advantageous to Thomson. In the meanwhile, he
had assiduously practised Surgery, and had become a Fellow of
the College of Surgeons. In 1800 he produced a pamphlet
called Outlines of a Plan for the Regulation of the Surgical De-
partment of the Royal Infirmary. He was then appointed one of
the Surgeons to the Infirmary; he then commenced giving
Clinical lectures, as well as courses of systematic Surgery in a
private theatre. In 1804 he was formally appointed " Professor
“
of Surgery to the Royal College of Surgeons," which, as we have
seen (Vol. I. p. 324), called forth protests from the Senatus
Academicus. In 1806, on the formation of Fox's Government,
Thomson was encouraged by his friend Lord Lauderdale to
apply for a Commission to be Professor of Military Surgery in
the University of Edinburgh. The European war had created a
special interest in the subject; Lord Spencer, then Home Secretary,
went carefully into the subject, and after an interview with Thom-
son created the Chair, and appointed Thomson as the first
Professor.
Hitherto, owing to the monopoly claimed by the Monros,
Surgery had been taught in the University only as an appendage
to Anatomy in a few lectures hurriedly introduced at the end of
the Anatomical course. Nor had any private teacher in Edin-
burgh delivered any distinct course on Surgery. John Thomson,
then, was the author of a most important and valuable innova-
tion. He was very liberal in admitting Students without fee to
his lectures. He mentions that in one session nearly 200 per-
sons had availed themselves of this privilege. In 1813 he pub-
lished his Lectures on Inflammation, exhibiting the doctrines,
pathological and practical, of Medical Surgery. This work was
widely circulated, and translated into French, German, and
Italian. In 1814, at the close of the war, Thomson hastened
to make a tour among the hospitals and Medical schools of the
Continent; and next year, immediately after the battle of Water-
loo, he received a Commission to inspect the condition of the
wounded soldiers in Belgium ; he performed this duty with the
utmost zeal, and rendered valuable assistance to the Army-Sur-
geons at Brussels, and he then was appointed Surgeon to the
Forces by the Duke of York. In the ensuing winter Thomson's
lectures in Edinburgh were eagerly attended; the class numbered
1821.]
443
PROFESSORS OF MILITARY SURGERY.
about 280, out of whom 18 Medical officers belonging to the
army and 62 to the navy were gratuitously admitted. Accord-
ing to an eye-witness the discourses were “always animated and
often eloquent," and they gave rise to much discussion among
the hearers as to different modes of Surgical treatment. With
regard to Thomson's own practice as a Surgeon, he was said to
have a good hand and eye, but to have been “deficient in that
freedom from commiseration which Celsus declares to be re-
quisite in a surgeon. Both previously to any serious operation
and during the doubtful period of the subsequent progress of a
case in which he had operated, he was oppressed with a too pain-
ful anxiety."
His lectures were not purely Surgical, but were full of Medical
Pathology Before 1820 he had begun collecting coloured
pathological delineations, For this purpose he secured the
services of Mr. (afterwards Sir Robert) Carswell, and sent him
to various hospitals and museums at home and abroad to make
water-colour drawings of morbid structures. This being carried
out with great skill during a number of years resulted in a splen-
did collection of pathological diagrams, now in the possession
of the University. This collection was the first of its kind ever
made, and was an original conception on the part of Thomson.
In 1821, on the death of Dr. James Gregory, Thomson
offered himself as a candidate for the Chair of Practice of
Physic. He was defeated, as before mentioned, on political
grounds, by Dr. James Home. The Duke of York sent a letter
to the Lord Provost in Thomson's favour, but it arrived too late.
The Town Council, however, felt so strongly the force of this
royal mandate that, to justify what they had done, they asked and
got from the Medical Faculty of the University additional (and
very mistaken) testimonials as to Home's fitness for the Chair of
Practice of Physic. After these occurrences Thomson resigned
his Professorship of Military Surgery, and betook himself to
delivering extra-mural courses of lectures upon the practice of
Physic and Pathology. In 1824 he addressed to the Town
Council a published letter, entitled "Hints respecting the Improve-
ment of the Literary and Scientific Education of Candidates for the
Degree of M.D." This led to his being invited to give evidence
before the Commission of 1826, and he took the opportunity
444
[1823.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
a
of urging the necessity for creating a separate Chair of Surgery
and one of Pathology in the University. In 1827 he brought
out his edition of Cullen's works.
In 1831 he addressed a memorial to Lord Melbourne point-
ing out the advantages which would result from the establishment
of a Chair of General Pathology. The result was, as we have
seen (Vol. I. p. 325), that a Chair was created by the Government,
and Thomson received a commission from the Crown as the
first Professor of General Pathology. He was gratified at the
same time by the announcement that a Chair of Surgery had
also been created, and his friend John William Turner appointed
to fill it. Pathology had previously been recognised as a separate
course in almost all the Continental Universities. Thomson
was in his sixty-sixth year when appointed to his second Chair,
but next year he commenced lecturing with great vigour. And
he showed great erudition in his prelections on Pathology. A
contemporary well able to judge said of him: “Dr. Thomson
is the most learned physician I ever met with.” But Pathology
has made great advances since his time, and, on the whole, it
seems to be thought that he had done his best work before he
began to teach that subject. In 1835 his health began to de-
cline; his courses were delivered by a deputy till 1841, when he
resigned the Chair of Pathology. He brought out the first
volume of his Life of Cullen in 1832, the second volume was
completed by his son, and published posthumously in 1859.
John Thomson died in 1846, in the eighty-second year of
his age,
After Thomson's resignation of the Chair of Military Surgery
a short interval elapsed, and then (2) GEORGE BALLINGALL, 1823-
1856, was appointed Professor of the subject. Born in 1780,
the son of the Minister of Forglen, Banffshire, he had gone through
the Arts course in St. Andrews, and then came for Medical studies
to Edinburgh, where he graduated M.D. in 1803. He entered
the army in 1806 as Assistant-Surgeon in the ist Royals. He
saw much service in India and other foreign countries; was at
the taking of Java in 1811, and in 1815 was with the army of
I
1
1 The above particulars are taken from the Memoir of Professor John Thom-
son, by his son Professor Allen Thomson, which is prefixed to the second edition
of the Life of Cullen.
1807.] PROFESSORS OF MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. 445
occupation in Paris. In 1818 he retired on half-pay, and settled
as a practitioner in Edinburgh. In 1823 he was appointed by
the Crown to the then vacant Chair of Military Surgery. He
published a work on Fever, Dysentery, and Liver Complaints,
Introductory Lectures to a Course of Medical Surgery, and a
Treatise on Military Surgery. Going up with Principal Baird to
present an address to William IV. on his accession, he was
knighted, and became Sir George Ballingall. He was Surgeon
to the Queen in Scotland, and had various other honorary titles.
Dr. Gibson, who saw him in 1839, speaks of him as “tall,
robust, and active; of open generous countenance, and
mild and amiable manners, and quiet and unpretending." He
was a favourite with the Students, and had a reputation for
accuracy and caution, substantial information, and a clear way
of imparting it. He died in 1856, and then the Chair of Mili-
tary Surgery, by the advice of Professor Syme, was removed from
Edinburgh.
1
I
XXXI.--REGIUS PROFESSORS OF MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE
AND POLICE.
.
(1) ANDREW DUNCAN secundus, 1807-1820. We have seen
(Vol. I. p. 291) that Andrew Duncan, the father, moved the
Town Council to found a Chair of Medical Jurisprudence;
but it was from Andrew Duncan, the son, that the idea had first
come. He it was who first called the attention of the Medical
profession in Edinburgh to that branch of science called by the
Germans State Medicine, which comprehends the principles of
Medical evidence on questions before law-courts, and the doctrines
of Public Health. When opinion as to the desirability of having
this science taught had been matured, the Chair of Medical
Jurisprudence and Police was erected by the Crown, and bestowed
upon him who had devised it. Andrew Duncan secundus had a
mind of greater calibre than his worthy father, and had received
an extremely wide and liberal education. As a boy he had been
noted for poring over Medical books; at the age of fourteen
he was apprenticed for five years to Messrs. A. and G. Wood,
Surgeons; then he went through a full course of Arts and
i Rambles in Europe in 1839, p. 166.
9
446
[1832.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
I
Medicine in the University, where he graduated M.A. in 1793
and M.D. in 1794.
Then he studied for a winter in London ;
and afterwards made two long residences on the Continent, not
travelling like a tourist, but staying in each of the great towns of
Germany and Italy long enough to study under the Professors,
walk the hospitals, make friendships with eminent men, and
acquire a thorough knowledge of the languages and literatures of
the countries, and a cultivated acquaintance with painting and
music. Returning to Edinburgh, he joined the College of
Physicians; commenced advocating the cause of State Medicine;
brought out his Edinburgh Dispensatory, a great work on
Materia Medica; became editor of the Edinburgh Medical and
Surgical Journal; and in 1807 was made Professor of Medical
Jurisprudence. The lectures which he delivered and the papers
which he produced in his Journal on this subject excited an
interest in it both among his pupils and in the Medical profes-
sion generally. But for a long time Medical Jurisprudence
remained outside the Medical curriculum in the University;
thus Sir R. Christison did not attend this class, of which he
became (virtually) the second Professor. It was not till 1825,
after Duncan's death, that Medical Jurisprudence was admitted
even as an optional alternative into the curriculum (see Vol. I.
p. 331), and not till 1833 that it was made compulsory. As a
Professor in three Chairs successively, Dr. Duncan secundus was
most laborious; he was not like Dr. Hugh Blair, who read the
same course of lectures for twenty-four years ;—it was said that
“he was often seated at his desk at three in the morning, for
his lectures underwent a continual course of additions or improve-
ments." His constitution was enfeebled by over-work, and he
succumbed in his fifty-eighth year to the results of a fever con-
tracted in the Infirmary. He contributed a great number of
articles on Medical subjects to his own Journal, to the Edinburgh
Review, and to the Encyclopædia Britannica. He was well
known on the Continent, and all foreigners of distinction coming
to Edinburgh brought introductions to him. Besides what he
accomplished as a Professor and a man of science, Dr. A.
Duncan secundus performed great services for the University.
From 1809 to 1822 he was a most efficient Secretary of Senatus,
and Librarian to the University. Above all, from 1816 to 1832,
1822.] PROFESSORS OF MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. 447
he was an assiduous and able member of "the College Commis-
sion” for rebuilding the University, and to him is greatly due the
success with which the Adam-Playfair Buildings were carried out.
(2) WILLIAM PULTENEY ALISON, 1820-1821, held the Chair
of Medical Jurisprudence only as a temporary interlude; he has
been already characterised elsewhere.
(3) ROBERT CHRISTISON, 1822-1832. When, by a shifting
of Professors in 1821, Alison left vacant the Chair of Medical
Jurisprudence, Christison, in his twenty-fourth year, was just
finishing a course of Medical study in Paris. In his absence his
friends proposed him for the vacancy, and he was able to assist
their efforts with a powerful testimonial from Robiquet, the great
Fi ch chemist, who spoke of the delicate and difficult analyses
which he had performed, and said that he was en état d'entreprendre
toute espèce de travail chimique. According to Sir Robert's own
Recollections, just at that time Sir George Warrender, then a Junior
Lord of the Admiralty, had rendered an important service to the
Tory party by posting down to vote in the Haddingtonshire
election, when, by that one vote, the Tory candidate was carried.
Sir George had a great regard for Christison, who says: “With
:
this service lately rendered, and Robiquet's testimonial to back
him, he went to Lord Melville (the Ministerial fountain of Crown
patronage in Scotland), asked the vacant Professorship for me,
and of course got it.” In Sir Robert's Recollections there is an
interesting account of his work in the Chair of Medical Juris-
prudence, which, unfortunately, cannot here be given in full.
After being inducted in February 1822 he resolved to commence
lecturing on the ist May. He got hold of the best French
medico-legal works, and such meagre treatises as the infancy of
English Medical Jurisprudence could afford. He was thus able
to put together lectures which carried him through his first
session; they were based on the French medico-legal science, which
was then in advance of that of Britain. But he soon found that
there was another repertory prepared for him, so soon as he could
master the German language. His manner of doing this was
characteristic of his energy :-"In the winter, when I could com-
mand continued time, I spent one entire day in studying a good
German Grammar, superficially, so as to be able to use it as a
grammatical dictionary. Next day, with the help of a dictionary
448
[1829.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
.
proper, I began to read Schiller's Dreysig jähriger Krieg.
I well remember how hard it was to satisfy myself that
I had got at the true sense of the first long sentence. But
difficulty then seemed to vanish; and any scholar will easily see
that this single elegant sentence may serve as an introductory
epitome and exercise on almost all peculiarities of German parts
of speech and collocution. In fourteen days I was able to read
ten pages of my lesson-book in an hour ; and then I proceeded
to apply my new acquisition to its object. Under the new light
thus thrown on the subject and object of my Professorship, in
the course of three years the greater part of my original lectures
were thrown aside for others more appropriate. I was even so
ashamed of my first set that I destroyed them. My lectures at
last came to consist-besides the introductory généralités under
each topic, and the necessary scientific discussions under some
heads—of a collection of medico-legal cases grouped together,
as in a treatise on law, so as to bring out generalised facts and
principles. Study in this direction interested me profoundly;
and I was rewarded by earnest attention on the part of my
hearers, and a steady increase in their number.” At first, the
subject of Medical Jurisprudence being purely voluntary, Christi-
son's Students appear to have been chiefly "young lawyers,” and
of these he had at first twelve, afterwards five, and then only
one! But he persevered, and--the subject having been made
an alternative one in the Medical curriculum—when he resigned
the Chair in 1832 to go to that of Materia Medica, he left a
class consisting of 90 Students. The Recollections give a long
and interesting discussion upon the conduct of scientific witnesses
in the trials before Law-courts. Sir Robert Christison himself
was acknowledged by the Scottish judges of his time to have
been the best Medical or scientific witness that ever came before
them,--the most upright and unbiassed, and at the same time
the most clear and definite as to what he had to testify. The
first cause célèbre in which he gave evidence was the trial of Burke
and Hare in 1829. The most conspicuous instance of his assist-
ance to the cause of justice was in the case of the Rugely murders,
when, the prisoner's counsel having succeeded in breaking down
the testimony of other scientific witnesses, Christison held his
own against them so impregnably that in the opinion of all he
I
1832.] PROFESSORS OF MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. 449
“hanged Palmer," and was highly complimented by Lord
Campbell, the presiding judge. Christison records the several
points in which he found British Medical Jurisprudence deficient;
of these the most important was that "the principles and practice
of Toxicology, founded in 1814 by Orfila, had scarcely begun to
be appreciated, or even known, in the British Isles in 1822."
“It was clear," he adds, "that Toxicology was the most promis-
"
ing subject for bringing my Chair and Medical Jurisprudence
itself into notice. First Dr. Duncan and then Dr. Alison had
failed, during the most populous period of the University Medical
School, because they did not think of striking out a path of their
own in some single department of their subject. I had life before
me, and chose Toxicology for its first occupation. I set out by
undertaking to investigate the theory, detection, and treatment
of poisoning with oxalic acid." He next studied the detection
of poisoning with arsenic, and proceeded with a fruitful investiga-
tion of the chemistry, physiology, pathology, and symptomatology
of various kinds of poisoning. His bold and hazardous experi-
ments of the effect of poisons on his own person were often
remarked on. He discovered by actual trial that the taste of
arsenic is, contrary to the statements of Orfila, sweet rather than
acrid. He nearly became a martyr to science by swallowing a
large piece of the Calabar bean while dressing one day ; but,
warned by his sensations, saved himself by promptly using his
shaving-water as an emetic. In 1829 Christison brought out
his great Treatise on Poisons. In 1832 he was translated to the
Chair of Materia Medica. A brief summary of the career of
this great Professor is elsewhere given.
(4) THOMAS STEWART TRAILL, 1832-1862, was described by
an American traveller 1 as “a short, thick, squat-looking man,
with bushy black head and queer expression, who skellies slightly
out of one eye, and is very busy, bustling, and important." He
was born at Kirkwall, in Orkney, of which place his father was
Minister, in 1781. He might have boasted that his Orcadian sur-
name was the oldest in Scotland ; and he himself was “ Orcadien-
.
sibus orcadiensior, and his face lighted up, and his hand gave an
extra grip, when he met with a man whose young eyes had seen
Rambles in Europe in 1839, with Sketches of prominent Surgeons, Physi-
cians, etc., by William Gibson, M.D., Philadelphia, 1841.
VOL. II.
2 G
І
450
[1862.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
I
the old Man of Hoy, and who had heard from the south the
roar of the Pentland Frith.” Dr. Traill graduated M.D. in Edin-
burgh in 1802, having been the fellow-Student of Lord Brougham,
with whom he maintained throughout life an intimacy based on
a common interest in many philanthropic objects. In 1804 he
settled as a Physician in Liverpool, where he acquired a good
practice, till in 1832 he was appointed to the Chair of Medical
Jurisprudence in the University of Edinburgh. He took great
pleasure in lecturing; Chemistry, Mineralogy, and Meteorology
being his favourite sciences. He often, in addition to his own
course, lectured on Natural History for Professor Jameson, and,
during Dr. Hope's decline, he conducted for one session the
teaching of the Chemical class. He was nominally Editor of the
eighth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, and contributed to
it some forty articles. Dr. Traill continued lecturing till within
twelve days of his death. In the middle of his thirtieth session
he died in his eighty-first year, and was succeeded by (5)
DOUGLAS MACLAGAN, the present Regius Professor of Medical
Jurisprudence and Police.
1
XXXII.—PROFESSORS OF GENERAL PATHOLOGY.
.
-
Down to 1831 General Pathology was combined with Physio-
logy and Therapeutics in the course of the Institutes of Medicine
in the University of Edinburgh. But so important a subject re-
quired to have a separate Chair assigned to it. In 1830 Louis
Philippe had, by royal mandate, founded a Chair of General
Pathology in the University of Paris, and had appointed Broussais
to fill it. Similarly, in 1831, William IV., by the advice of Lord
Melbourne, created a Chair of the same kind in Edinburgh, and
appointed (1) JOHN THOMSON, who had previously been Professor
of Military Surgery, to be Professor of Pathology. These circum-
stances have been already adverted to, and some account of the
scientific achievements of Thomson has been already given (Vol.
I. p. 327, and above, pp. 441-444). On his resignation, the
patronage of the Chair having been presented by the Crown to
the Town Council, that body elected (2) WILLIAM HENDERSON,
1 Some of the above particulars are from Professor J. D. Forbes' obituary
notice of Professor Traill in the Proceedings of R.S.E., 1862,
1869.]
451
PROFESSORS OF PATHOLOGY.
1842-1869, as Thomson's successor. Henderson had graduated
M.D. in 1831, with a Thesis De Empyemate cum Pneumothorace.
For some time he was a very successful extra-
mural teacher of the
Practice of Physic, and during the years 1835 and 1837 he pub-
lished a valuable series of clinical studies on the Diseases of the
Heart and Larger Blood-Vessels. He was an early and expert
stethoscopist and employer of the microscope in pathological
histology. His observations on different classes of fevers were
valuable, and he contributed to the recognition of enteric fever
as a separate disease. In person he was handsome and dignified,
and he entered upon the duties of the Chair of Pathology under
the brightest auspices. But, alas ! he strayed from the right and
orthodox paths of Medicine, and actually became a convert to the
doctrines of Homeopathy, which had been introduced into Edin-
burgh by the establishment of a Homeopathic Dispensary in
Stockbridge in 1841. In 1845 Henderson published his
Enquiry into the Homæopathic Practice of Medicine, commenced
business as a Homeopathic practitioner, and wished to follow
the same system in his clinical ward in the Infirmary. The con-
sternation manifested by the Medical Faculty in the University
and by the College of Physicians was such as might be exhibited
in ecclesiastical circles if the Professor of Divinity were to
announce that he had become a Mahomedan. Henderson
resigned his appointment as clinical teacher of Medicine, but, as
he was not required to teach Therapeutics in his Chair of Patho-
logy, there was no reason why he should not go on lecturing to
his class on morbid tissue. He pursued a successful course of
private practice, but his colleagues, Syme and Christison, and
especially Simpson, fulminated against him. In 1851 there were
only 48 Medical Students graduated in the University, and of
these it was said that eight were secretly Homeopathists. Hen-
derson died in 1872, having resigned his Chair, owing to loss of
health, three years previously. The Edinburgh Medical Journal
then said of him: “We believe the kindest thing we can do is
to draw a veil over his later years, and express our sincere regret
that so talented, so genial, and so lovable a man should have
been led astray by so miserable an ignis fatuus as Hahneman-
nism."
(3) WILLIAM RUTHERFORD SANDERS, 1869-1881, the next
с
452
[1881.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
Professor, was not likely to be led astray by any ignes fatui, for
he was a person of remarkable good sense and with a particularly
well-balanced mind, which qualities were conspicuous in all dis-
cussions of the Senatus in which he took part. Sanders, after
some years at the High School of Edinburgh, had studied and
graduated Bachelier es Lettres in the University of Montpellier.
Then he came back to the Medical School of Edinburgh, was
President of the Royal Medical Society in 1848, and next year
graduated M.D. with a Thesis “On the Anatomy of the Spleen,”
which was afterwards published in Goodsir's Annals of Anatomy
and Physiology, and has since retained an authoritative position
in Medical literature,
In 1853 he became Conservator of the
Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. He contributed
many valuable papers to the Edinburgh Medical Journal, lectured
on the Institutes of Medicine in the extra-Academical School,
and as Physician to the Royal Infirmary gave clinical instruction
of the most thorough and searching kind. When appointed to
the Chair of Pathology he at once signalised himself by the intro-
duction of practical teaching. “ His students were trained to
observe for themselves the naked-eye and microscopic characters
of morbid conditions, of which they could acquire only a super-
ficial knowledge in the lecture-room.”l By these practical classes,
conducted by Dr. Sanders' able assistant, Dr. Hamilton, now
Professor of Pathology in Aberdeen, the teaching of General
Pathology in Edinburgh assumed a new character, and rose to
the level of modern science. Sanders had a great reputation as
a Physician, and the extensive consulting practice which was
opened to him proved too much for his strength. He succumbed
to paralysis in 1880, and died, much regretted by his colleagues
in the University, in February 1881, at the age of fifty-three.
The Curators then appointed (4) W. S. GREENFIELD, the present
Professor of General Pathology.
1
XXXIII.-PROFESSORS OF SURGERY.
1
(1) JOHN WILLIAM TURNER, 1831-1835, was an Englishman
by birth, but received his Medical education in Edinburgh. He
? From Professor T. R. Fraser's obituary notice of Professor Sanders in the
Proceedings of R.S.E., 1881.
1836.]
453
PROFESSORS OF SURGERY.
I
made a voyage to India, as Surgeon to an Indiaman, and on his
return became for ten years assistant to Dr. John Thomson, Pro-
fessor of Military Surgery, on whom his subsequent fortunes
depended. Turner was elected Fellow of the Royal College of
Surgeons, and for some time acted as Conservator of their
Museum. In 1821, when Thomson retired from Surgical teach-
ing, Turner was appointed Professor of Surgery by the College of
Surgeons. In 1831, as we have seen above (p. 444), Thomson's
influence with the Government procured the creation of Chairs of
Pathology and of Surgery in the University of Edinburgh, and
Turner was appointed, through the same influence, to be the first
Professor of Surgery. He had but a brief tenure of his office,
for he died in November 1835, in his forty-sixth year. Both the
Senatus and the College of Surgeons expressed regret at his loss,
and the Medical and Surgical Journal spoke in complimentary
terms of Professor Turner's knowledge and ability as a Surgeon,
and of his merits as a teacher.
(2) CHARLES BELL, 1836-1842, is one of the greatest names
in the Fasti of the University. The discoverer of the separate
existence of the sentient and motor nerves ranks indeed among
the greatest names in science. On the Continent Charles Bell
was spoken of as greater than Harvey. On his visiting the class
of Roux in Paris, Roux at once dismissed the class, saying,
“C'est assez, Messieurs, vous avez vui Charles Bell."
He was an
artist, as well as a man of science, and the extra-medical world
can appreciate his charming work on The Anatomy of Expression
in Painting (1806), and his Bridgewater treatise, on the Hand
(1833).
Charles Bell was born in 1774, being youngest son of the
Episcopalian clergyman at Doune. His three elder brothers
were all distinguished : Robert Bell was Lecturer on Convey-
ancing to the Society of Writers to the Signet; John was an
eminent Anatomist and Lecturer on Surgery in the extra-mural
school of Edinburgh ; George Joseph was Professor of Scots Law
(see above, p. 374). Charles Bell began his career as assistant to
his brother John. He soon took the entire teaching of Anatomy
in his brother's class, and had about go Students. Had he been
appointed Professor of Anatomy in the University in 1798, instead
of Monro tertius, it would have been a good thing for the Medical
454
[1842.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
I
School, as well as for himself. He brought out (1798-1802)
System of Dissections, 3 vols.; Engravings of the Arteries, of the
Nerves, and of the Brain. In 1804, seeing no career open to
him in Edinburgh, he went to London, where for seven years he
had a great struggle with difficulties, but at last made for himself
a great reputation, and might have had a very lucrative practice
had he not deliberately elected to give up a large portion of his
time to science, which resulted in his physiological discoveries
and in the production of many valuable works. In 1836 he
accepted the Chair of Surgery in the University of Edinburgh
when offered to him by the Town Council, because he wished for
an Academic life, and, as he said, “London is a place to live in,
but not to die in." But his doing so was a mistake; the Chair,
”
which he accepted, was a practical rather than a scientific Chair ;
when he took it the Medical School of the University was at a
low ebb, and he only made £400 a year; and, having been
thirty-two years absent, he found that he had no connection left
in Edinburgh. He said, “I seem to walk in a city of tombs.”
He only lived for six years after his return, and closed his great,
but ill-remunerated, career in 1842. In 1830, on the accession
of William IV., he had been knighted, along with Herschel, Ivory,
Leslie, and Brewster. 1
(3) JAMES MILLER, 1842-1864, who was appointed to suc-
ceed Sir Charles Bell, had been a pupil of Liston's, and his private
assistant, and had subsequently been selected by Professor Monro
tertius as his demonstrator of Anatomy. Miller was distinguished
as an operator, and especially as a lithotomist. He was only
thirty years of age when he succeeded to the Chair of Surgery.
He excelled as a lecturer, interesting his Students while he in-
structed them. “Many of his pupils still retain a vivid recollec-
tion of the manly form, the handsome countenance, the powerful
voice, the unaffected because natural eloquence of their much
respected and loved teacher.” During the first year of his Uni-
versity course he brought out in duodecimo his Principles and
Practice of Surgery, which passed through many editions; a
special edition was published in America by Sargent, and being
extensively read and much valued caused Miller's name to be
1 The above particulars are from Professor Struthers' Historical Sketch,
pp. 44-55.
I
ز
a
1882.]
455
PROFESSORS OF SURGERY.
I
well known throughout the United States. Shortly before his
death this work appeared in completed form as a System of
Surgery. Miller's writings were by no means confined to pro-
fessional subjects, his warm interest and zeal in social and reli-
gious questions leading him to spend much time in giving support
to the views which on conviction he espoused. He was a frequent
and powerful speaker at meetings for religious or philanthropic
objects, and he was universally respected as a man of high Chris-
tian life and character. He died, unexpectedly, after a short
illness, in his fifty-second year.1
(4) JAMES SPENCE, 1864-1882, was educated at the High
School, and then attended Medical classes in the University and
extra-
mural school, and received the diploma of the Royal Col-
lege of Surgeons in 1832. He further studied in Paris, and made
some voyages to India in troop-ships, after which he returned to
Edinburgh, and for seven years acted as Demonstrator of Anatomy
to Professor Monro tertius. He then taught Anatomy in the
extra-mural school till 1849, when he became Fellow of the
College of Surgeons and their Lecturer on Surgery. In 1864 he
was appointed by the Curators to succeed Miller as Professor of
Surgery in the University.
“For nearly half a century James Spence was intimately asso-
ciated with the teaching of Anatomy and Surgery in Edinburgh.
From the first he adopted a course of self-education, and under
many difficulties he gradually but surely made his way to the
front, and at the time of his death (1882) he had attained a
position in which he was esteemed by all as the representative of
Scottish Surgery. He possessed most marked manipulative skill,
and was a very successful practitioner.” He had complete
mastery over the details of Anatomy, and taught Surgery from an
Anatomical point of view. At the same time “his systematic
lectures were essentially clinical. He has left, as a result of his
long practical experience, a most valuable work on the Practice
of Surgery. To tracheotomy, herniotomy, the ligature of vessels,
urinary diseases, and methods of amputation, he paid special
attention, and has done much to advance knowledge. Much
loved by those who knew him best, his memory will long remain
I
I
e
1 The above account is from the Obituary Notice in the Proceedings of
R.S. E., 1864, and from a communication by Professor Chiene.
456
[1831.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
in the Edinburgh School as a faithful teacher, a good operator,
and a kind friend.” 1
On the death of Professor Spence (5) JOHN CHIENE, the
present Professor of Surgery, was appointed by the Curators.
XXXIV.- PROFESSORS OF AGRICULTURE.
(1) ANDREW COVENTRY, 1790-1831. We have already (Vol.
I. pp. 344-348) given a somewhat full account of the founding
of the Chair of Agriculture by Sir William Pulteney, and of the
teaching of the first Professor during his forty-one years of office;
and very little has to be added here. Andrew Coventry was
eldest son of the Minister of Stitchell, and through his mother
(a Miss Horn) he inherited the estate of Shanwell, near Kinross,
and some other landed property in Perthshire. He was born in
1764, was educated in Edinburgh, and took his M.D. degree in
1783, with a Thesis De Scarlatina Cynanchica. Whether he
practised as a Physician is not apparent, but he gradually acquired
a reputation for scientific knowledge, especially in relation to
Agriculture, which led Sir William Pulteney to select him to be
the first Professor of that subject. His independent means
rendered the very moderate endowment of the Chair a matter of
little importance to him, but he was very diligent as a teacher,
and, on the whole, very successful in attracting a class. But he
had great calls upon his time outside the University; he was
recognised as the first authority on Agriculture in Scotland, and
was constantly called on to arbitrate in land questions, and to
give evidence before the Court of Session and before Committees
of the House of Commons; the drainage of Loch Leven, and the
reclamation of surrounding lands, was carried out under his
directions. He brought out two small treatises on The Succes-
sion of Crops and Valuation of Soils, and on Dairy Produce. He
mixed much in the literary society of Edinburgh, and was one of
the Cockburn and Jeffrey set. He died at the age of sixty-eight,
in 1832, having resigned his Chair in the previous year.
(2) DAVID Low, 1831-1854, was the son of Mr. Alexander
I
1 The above account is from Professor Chiene's obituary notice of James
Spence in the Proceedings of R.S.E., 1882.
1854.]
457
PROFESSORS OF AGRICULTURE.
I
I
I
Low of Lawes, Berwickshire, an eminent land-agent. He was
born in 1786, studied in the University of Edinburgh, and in
early life assisted his father in the general management of land.
In 1817 he produced a work entitled Observations on the present
state of Landed Property, and on the Prospects of the Landholder
and the Farmer, which was suggested by the agricultural embar-
rassment caused by the sudden fall of prices on the cessation of
the war.
In 1825 he settled in Edinburgh, and soon afterwards
became Editor of the Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, to which
he himself contributed largely. In 1831 he was appointed
successor to Professor Coventry, and his first step in the Chair
of Agriculture was to urge upon the Board of Manufactures, and
then upon the Government, the necessity for forming an Agricul-
tural Museum in Edinburgh. In 1833 the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, Mr. Spring Rice, consented to allow £300 a year
for the purpose. Low contributed collections of his own, and
employed an artist (Mr. Shiels, R.S.A.) to travel throughout the
kingdom, taking portraits of the best specimens of different breeds
of animals. Altogether £3000 were expended on the Museum,
.
whereof £1500 came from Government, £300 from the Reid
Fund, and the rest from the private resources of the Professor.
The Museum gave a stimulus to attendance on the class of
Agriculture, which numbered from 70 to go Students during the
first years of Low's Professorship. In 1834 he published his
Elements of Practical Agriculture, which was translated into
French and German. In 1842 he brought out a splendid work
in two vols., 4to (price £16:16s.), on The Breeds of Domesticated
Animals of the British Islands, with coloured plates. This was
translated for the French Government. In 1846 he published
Landed Property and the Economy of Estates, and afterwards some
less important works. He was an accomplished French scholar,
and was Corresponding Member of most of the great Agricultural
Societies or Academies throughout the Continent. He resigned
his Chair in 1854, and then (3) JOHN WILSON, the present Pro-
fessor of Agriculture, was appointed.
I
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>
XXXV.-PROFESSORS OF THE THEORY OF MUSIC.
The circumstances of the founding of the Chair of Music have
been related above (Vol. I. pp. 348-354). Evil fortune, as well
458
[1841.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
I
as mismanagement on the part of the Senatus, attended the early
history of the Chair, and in 1865 Sir R. Christison wrote:
“During this long period of twenty-six years the Music Chair and
an annual Commemoration Concert, directed by the Founder to be
given for the maintenance of his memory, have been a perpetual
source of feud between the Professor, the Senatus, and the public.”
These feuds, however, began with the third Professor of Music,
and had not lasted quite twenty-six years.
(1) On the 19th December 1839 JOHN THOMSON presented
his Commission granted him by General Reid's Trustees as
Professor of the Theory of Music. He was eldest son of the Rev. Dr.
Andrew Thomson, Minister of St. George's, and one of the most
eminent divines in the Church of Scotland, who had also so great
a taste in and predilection for music that he finds his place in
Baptie's Musical Biography as “an enthusiastic amateur of music,
and composer of some pleasing psalm tunes, doxologies," etc.
John Thomson, his son, was nominally by profession a solicitor,
but his whole soul was in music. He studied under Schuyder
von Wartensee, and composed three operas, which were performed
with success : The House of Aspen (1830); Hermann, or the
Broken Spear (1834); and The Shadow on the Wall (1835).
“Several excellent numbers are contained in his operas, as the
spirited chorus 'Who's for the Chase to-morrow ?' and the song
· Once more I brandish Sword and Spear.' Of his single songs
the 'Song of Harold Harfager' and the 'Pirate's Serenade' are
bold and unconventional.” 1 His musical criticisms were greatly
admired, not only for the profound musical knowledge which
they showed, but also for their elegance of style. John Thomson
was a great favourite in Edinburgh society. After being appointed
Professor he married, in 1840, the daughter of Dr. Lee, who
had just been made Principal; but a tragical fate awaited this
union, for within six months the amiable and gifted bridegroom
was cut off.
His death was widely lamented, and it was a great
misfortune for the University. He had held the Chair of Music
less than eighteen months, and had not had time to study its
wants; he had celebrated the first Reid Concert with great
success on the 13th February 1841 : had his life been prolonged
he might, from the sweetness of his disposition, have succeeded
1 Baptie's Musical Biography, p. 231.
I
I
}
1845.] PROFESSORS OF THE THEORY OF MUSIC.
459
I
in putting the Chair and its teaching into a proper position
without involving the Senatus in those strifes and litigations which
afterwards ensued.
After. Thomson's death, the election being in the hands of
the Senatus, four names were proposed for the Professorship,
those of Donaldson, Wesley, Graham, and Henry (afterwards Sir
Henry) Rowley Bishop. The last-named was elected.
(2) HENRY ROWLEY BISHOP, 1841-1844, was one of the
most celebrated of the English operatic composers both in quality
and quantity. He would have conferred distinction upon the
Edinburgh Chair had he not treated it as a sinecure, so that the
Senatus were compelled to put pressure on him to resign, which
he did in 1844. Soon afterwards he was appointed Professor of
Music at Oxford. He now lives in the University of Edinburgh
in his glees, such as “Mynheer van Dunck" and the “Chough
and the Crow," which the Students are never weary of performing
at their concerts. After his resignation the choice of the Senatus
fell upon (3) HUGO PIERSON, 1844-1845, a talented Oxonian
musician, author of the music for “Ye Mariners of England,"
and of several oratorios and operas. The Senatus did not feel
quite sure about him, for they inserted a clause in his Commission
that " if he should be found to have such an impediment in his
speech as would disqualify him from lecturing, it shall be in the
power of the Senatus to revoke the appointment." He was
therefore appointed without having been seen, and it does not
appear that he ever presented himself in the University. He
betook himself to Germany, "where his abilities were warmly
appreciated by Schumann and other eminent musicians." The
unfortunate Chair of Music thus again became vacant.
In 1845 the Senatus granted a Commission to (4) JOHN
DONALDSON, who had been a candidate for the Chair of Music
in 1841. Perhaps the Senatus were disheartened by the ill success
of their two appointments of eminent English composers; they
now accepted a local aspirant, whose name does not appear in any
book of musical biographies, because, in fact, he never composed
anything. Donaldson had been a well-known teacher of music
in Edinburgh, and, apparently with a view to an improved social
position, had got himself called to the Bar, without, however,
1 Baptie, p. 179.
.
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460
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THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
possessing much knowledge of Law. But he had great apti-
tudes for litigation, and it is said that during a long series of
years he was at law with his wife's relations on the question of
the amount of dowry payable to her. The wife died; and still
the suit went on, and Donaldson died insolvent, without having
received any part of what was due to him. Probably he refused
all compromise. And the same uncompromising spirit showed
itself in his assertion of the claims of the Music Chair to be better
endowed out of the Reid Fund than he found it on his appoint-
ment. The troubled waters in which Donaldson passed his life
seem to have left their mark in the melancholy expression observ-
able in his portrait in the Senate Hall. But if he suffered himself,
he made others very uncomfortable. We must, however, regard
him as a martyr in a good cause, for the Music Chair had been
badly treated by the Senatus, and Donaldson did good service in
fighting for its rights, which he got established by an Interlocutor
of the Court of Session in 1855 (see above, pp. 232-233). After
this judicial settlement there is no more to be said on the subject,
except that, considering the depreciation in money since General
Reid fixed the salary of his Professor to be “not less than £300"
a year, it would seem equitable that the salary allowed by the
Court should now be revised. Donaldson was very earnest in
fighting his battles, but he had his day of rejoicing; this was in
1860, when he gave a banquet in the Corn Exchange to celebrate
the completion of the Music class-room. Not only his friends
were invited, but all the workmen who had been employed on the
building. In that class-room, which Donaldson had built on
acoustic principles, a grand Organ, by the eminent builders,
Messrs. Hill and Sons of London, was commenced under his
auspices; and it has since been gradually added to until it has
become a notably fine instrument, characterised by the exceptional
beauty of its Vox Humana stop, and the grandeur and depth of
tone in the pedal organ. A splendid case for the instrument was
presented by Sir David Baxter. The Museum and Library
attached to the Music class-room now contain valuable collections
of apparatus and books. All these provisions for the teaching of
music were in fact wrung out of the Senatus by Professor Donald-
They are available for his successors; but till very shortly
before his death, when his health was broken, he himself had no
son.
1847.]
461
PROFESSORS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM.
proper class-room, instrument, or appliances for teaching. His
lectures were almost entirely devoted to the theory of harmony,
and though this made a somewhat jejune course, one of his
pupils, now the Head of the Normal College of the Church of
Scotland, records : “I learned much from him that has remained
a permanent possession, and that has been of the greatest use in
reading and in listening to musical compositions." Donaldson's
class was small, and fluctuating between from twenty to thirty at
the beginning, and from eight to ten at the end of the session.
His management of the Reid Concert was not felicitous. He
insisted on giving away all the tickets, and so he had only the
£150 or £200 allowed by the Senatus to meet expenses. He
used to get a military band to perform General Reid's music, a
solo performer on some instrument, and a quartette of operatic
singers. There was always great heart-burning about the allot-
ment of the tickets. Things are very different now. Donaldson
died in 1865, and then (5) HERBERT OAKELEY, now Sir Herbert
Oakeley, Composer-Royal for Scotland, was appointed by the
Curators to be Professor of the Theory of Music.
XXXVI.-REGIUS PROFESSORS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM
AND BIBLICAL ANTIQUITIES.
(1) ROBERT LEE, 1847-1868. The Royal Commissioners of
1826-30 had recommended the establishment of a Chair of Biblical
Criticism in the University of Edinburgh. Lord Melbourne's
Government, in 1841, resolved to carry out this recommendation,
and to appoint Dr. Candlish, then Minister of St. George's, and one
of the greatest preachers and divines in the Church of Scotland,
to be the first Professor of this subject, with a Deanery of the
Chapel Royal of Holyrood attached to his Chair. This design
was put a stop to, owing to the ecclesiastical troubles of the
time, and the fact that Candlish had violated an interdict of the
Court of Session by preaching in the parish of Huntly, so that
Lord Aberdeen was able to say in the House of Lords : “ This
Professor of Biblical Criticism, if dealt with by the Court in the
same way as any other person, would be immediately sent to
prison, where he would have leisure to compose his first syllabus
of lectures." No other appointment was suggested at the time,
9
462
[1847
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
2
and the matter was dropped till 1846, when Dr. Bennie, one of
the Deans of the Chapel Royal, died, and Lord John Russell
then resolved to found the proposed Chair, and endow it with
the stipend which Dr. Bennie's death had rendered available.1
Greatly owing to the influence of Macaulay, then M.P. for Edin-
burgh, Dr. Robert Lee, the Minister of Old Greyfriars', received
the appointment, and on the 27th January 1847 presented his
Commission from Queen Victoria, against which his namesake,
Principal Lee (as we have seen, Vol. I. p. 338), lodged a mild
protest.
Probably no one better fitted to inaugurate a Chair of Biblical
Criticism could have been found among the ranks of the
Church of Scotland. It was not that Robert Lee was very
learned (though he had outstripped all his contemporaries in the
Latin and Greek classes at the University of St. Andrews, and
had subsequently been an industrious Student for twenty years),
but his great merit was the spirit which he brought with him to
his Chair. This is abundantly evidenced by his Inaugural
Address (which is justly conceived to be a Professor's keynote).
Let us take the following specimens of that address : “In no
line of enquiry is it more necessary than in the different depart-
ments of theological study, to refuse being so alarmed by the
supposed consequences of certain doctrines, if admitted, as not
to allow ourselves to enquire, in the first place, whether or not
those doctrines be true. In this, as in all the other departments
of study, truth must be our first object; and that which is true
will always, in the end, vindicate itself as that which alone is
safe.” “Which of you would not shrink from becoming, through
his own ignorance, sloth, or worldly passions, the means of in-
creasing in any degree that spirit of contention, rancour, and un-
charitableness, which is so palpably opposed to the true spirit of
the gospel, and by which the Christian Church among us has been
brought to the very verge of ruin, and Christianity itself, at least
in its highest form, η αγαπη συντέλεια της εντολής, is in danger of
i These facts are taken from Dr. Story's Life and Remains of Robert Lee,
D.D. (1870), vol. i. p. 115.
% Robert Lee, who was born at Tweedmouth, Durham, in slender circum-
stances, learnt boat-building, and in his twentieth year, with the price of a
boat in his pocket, set off for the University of St. Andrews (Story's Life, p. 3).
He was another of the noble instances so numerous in these pages.
.
1857.]
463
PROFESSORS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM.
perishing from the earth ? In proportion as you are able to
enter into the true scope and spirit of the New Testament, you
well be the less capable of fomenting evils on which the Head of
the Church cannot but look with displeasure. For my part I
can see no hope of any reconcilement among Christians, till the
New Testament shall become the bona fide text-book, from which
all parties shall be content immediately to draw their theology.
In that case a general agreement is conceivable, and would be
possible, which now it is not, when each sect makes its own system,
written or unwritten in creeds, its hermeneutical code.” These sen-
timents, which need recognition over all the world, could nowhere
be more appropriately enforced than in a Scottish University.
Had Robert Lee been able to devote himself entirely to the
studies connected with his Chair—in the way, for instance, that
Dalzel did he might have become a great Professor. But he
was not only Professor of Biblical Criticism, but also Minister of
Greyfriars', and almost constantly a member of the General
Assembly; and he had a great life-work outside the University.
This work was no less than the reform of the Church of Scotland,
and what Robert Lee actually achieved in this respect was so
valuable that it is impossible to regret that his energies should
have been so expended instead of being absorbed in researches
however scholarly and profound. Lee's chief characteristics were
a fine and critical taste, a wide good sense, which revolted against
pettiness and formalism, an original spirit, and great courage-
all these qualities being harmonised under genuine piety and
goodness. He was what would be called in England a “broad-
Churchman”; but when told that he had been accused of Uni-
tarianism, his reply was: “Those who charge me with such
opinions little know me. My entire trust for everything is placed
in the atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ.”1 But he fought for
freedom of worship and freedom of thought within the Church of
Scotland, and in the former issue he was successful. He had
been long fretted by the baldness and ungracefulness of the forms
of public worship in Scotland. When Old Greyfriars' was restored
in 1857, after a fire, Lee took the opportunity to remodel its
arrangements, introducing stained glass into some of the windows.
And he then commenced a more than ten years' struggle for
1 Story's Life of Robert Lee, vol. i. p. 205.
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464
(1868.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
liberty to improve the services of the Church, by written prayers,
more suitable postures, the aid of instrumental music, and the
like. In 1864 he brought out a work entitled The Reform of the
Church in Worship, Government, and Doctrine. Part 1.—Wor-
ship. He did not live to fight the battle which he had in mind
for reformation in certain points of Church government and doc-
trine. But if any one will appreciate the results of Robert Lee's
efforts for the improvement of worship, let him seek them not
only in Lee's own church of Greyfriars', but in the great national
cathedral of Scotland, in the dignified, though simple, services of
the High Church of St. Giles.
As Professor of Biblical Criticism, Lee had a course which
extended over two years, comprising in the first year the history
and criticism of the Old Testament Canon, in the second year of
the New In each week there were two lectures on these sub-
jects; on two other days he gave expository lectures on books of
Scripture (as, for instance, the Epistles to the Corinthians); on
the fifth day he received and criticised "expositions” from his
Students. In this scheme Lee set an example which has been
followed by all the other Professors of Biblical Criticism in Scot-
land. Professor Lee's forte appears to have lain in an accurate
knowledge of the text of the Greek Testament.
“ He kept a
watchful eye on the progress of his science, and was always
abreast of the information of the day." Throughout his teaching
”
manly honesty was apparent, often supported by nervous and
moving eloquence; this is the testimony of one of the most
talented of his pupils, who adds: “I am satisfied that attendance
at his class was not only an opportunity of acquiring professional
knowledge, but was also a purifying and elevating spiritual dis-
cipline, inculcating and imparting a disinterested love of truth, a
fearless faith in its power, and a resolution to pursue it at all
hazards.” 1
Robert Lee died in 1868, aged sixty-three, and was
succeeded by (2) ALEXANDER H. CHARTERIS, the present Pro-
fessor of Biblical Criticism.
XXXVII.-THE REGIUS PROFESSOR OF TECHNOLOGY.
The history of the ill-starred Chair of Technology in the Uni-
versity of Edinburgh has been already sketched (Vol. I. pp.
1 Dr. Wallace in Story's Life, vol. ii. p. 207.
1855.]
465
THE PROFESSOR OF TECHNOLOGY.
354-361), and an account has been given of the work done in
connection with that Chair by the first and only Professor,
GEORGE WILSON, 1855-1859. It will be only necessary here to
add a few particulars about his life. He was born in Edinburgh
in 1818, his parents being in moderate circumstances. Like Sir
Robert Christison, he was a twin, but his twin brother only lived
till his eighteenth year, George Wilson was throughout life the
.
close friend of his elder brother Daniel, now the distinguished
Professor of History in the University of Toronto and author of
Reminiscences of Old Edinburgh, etc. George Wilson was edu-
cated at the High School, and then came for Medical studies
to the University; he attended Hope's classes in Chemistry, but
;
in the last year of his course he learnt Practical Chemistry extra-
academically from Mr. Kenneth Kemp, a self-taught demonstrator
of great ability, who died young. Wilson was the College friend
of Dr. John Reid the Anatomist, and of Edward Forbes the
Naturalist, and he afterwards wrote the Lives of both of them.
He was a Member of the Oineromathetic Brotherhood, of which
some account is elsewhere given. In 1839 he graduated M.D.
with a Thesis“Onthe certain existence of Haloid Salts of the Electro-
negative Metals in solution ;" this paper was published next year
in the Edinburgh Academic Annual. In the session 1840-41 he
commenced lecturing on Chemistry in the extra-Academical
school, but unfortunately, at the very outset of his career, the
effects of a neglected sprain, incurred during a walking tour,
brought on a disease of the foot, which became so much aggra-
vated that, on the 1st January 1843, he underwent Syme's operation
for the amputation of the ankle-joint, Wilson's case being only the
second in which this operation had been practised. That was
before the days of chloroform. Wilson suffered greatly, and the
shock to his constitution led to a permanent delicacy and to
pulmonary disease. He lectured, however, with great brilliancy
for fifteen years.
All that he did was marked by genius; his
language was precise in scientific statement, but constantly em-
bellished from his stores of imagination and fancy. In 1850 he
brought out Chemistry an Elementary Text-book ; in 1851 The
Life and Works of the Honourable Henry Cavendish ; in 1852
Electricity and the Electric Telegraph ; and The Chemistry of the
Stars; in 1855 Researches on Colour-Blindness; in 1857 The
a
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466
[1871.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
Five Gateways of Knowledge. His writings were “the fairy tales
of Science"; in addition to the works mentioned, he contributed
to various scientific societies valuable papers, the list of which is
too long for insertion here. Throughout the remainder of his
.
life his vivid spirit was ever contending with the weakness of his
bodily frame. In 1855 he was appointed Professor of Techno-
logy. In 1858, on the death of William Gregory, the Professor
of Chemistry, a host of friends wished him to be a candidate for
that Chair, but he felt that he had not strength enough for its
duties, and he withdrew his name. On the 22d November
1859 he died. His life in all respects had been beautiful.1
XXXVIII. PROFESSORS OF COMMERCIAL AND POLITICAL
ECONOMY AND MERCANTILE LAW.
I
We have related above (pp. 149-150) the establishment, in 1871,
of the Chair of Political Economy, etc., by the enlightened muni-
ficence of the Merchant Company. The only peculiarity about
the Chair was that the Deed of Foundation provided that the
Professor who was to fill it was not to be appointed ad vitam
aut culpam, but only for seven years, with eligibility for re-election.
The Senatus objected to this arrangement, and were for declining
the Chair if founded on such terms; but they were assured by
the then leading members of the Merchant Company, that if
during five years' trial the Chair should prove successful, steps
would then be taken to make the Professorship a life appoint-
ment. On this understanding the Merchant Company's gift was
cordially accepted by the Senatus and the University Court.
The Curators, and the Master and Treasurer of the Merchant
Company, who were by the Deed associated with them, then pro-
ceeded to elect the first Professor, and their choice fell on WILLIAM
BALLANTINE HODGSON, who indeed, by a combination of qualities,
seemed marked out for the post. He was a native of Edinburgh,
and the son of a former citizen, and had risen out of somewhat
humble circumstances into a position of affluence and renown,
being widely known as an economist, an educationist, and a
popular lecturer. Born in 1815, Hodgson had been educated
1 The above imperfect notice is taken from the Memoir of George Wilson,
etc., by his sister, Jessie Aitken Wilson (1860).
а.
I
1877.]
467
PROFESSORS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY.
I
I
at the High School and the University of Edinburgh; he then
devoted several years to private teaching and study; in 1839 he
became Secretary, and afterwards Principal, of the Liverpool
Institute, a school which flourished greatly under him till 1847,
when he removed to Manchester as Principal of the . Chorlton
High School ; in 1851 he resigned that appointment, and
travelled for some time abroad; from 1854 to 1860 he was
engaged in England in advocating improved scientific and
economic teaching in schools ; in 1858-59 he was attached to the
Royal Commission on Primary Schools, and made a Report for
that Commission on the London district; from 1863 to 1868 he
was Examiner in Political Economy to the London University.
From time to time Hodgson had published numerous
pamphlets and lectures, such as On Education, 1837; What is
seen and what is not seen, or Political Economy in one lesson (being
a translation from Bastiat), 1852; Classical Instruction, its use and
abuse, 1853 ; The Conditions of Health and Wealth educationally
considered (two lectures), 1860; Classical Education, Why, When,
and for Whom? 1866; Exaggerated Estimates of Reading and
Writing as a Means of Education, 1867; On the Education of
Girls and the Employment of Women of the Middle Classes, 1869;
Competition, 1870; Turgot, his Life, Times, and Opinions (two
lectures), 1870.
Hodgson, in 1871, accepted the Chair of Commercial and
Political Economy and Mercantile Law on an appointment for
seven years; he felt that his position was inferior to that of all the
other Professors in the University, who had their Chairs for life,
but he relied on the understanding that after five years, if he should
be successful in his teaching, he would receive a life-tenure of his
office. He therefore brought his Penates to Edinburgh, and pur-
chased the beautiful country-house of Bonaly, formerly Lord Cock-
burn's residence, in the neighbourhood, where he settled down.
He became extremely popular among the citizens; took a paternal
interest in the Merchant Company's schools; frequently lectured
for the Philosophical Institution and the Literary Institute of
Edinburgh; and became member and Deputy Chairman of the
Chamber of Commerce. In the meantime, during six years, his
Class in the University had averaged fifty Students per annum,
which, if not a brilliant result, was as much as could be expected,
a
468
[1880.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
a
considering that the subject of Political Economy was not part of
any curriculum for graduation. A new set of rulers in the
Merchant Company, who “knew not Joseph," had succeeded
those who in 1871 had given pledges to the University. And
so those pledges were ignored on the pretext that the Chair had
not been a success. It is difficult to follow the reasoning of this
course of action, for it would have been hardly possible to find a
better, or more popular, lecturer than Hodgson, and nothing
could be gained by keeping him in a humiliating position. The
one thing to be done was to get Political Economy recognised as
a subject for graduation, and this would probably be done by
the first Executive Commission that might be appointed to deal
with the University.
Hodgson's term of office expired in 1878, and he was then
unanimously reappointed by the electors. He accepted re-
appointment under strong protest, and intimated that he should
resign his Chair at the end of the ensuing session. The emolu-
ments of the Chair were of no importance to him, and he felt
aggrieved by the treatment he had received at the hands of the
Merchant Company. He was induced, however, to withdraw
his resignation, and he continued to teach until the end of the
session 1879-80. In the summer of 1880 he went to Brussels
to attend an Educational Congress, and he there died very
suddenly of heart disease, in his sixty-fifth year.
In Political Economy Hodgson did not strike out new paths;
he was a sound and orthodox Economist of the Bastiat and Stuart
Mill school. In other matters his opinions were marked; he was
a representative of what may be called middle-class ideas. This
may be gathered from the titles of his pamphlets above quoted.
He was the opponent of the English Public School system; he
objected to boarding-schools altogether, and he depreciated the
value of classical education. Instead of Latin and Greek he
would rather have had Physiology and Economics taught in
schools. He was a supporter of Women's Rights, and an ardent
Anti-vivisectionist. He was a strong Liberal, if not Radical,
politician, and was one of Mr. Gladstone's Committee in the
Midlothian campaign. In this capacity he was an unmeasured
denouncer of the ill-doings of Lord Beaconsfield.
Hodgson was a man of wide reading, and in some depart-
1624.]
469
NOTICES OF STUDENT LIFE.
ments he was especially well-informed; particularly in French
literary history and in the mots and ana thereto appertaining.
He was a noted conversationist, overflowing with anecdote. He
had amassed a large library, and his collection of works on Political
Economy was exceptionally perfect. This, through the kindness
of his widow, was presented to the Library of the University of
Edinburgh.
In 1880 (2) JOSEPH SHIELD NICHOLSON, the present Professor
of Commercial and Political Economy and Mercantile Law, was
appointed as successor to Professor Hodgson for a period of
seven years.
APPENDIX S. NOTICES OF STUDENT-LIFE IN THE COLLEGE OR
UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH IN BYGONE TIMES.
e
Owing to the unfortunate loss of the “Old College Record,”
which was carried off by the Town Council in 1704, and care-
lessly destroyed among the accumulated rubbish in the office of
a Writer to the Signet some time subsequently to 1826 (see Vol.
I. p. 245 note), we have doubtless been deprived of valuable
data relative to Student-life in the early days of the “ Town's
College.” The City Records furnish very few hints on the
subject. We note, under date 30th August 1586, that "for
good causes and considerations moving them, the Council find
it expedient that the privilege and vacance be given to the
Students of the Town's College, for one month next to come.”
This shows the conception entertained by the Town Council of
the College which they had established. So far from enjoying
the freedom of a University, it was to be in the position of the
High School, which at that time had a one month's vacation in the
autumn, not fixed, but to be asked for each year and conceded
ex gratia by the Town Council. It may, however, be here men-
tioned that in the Foundation Deed of Marischall College (1593),
a vacation of one fortnight in the year was all that was permitted.
More liberal ideas on this subject gradually came in, and on the
15th December 1624 "the Council think good to grant a vacance
to the College to the 8th January next,” that is to say, a Christ-
mas vacation of more than three weeks was granted, in addition
to the month in autumn. In the Regulations for College Discip-
a
I
470
(1829.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
line, adopted in 1628, no defined period of vacation was laid
down, but it was implied that the College session was to com-
mence on the ist October each year. In 1633 the Town Council
made a rule that every Student coming back late for session was
to be fined “8d. for each diet, morning, forenoon, and afternoon,"
missed by him after the ist October. It is clear that the want
of a "long vacation” would preclude the Regents from leisure
for research, and the Students from private study. After the
Professorial system had been introduced in 1708, and during
the period when the Professors were left to themselves by the
Town Council, a long vacation was gradually adopted. We have
seen from the programmes of 1741 (Vol. I. Pp. 266-273) that
the Professors then had courses of differing length, according as
they found convenient. Thus Stevenson, the Professor of Logic,
lectured for nearly eight months, while M‘Laurin, who was
advancing science in the intervals of teaching, allowed himself
and his class a vacation of six months. The custom has subse-
quently grown up that the Faculties of Arts and Divinity teach
for about six months in the year, those of Medicine and Laws
about nine months. The Commission of 1826-1830 were not
satisfied with this arrangement, and they actually proposed that
there should be eleven months of teaching in the University, thus
going back to the ideas of the sixteenth century. In 1827 a
ludicrous incident occurred in connection with this subject, for
the Senatus received intimation of a bequest by John Farquhar,
Esq., of Calcutta, of £200 a year to each of the Arts Professors
in the Scotch Universities, provided that they would agree to
teach “the whole year without any other vacations than those
established by Law, and fourteen days about Midsummer.”
Whether any Arts Professor would have accepted the legacy on
these terms it is difficult to say; but at all events the Senatus
directed their law-agents in London to look after their interests
in the matter. In February 1829 it was announced that Sir
John Nicholls had given judgment, setting aside Mr. Farquhar's
Will, on the ground that the Testator must be of unsound mind !
So much for the history of vacations.
Under date 3d July 1635 we get a little trait of the paternal
government of the Town Council, who, "understanding that the
Scholars within the College are much withdrawn from their studies
1843.]
471
NOTICES OF STUDENT-LIFE.
by invitations to burials, to their great prejudice in their advance-
ment in learning, discharge the Principal to grant any license to
the Scholars to go to any burials whatsoever, except of such as
have been benefactors to the College, old Magistrates, Lords of
Council or Session, Clerks or Prime Advocates, or Students or
Scholars within the said College, only."
As before related, the Town Council's original idea of the
College was that it should contain resident Students with an
economy," or common table. Never being able to get
funds for the latter purpose, they were obliged to drop it.
At
first a certain portion of the Students resided in chambers pro-
vided for them in College, but, so far as we know, they catered
for themselves. In the seventeenth century a great movement
was made to increase the number of those chambers, which were
built round the three courts of the College. But by degrees
Students ceased to occupy them, and they were turned into class-
rooms or Professors' houses, or let to various citizens. In the
early part of the eighteenth century College residence for the
Students had virtually ceased. They all lived at home or in
lodgings, as now,-a very few boarding with the Professors.
The Town Council at first laid down the rule that the Students
must wear gowns. But this was never enforced, having perhaps
been distasteful to influential parents. In 1695 the Royal Com-
mission for visiting the Universities of Scotland recommended
“that all Masters and Regents shall be obliged to wear black
gowns, and the Students red gowns, that thereby the Students
may be discouraged from vageing or vice.” But nothing came
of this, and the gown never having been worn during 260 years,
the Senatus received, in 1843, a petition from 382 matriculated
Students, asking them to "devise means for reviving among
Students and Graduates in attendance on classes in the University
use of the black gown and cap worn by Students of the Sister
Universities." This petition, to judge from the mention of the
colour "black,” must have been got up by some English Student;
it was met by a counter-petition, with about an equal number of
signatures, against the introduction of Academical costume, and
a Committee of the Senatus found that the great bulk of the
Students took no interest in the matter. It was therefore resolved
to make no change, except that of authorising a gown for
472
[1628.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
Graduates, to be used by them on Degree day, and afterwards at
Court, or on public occasions. Perhaps the only occasions on
which Students' gowns are missed are in Academical processions
in which Students take part. Such occasions are very rare ; but
at the public funerals both of Sir James Simpson and Sir Robert
Christison, many hundreds of Students walked in procession, and
the effect would have been more striking had they worn gowns.
Others of the old Town Council Regulations have fallen into
desuetude through the lapse of time and change of circumstances.
For instance,—that no Student should “speak Scots," which
rule was meant to confine the Students to the use, not of high
English, but of Latin, which was the language not only of teaching,
but of ordinary conversation, in the College in the early Regenting
days. Such a practice, from its great inconvenience, was doomed
to be abandoned. Probably talking in Latin had been given up
in the College by the middle of the seventeenth century, and
teaching in Latin was on its last legs in the middle of the
eighteenth century. Latin Theses, however, and examinations in
Latin, lingered on in the Medical Faculty till 1833.
Another of the old rules may be mentioned, on account of
the puzzle which it has given to antiquarians: “No one shall
frequent Kaiterpullies, nor play at games of cards or dice.” What
were “ Kaiterpullies ?” So the word was printed in an extract
from the City Records produced in the action before the Court
of Session, 1826-1829. In despair of a solution, some have
suggested that the reading should be “Katie Pullie's," as though
a person called Katie Pullie had kept some objectionable house
of entertainment. But the Rev. J. Anderson, carefully examining
the handwriting of the original entry in the City Records, has
discovered that the word in question is not "Kaiterpullies" but
“Kaitchpullies," that is, “Catchpuls," which (from the Dutch
Katzspel) was the old Scotch word for tennis-courts. Thus we
learn that in the seventeenth century there were tennis-courts in
2
1 The writer, some ten or twelve years ago, received an anonymous letter
from “a Working Man,” who said that his son, in attending University classes,
"
felt ashamed of the shabbiness of his attire ; and the letter suggested that, if
gowns were worn, such defects would be covered. And this doubtless would
be the case.
2 In Katzspel we see "the game” of “Katz," which was probably connected
1680.]
473
NOTICES OF STUDENT-LIFE.
Edinburgh, and that these were considered places of dissipation
not desirable for a Student to frequent.
The Students of the College of Edinburgh were, as a rule,
on the Covenanting side. Among the Graduates of 1658 we find
.
the name of Hugo Mackaile, who eight years later was tortured
and hanged for his adherence to the cause. The dying speech
upon the scaffold of this youthful martyr was one of the most
sublime and affecting things in the history of the Covenanters,
and it should be quoted here, only that it would seem out of
place, if introduced in the midst of a number of trivial details.
In December 1680, when the Duke of York was at Holy-
rood, the Students made a great demonstration of their religious
principles. A few days before Christmas-Day the following
“ Advertisement" was posted up in the town :-
“ These are to give notice to all Noblemen, Gentlemen, Citizens,
and others, That We, the Students in the Royal University of Edin-
burgh (to show our Detestation and Abhorrence of the Romish Religion,
and our Zeal and Fervency for the Protestant), Do Resolve to Burn
the Effigies of Antichrist, the Pope of Rome, at the Mercat Cross of
Edinburgh, the 25 of December Instant, precisely at Twelve a-Clock
in the Forenoon (being the Festival of our Saviour's Nativity): And
since we hate Tumults, as we do Superstition, we do hereby (under
the pain of Death) Discharge all Plunderers, Robbers, Thieves,
Whores, and Bawds, to come within 40 Paces of our Company, and
such as shall be found disobedient to these our Commands, Sibi
Caveat.
By our Special Command, Robert Brown, Secretary of
State to all our Theatrical and Extra-literal Divertise-
ments.” 1
The sequel of this proclamation may be gathered from several
sources, but most minutely and graphically from a rare tract 2 en-
with the French “chasse,” Eng. “Chase," the great stroke at tennis. Sir
David Lyndsay makes his Abbot say :
“Thocht I preach not, I can play at the caiche.”
Dunbar, in his General Satyre, st. xiv., says that before his time
“ Sa mony ratkettis, sa mony ketche-pillaris,
Sic ballis, sic knackettis, and sic tutivallaris,
Within this land was never hard nor sene.
1 A printed copy of this “Advertisement” is preserved in the University
Library. 2 Of which a copy is in the possession of the Lord Justice General.
474
[1680.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
it out.
titled A Modest Apology for the Students of Edinburgh burning
a Pope, December 25, 1680. Humbly Rescuing the Actors from
the Imputation of Disloyalty and Rebellion, with which they were
charged in a Letter, etc. London, 1681.
London, 1681. This curious pamphlet
was the production of a young Englishman studying, together
with some of his countrymen, in the College of Edinburgh, and
who was probably one of the ringleaders in the affair, of which
he gives his own version, somewhat as follows Disclaiming any
intention on the part of the Students of seditiously doing some-
thing which should lead to a rebellion against the Government,
he says: “We thought fit to give an innocent proof of our settled
aversion to Popery. We resolved therefore to burn the Pope.”
When this resolution had been taken, a bond was drawn up and
subscribed by all the Students, in which they bound themselves,
“under forfeiture of half-a-crown,” to assist each other in carrying
The writer then ignores the fact of the “ Advertisement"
above quoted, which was evidently intended to enlist the sym-
pathies of the town's people, and says : “However, our business
was not so closely carried but that it got wind, and coming to the
Lord Provost's ear, was quickly carried to the D. and L. Chan-
cellor. Both of them were greatly enraged thereat, and threaten-
ing to cut down the attempters, they resolve by all means to
prevent it, and in order hereunto the Town-Mayor 1 is sent to the
Principal on Thursday at Midnight to cause him to interpose.
The Principal (Andrew Cant) accordingly the next day came into
the schools, and offered a contrary bond to be subscribed by the
Students, which was generally refused by all, unless some of the
first year." 2
The same night, under order of the Magistrates, soldiers
"rushed into the College," " broke open" some of the chambers,
arrested two English Students, with "some others who were sup-
posed to be principal actors," and lodged them in the Canongate
Tolbooth. Next day was Christmas Day, and at an early hour
the troops were out in full force to stop the auto da fe; in the
1
1 Anglice for "Lord Provost.”
2 We cannot but remark on the exceedingly mild and inefficacious measure
lopted by the Principal, who, with full warning of what was to be ne, and
with full disciplinary powers, did nothing apparently but invite the Students to
abandon their project. But perhaps the account here is not to be relied on.
1680.]
475
NOTICES OF STUDENT-LIFE.
Grassmarket were the Lifeguards under General Daliel; in the
Parliament Close two companies under the Earl of Mar; the
City Militia in the middle of the High Street; and "a company
of Foot to double the ordinary guards at Holyroodhouse for
the security of the Duke's person.” To meet “all this martial
preparation—all this noise of drums, kettledrums, and trumpets,
all this appearance of colours flying, drawn swords, matches burn-
ing, etc., wherewith at this time the whole city was full,"—the
Students sallied out in their procession without arms, but their
numbers were swelled as they advanced “by an unsought for
accession of a great many tradesmen and apprentices, who, it
seems, were as eager for the pastime and as ready to expose
Popery," as themselves.
“ "We thus," says the writer, "attended the Statue in its
Pontificalibus down the High School Wynd and up Blackfriars'
Wynd to the High Street. You will admire how we got any
place free almost to perform the execution, yet we did; but
seeing the armed opposition that was drawing in on all sides,
and being careful of keeping the peace, without further ceremony
than the reading of a short accusation, we set it on fire with a
couple of flambeaus : at the sight whereof Pereat Papa being
loudly resounded made, it seems, a terrible reverberation in some
The troops did not arrive in time to prevent“ the Statue”
from being thoroughly kindled, and the Students then absconded,
" leaving it to the discretion of its defenders." The pamphlet
amusingly describes “ the cruel drubs which the merciful soldiers
gave his Holiness with the butts of their muskets, preferring to
knock him on the head rather than see him die before their eyes
the unhallowed death of an heretic,”—and how learning that the
image was stuffed with gunpowder," they thought it their wisdom
to retire. And 'twas well they did so in seasonable time; for
immediately the flames reached the powder, and the Pope expired
in a-stink."
After the burning of the Pope the Students, who had been
previously arrested, were examined by Sir George Mackenzie,
King's Advocate. Especially “the two English gentlemen” were
asked “if they were not instigated by letter from the Lord Grey."
On denying this they were threatened with "the boot.” As none
of the prisoners would confess any external complicity in what
ears.”
476
[1680.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
had been done, they were required to give bonds of 1100 merks
each for further appearance at the pleasure of the Privy Council,
and dismissed.
The writer says: “Now might we have applied ourselves to
our studies, and all things been quieted, had not some of the
soldiers given us an occasion to herd together again by assaulting
and cutting one of the Students quite through the skull, before
the very gate of the College, and that without the least provoca-
tion; and not only so, but by great indignities offered to others
of us in other places of the town.” He adds: “Another thing,
which intervened, gave us a much more sensible touch. 'Twas
this : : a little after the first disorders were over, the Principal and
Regents go to the Palace with a design to have made an apology
to his R. Highness; but being denied admittance (for the par-
oxysm of indignation was not yet over) they return. But they go
again, and are admitted. We were apprehensive that they had in
our names, without acquainting us, made a submission and begged
pardon for burning the Pope. These thoughts, I confess, galled
us; and therefore, to show how much we continued, in the same
mind, we unanimously got blue ribbons in our hats, with this motto,
No POPE; and went in a body to the Provost's house, and when
we came into the High Street we cried, “No Pope ! No Pope !'”
The writer, going on to complain of the “unjustifiable pro-
vocations" given to the Students, says, somewhat ungrammatically,
“We know who they were that threatened to tread under his feet
those who durst wear a blue ribbon before him." Then the
writer admits that "some rash inconsiderate lad might perhaps
in passion say that the Provost deserved to have his house burnt."
“Sir, the house was burnt, and burnt designedly, there is no
question, but how, or by whom, I am not able positively to inform
you. I am sure that when I heard it, I was in a strange surprise,"
and he adds that “the most daring and undertaking” of the
Students were in a surprise equal to his own, " and as much
detesting such a villany." He proceeds to insinuate that the
incendiary deed was the work of the Roman Catholics, and that
it was a prelude to burning down Edinburgh. He says: “You
have heard of the apprehension the citizens at present have that
that wicked design is not yet laid aside. And the world knows
that London was burnt-and by whom.”
1681.]
477
NOTICES OF STUDENT-LIFE.
Prestonfield, the seat of Sir James Dick, Lord Provost of
Edinburgh, was burnt down on the night of the 11th January
1681, the family being then in town. “Several people deposed
that they saw some young men with unlighted links in their
hands and a dark lantern going, on the night of the conflagra-
tion, towards Prestonfield; but, notwithstanding a pardon and
reward of 200 merks being offered by the Privy Council to any
one who would discover their associates, the actual perpetrators
were never detected. The College gates were ordered to be
shut, and the Students to withdraw themselves fifteen miles from
the City. But in ten days the College gates were thrown open,
and the Students allowed to return, upon their friends becoming
caution for their peaceable behaviour.”1
From the Modest Apology we learn that the privilege of
returning to the College, on security for behaviour, was absolutely
denied to the English Students, who, when they found that their
caution was not to be accepted, “fearing to be trepanned, were
in all haste necessitated to go out of Edinburgh on foot, and
take post at the next stage." In fact, the Crown Officers, either
from information received, or from a just intuition, attributed the
instigation of this foolish escapade, ending in a serious crime, to
the English Students. We have seen that Sir George Mackenzie
connected the name of Lord Grey with the affair, and it seems
quite possible that the Students of the College were made tools
of, and that in the burning of the Pope by these thoughtless
youths there was really an experimental attempt, planned by
older heads, to excite the religious passions of the people of
Edinburgh, and bring them into collision with the Duke of York.
The whole tone of the Modest Apology favours this view.
It is
very clever, but qui s'excuse s'accuse is suggested by every page.
We notice first the Student's Advertisement, about which the
pamphlet is significantly silent; then the “unsought for acces-
sion” of tradesmen and apprentices; then, as Christmas Day
passes away without anything serious, the renewal by the Students
of tumultuary proceedings on a very lame excuse; then the
wearing of badges and shouting "No Pope !" in the High Street;
then the burning down of Prestonfield--all which has the
appearance of an organised attempt to force on a collision with
1 Arnot's History of Edinburgh, p. 394.
-
478
[1688.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
the Government. It was a paltry affair, but may have been
a subsidiary venture, which even Lord Grey and other great
people who were plotting at the time for the overthrow of the
dynasty would not refuse to countenance. At all events the
Modest Apology leaves this impression, and at the same time
confirms the suspicion that a small section of the Students,
headed by Englishmen, did actually burn down Prestonfield.
It was probably because the attempt, in its political aspect, had
so completely failed that the Crown Officers and the Town
Council, acting under their instructions, contented themselves
with eliminating the Englishmen, and suffered the other Students
to return to their College work.
The two Episcopalian Principals, Andrew Cant and Alex-
ander Monro, seem not to have been good hands at maintaining
discipline. The things which Monro relates in his Presbyterian
Inquisition would have been incredible but for his telling them.
He relates how a ruffianly Student, Robert Brown, nicknamed
“the Plunderer," among other things, fixed a placard on the
College gates threatening to kill the Regents, and ordering the
Principal to recant a sermon which he had preached.
however, still permitted to go on in the College, till, as a culmina-
tion of his crimes, he and a gang of others forced their way into
the house of the Lord President, who was absent, and frightened
his wife. On this Monro says: “I confess I could no longer
forbear; I went to the class where Brown was, and called him
to the Upper Gallery, and gave him all his proper names, and
threatened him, if he did not immediately beg my Lady Lockhart's
pardon, I would break his bones. All these big words I said to
him, and the day thereafter extruded him with the usual solem-
nities. Upon which he frequently swore he would be revenged,
and told the under Janitor that he had bought a pair of pistols
to shoot me (one might have served)."
Another incident is related by Monro, which shows either
the extraordinary weakness of his discipline, or else that he
sacrificed discipline to ecclesiastical partiality. There was one
Mr. Gourlay, who, though not a Regent, had a chamber in
College, and was employed on one occasion to do the work of
Regent Kennedy. “But the boys found him out of his element
'
and drove him out of the schools with snow-balls." The Principal
He was,
1691.]
479
NOTICES OF STUDENT-LIFE.
on this remarks: "My Lords and Gentlemen, I appeal to you,
if, after this affront, it was ever possible for little Gourlay, in so
numerous a society, to recover his reputation." Gourlay probably
ceased to teach, but he lived on in College, till the Students,
learning that he had been licensed to preach by the Presbyterians,
“beat up his chamber door and windows with stones; and pulling
off his hat, cloak, and periwig, and reproaching him with Fanatic,
forced him to remove from the chamber which he had possessed
peaceably before.” Principal Monro “fined some of them in a
pecuniary mulct,” but “they presently caballed themselves into
a more numerous combination, and then it was that Gourlay
found it convenient to retire.” We see that by this time (nine
years after the burning of the Pope) the Students were anti-
Presbyterian in their sentiments. Monro, of course, approved of
this, and he said of them : “They are as obedient and regular as
so many youths in any part of the world.”
Immediately after his induction as Principal, Dr. Gilbert Rule
applied himself to remedy the disorderly spirit which had grown
up in the College under his two predecessors. A paper was
drawn up by himself and the Regents, which the Students in
March 1691 were called upon to subscribe; it began as follows :-
"We undersubscribers, students of the College of Edinburgh, do
hereby declare and protest our sincere and unfeigned abhorrence and
detestation of all tumultuary and disorderly practices, unworthy of
scholars, Christians, and gentlemen; and we do solemnly engage and
promise that we shall not be accessory, directly or indirectly, to the
continuation of such abusive irregularities, etc."
In October of the same year another paper was framed, prob-
ably for the signature of new-comers, renouncing more specifically
“the barbarous practice of boxing at the College gate," or else-
where; that of “throwing the ball into the Bajan class"; and
the breaking and demolishing the class-rooms, or any part of the
College fabric. One of these besetting sins of the Students in
olden time requires explanation, though indeed we find no details
on the subject. How the custom arose we know not, but it
seems to have been a custom that on the roth of March the
Students of the Semi class should throw a football into the
Bajan class, with what results in the shape of a general mêlée
and destruction of the class-room furniture it is easy to imagine.
480
(1754.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
In spite of the engagements of 1691, this boyish horse-play seems
to have been continued till 1697, when the Regent of the Semies
got them on the 3d March to sign a paper declaring their “will-
ingness to have this abominable custom for ever banished the
College," and their determination to hand up to "the Faculty,"
for expulsion, any of their number who should “attempt the
throwing in of the said ball.” This resolution, taken by the
Students themselves, seems to have put a stop to the practice in
question, and we never hear of its being afterwards renewed.
The Minutes of the Senatus Academicus commence with the
14th February 1733. From that date to this, it is wonderful
how few cases of discipline are recorded, how few serious penal-
ties had to be inflicted. In October 1733 an Irishman, named
John Armstrong, had his name erased from the list of Arts
Graduates ;1 but this was for an offence committed after he had
left the University, that, namely, of forging a Medical diploma,
with the view of practising in Dublin.
In 1735 occurred the case of the so-called heresy of Mr.
Nimmo, a Divinity Student, from whose Thesis excerpts were
recorded in the Minutes. Ninety-five Divinity Students expressed
their abhorrence of his sentiments; and though he was willing to
recant them, the sentence of expulsion was passed upon him.
The Senatus then made inquiry whether there were any clubs
of Students who called in question Revealed Religion or the
doctrines of the Church, and found there were none such. On
the 4th April 1754, there appeared a pamphlet entitled, A Letter
to the Author of the Ecclesiastical Characters, charging the
Divinity Students in the University with impious principles and
immoral practices. The Divinity class appealed to the Senatus
to vindicate them, and at the same time intimated that one of
their number, named Andrew More, was suspected of having
written the pamphlet. He was cited before the Senatus, and
confessed authorship, but retracted all accusations.
He was
"expelled and extruded” from the University, and the minute
of Senatus on his case was published.
It appears that for more than a hundred years after this time
there was not a single case of expulsion from the University.
1 The name and erasure are preserved by D. Laing in his Catalogue of the
Graduates, p. 202.
1801.]
481
NOTICES OF STUDENT-LIFE.
I
The sentence was on some occasions passed, but after the expres-
sion of great penitence on the part of the several culprits it was
remitted. But in 1855 (and this was the last occasion of the
kind) a Student was actually expelled, having been clearly proved
to have tampered with a printer and obtained copies of the
Medical examination papers, by which means he passed his own
examination, and he then commenced a traffic of selling other
such papers to his fellow-Students.
The Senatus, however, seem to have dealt with some offences
rather leniently, for in 1755 a Student who brought a pistol into
Professor Whytt's class-room and fired it " in the face” of another
Student, was only ordered to publicly ask pardon of the Professors
and then of the Students. But it was announced that any
Student “guilty of the like crime, or of giving or accepting
challenges," would be expelled. It is curious that we find no
instance of this rule being acted upon, though we know that
there were duels in the University during the last century, especi-
ally among members of the Royal Medical Society.
In 1801 a Student "produced a pistol” in the Anatomical
Theatre before lecture, and considerable confusion ensued. The
Senatus decided that the Student in question should "be desired
by the Principal to withdraw from the University," which was a
milder punishment than public expulsion. The Senatus at the
same time notified that they were determined to put a stop to
the disgraceful practice of hissing, applauding, or making a noise
with the feet, which may have prevailed in any of the classes, and
to expel from the University any Student who shall for the future
be found transgressing in this manner." This announcement
was un peu fort, and of course was never acted upon. Professors
can command respect and keep order in their class-rooms without
appealing to such a Draconian enactment.
There was a report in 1801 of “dangerous and disgraceful
bickerings betwixt a number of the High School boys and a body
of the younger Arts Students.” It was also complained about
this time that the Students “played ball” or “shinty" among the
unfinished New Buildings, all which shows a boyishness on their
part, of which few traces now remain.
As in other things, so in juvenile folly, the fashion changes
from age to age. A new form of lawlessness had a short run
66
.
.
VOL. II.
2 I
482
(1 838.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY,
among the Students of the University, namely, the Snow-riot,
consisting in a conflict with the lower orders of the citizens when-
ever Jupiter Nivosus furnished the materials. The first affair of
.
this kind seems to have been in 1831, when the Senatus put
forth a proclamation to the Students that they had been “scanda-
lised by the appearance of policemen within the precincts of the
College," and that they exhorted the Students to avoid bringing
on by their conduct such a disgraceful intrusion for the future.
At the same time they wrote to the Town Council that they were
by no means satisfied with the action taken by the police, and
they invited a conference on the subject.
The dissatisfaction with the police which was then expressed
was amply justified by very gross conduct on their part in the
affairs of the 11th and 12th January 1838, in which, after con-
flicts of sticks rather than snowballs, during two days, a detach-
ment of soldiers was finally sent for by the Lord Provost, and the
mob inside and outside the University quadrangle was dispersed.
Some thirty-five Students had been arrested, but no evidence
being found against thirty of these, the remaining five were
indicted by the Procurator-Fiscal on a charge of "mobbing,
rioting, and assault," and were tried before Mr. Adam Urquhart,
Sheriff-Substitute. The trial lasted for three days, and became
a cause célèbre in a small way. The defence of the Students was
admirably conducted by Mr. Patrick Robertson, who thoroughly
exposed, while making great fun of, the hard swearing of the
police. It became plain that the whole affray had been com-
menced by parties of working men, who waylaid the Students as
they came to morning classes in the University, and attacked
them with snowballs and opprobrious epithets. Then the police,
appearing on the scene, made no attempt to disperse the original
offenders, the townspeople, but with great zest entered into the
sport of making raids with their batons upon the Students. The
police and the town blackguards, forming a common host, invaded
the quadrangle, which had then only an insufficient wooden gate,
and any Students whom they could seize were not only carried
off to the station, but also ill-treated in the most cowardly way
on the road. Whatever of riot there was on this occasion was
greatly produced and certainly prolonged by the police, whose
worse than inefficiency necessitated the calling out of soldiers to
1838.]
483
NOTICES OF STUDENT LIFE.
I
clear the streets. After hearing and commenting on the evidence
and the arguments of Counsel, the Sheriff-Substitute concluded:
“In the whole circumstances I think that I am doing justice to
the parties when I find the pannels not guilty, and dismiss them
simpliciter from the bar." There were snow-riots in 1848 and
1854; the last on record was in January 1860. A committee
of Senatus was then appointed to watch the preservation of order
during snow, with power to enrol Students as special constables,
and to call on other Professors to assist them. But anything of
this kind has subsequently been unnecessary. By the simple
expedient of closing the iron gates of the quadrangle as soon as
a snowfall occurs, the Students, as from within the University,
are cut off from collision with the populace. And they know
that, if they throw snowballs within the quadrangle, they are
liable to fines or other academical penalties. So for many years
they have shown great good sense in the matter. “ Christopher
North," who himself loved a “snow-bicker," as he did all other
manly sports, once advised his class, if they had an inclination
that way, to go to some hill-side and have it out among them-
selves, instead of putting themselves on equal terms with the
“roughs" of Edinburgh.
The Town Council, in January 1838, had not shown an animus
paternus towards the Students. So far from protecting them, or
even acting impartially towards them, they had endorsed with
their approval the conduct of the police; it almost seemed as
if they were not free from that jealousy of superior education
which had doubtless actuated the lower orders and the policemen.
The Students resenting this, and perhaps flushed by the complete
acquittal of their comrades, got up a petition, which was signed
in April 1838, to both Houses of Parliament, to emancipate the
University from the control of the Town Council. This was a
mere exhibition of Gown versus Town feeling, and was not likely
to have much weight, though it was supported at the time by the
Senatus.
It is pleasing now to turn from these escapades to the higher
side of Student-life. The Students had been much interested
and excited by the prize offered by the Commissioners of 1826
for the best English essay (see above, p. 39). In 1831 they
sent in a Memorial to the Senatus with 85 names, offering to
W
484
(1849.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
I
subscribe among themselves funds for an annual prize of the
same kind. The Senatus approved of this, and undertook to act
as judges in the competitions. In December of the same year
a meeting of Students was held, at which the names of A. Campbell
Swinton (afterwards Professor of Civil Law), John Thomson
Gordon (afterwards Sheriff of Midlothian), Henry (the late Sir
Henry) Moncreiff, and George Makgill (afterwards an Advocate
and man of letters) were prominent, it was resolved to invite
Students to subscribe 5s. each a year in order to provide a prize.
The subsequent history of the “Students' Prize” is very imper-
fectly recorded. But we gather that an annual prize was sub-
scribed for and awarded by the Senatus for eighteen years. The
amount is never mentioned. It was alternately given in the
departments of Science, Philosophy, and Literature. In 1835
the subject proposed was "the Philosophy of Roman History."
In 1837 there was a Medical subject. In 1840 the prize was
won by Mr. David Masson (now Professor of Rhetoric), with an
essay on "The Authenticity of St. John's Gospel"; in 1842 by Mr.
A. Campbell Fraser (now Professor of Logic and Metaphysics),
with an essay on “Toleration.” In 1849 the Senatus “resolved to
recommend that the Students' Prize Scheme be discontinued, as
not being found to result in advantages sufficient to counterbalance
the obvious evils attending them.” What those disadvantages
were is not stated, but the liberality of benefactors to the University
has now more than supplied the place of the “Students' Prize.”
A great feature in Student-life in the University of Edinburgh
has been constituted by the various Societies and Clubs which
have from time to time arisen. Of course many of them have
died out, but others have lasted and become permanent. Of
these the oldest and most important is (1) the Royal Medical
Society, founded by Cullen and other illustrious Students in 1737,
only eleven years after the establishment of the Medical Faculty.
This Society got a Royal Charter in 1778. It has its own
buildings, with hall and library, etc., quite separate from those
of the University. And, in fact, it moves like a moon or satellite
round the University. It has weekly meetings for the discussion
of papers on Medical subjects by its members. Its traditions
have always been distinguished for the originality of thought
which it fostered. The first reaction in Scotland against the
1871.]
485
NOTICES OF STUDENT LIFE.
.
system of Boerhaave was made by the Royal Medical Society.
And this Society, consisting of Medical Students, has often
boldly, and sometimes rightly, called in question the theories of
the Professors. When the bad custom of duelling prevailed,
differences of opinion at the meetings of the Society sometimes
led to actual bloodshed. Now the Society is marked by the
high tone of its members, who are the élite of the Medical
Students. Any young man who becomes President of the
Royal Medical Society seems predestined for success in after life,
(2) The Speculative Society, — founded in 1764 by six
,
Students of that day — Bruce (afterwards Professor of Logic),
Maconochie (afterwards Professor of Public Law), Creech (after-
wards an eminent publisher), and three others,--soon assumed
and maintained a brilliant position as a school of debate for future
lawyers, divines, and statesmen. Like the Royal Medical, it
built its own hall, but within the old College precincts, and when
this was pulled down, an apartment was designed for the Specu-
lative Society by Adam in the east block of the new buildings.
And there its meetings are still held. Sir Walter Scott acted as
secretary of this Society from 1791 to 1795. The minutes kept
in his handwriting attest his diligent attention to the business of
the Society, and also his strange carelessness in spelling. A
splendid History of the Speculative Society was brought out in
1845, and to that work we must refer the reader for full
particulars.
(3) Third in point of age comes the Theological Society,
which was founded in 1776, and the object of which is to discuss
questions interesting to the Faculty of Divinity. The centenary
of this Society was celebrated a few years ago, and then it was
a subject of lament that its records had been lost.
It appears
that at the time of the Disruption so many members of the
Theological Society seceded from the Church of Scotland that
its meetings were for some years suspended. When the Society
was revived its records had disappeared; some office-bearer in
1843 had carried them off, and they could never be traced.
(4) In 1787 the Dialectic Society was established ; (5) in
1815 the Scots Law Society ; (6) in 1816 the Diagnostic Society;
(7) in 1858 the Philomathic Society; (8) in 1871 the Philoso-
phical Society.
I
486
(1876.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
All these Societies still exist and flourish, and provide, as
their names indicate, exercise for Students of the various Faculties.
The Dialectic, the Diagnostic, the Philomathic, and the Philo-
sophical, differ from the Speculative and from each other by
certain nuances.
The Speculative is the most exclusive; its
entrance-fee is five guineas, which alone is a bar to the majority
of Students, and it is rather for young advocates than for under-
graduates. The Philomathic, on the other hand, is chiefly
composed of young first-year Students. The Dialectic and the
Diagnostic run much on the same lines, being general debating
societies for senior Students, and it seems a matter of chance
which of the two a Student might select. The Philosophical is
more exclusively confined to metaphysical and psychological
discussions, as its name implies. In 1833 the plan was adopted
of associating some of the Literary and Debating Societies of
the University, with a view to their holding a joint meeting and
debate once a year.
The office of President of the Associated
Societies is an honorary one held by some distinguished man; it
resembles in some respects the office of Lord Rector, but the
Honorary President does not always deliver an address; Lytton
Bulwer, however, did so in this capacity. The Dialectic, Scots
Law, Diagnostic, and Philosophical constitute at present the
Associated Societies, and the Marquis of Bute is President.
Besides the before-mentioned there are other Societies in the
University which have a more specialised object, namely—(9) The
Agriculture Class Discussion Society, founded 1858; (10) The
Chemical Society, 1874; (11) The Natural Science Club. Then
there are Associations for religious or moral objects, namely—(12)
The Missionary Association, 1825; (13) The Total Abstinence
Society, 1853; (14) The Medical Students' Christian Association,
1883. Lastly, there are Societies for accomplishments and manly
exercises, namely—(15) The Musical Society, 1867; (16) The
Rifle Company's Shooting Club; (17) The Boat Club; (18) The
Athletic Club, for gymnastics, cricket, football, lawn-tennis, and
bicycling ; (19) The Golf Club, to which may be added (20)
The Students' Club, which was instituted in 1876" for the pur-
pose of obviating some of the disadvantages attendant on the
system of residence in separate lodgings." This “Club”-in a
hired building closely adjoining the new Medical School—is, in
I
I
1876.]
487
NOTICES OF STUDENT-LIFE.
fact, a "Club" in the ordinary sense of the term, and offers to
the Students, in a small and very frugal way, the same sort of
conveniences as the Pall Mall Clubs provide for their members.
It is a place for dining or lunching cheaply, for reading news-
papers and periodicals, and for social intercourse. It is thus a
step in the direction of remedying that which has long been felt
to be a defect in the University of Edinburgh—the total absence
of anything like Collegiate life.
Each of the before-mentioned Societies among the Students
does something in the same direction, by bringing individuals out
of the isolation of lodgings, and by promoting common interests
and a contact of life at certain points. Some persons have had
the idea that it would be a good thing to institute Halls of
residence for Students attending the University of Edinburgh,
with responsible heads, and a certain amount of domestic dis-
cipline. An attempt of the kind was actually made about seven-
teen years ago, and a house, under the designation of a Hall,
was opened for the reception of Students, with an Episcopal
clergyman at its head. The attempt failed; and, indeed, the
whole conception seems to be at variance with the genius of a
Scottish University. Unless wealthy endowments were provided
for such Halls, they would be too expensive for the majority of
Students. And even if endowments could be found so that the
cost of living in them was made very moderate, still such establish-
ments would not be popular, just because they would be under
discipline. The Scottish Student prizes his independence, and
it must be said that as a general rule he does not abuse it.
Indeed, the habits of self-control which are called forth in the
Student who lives as his own master in his own lodgings, and
there commences in earnest to fight the battle of life, are perhaps
among the most valuable results of his University life.1
1 And yet, if some pious millionaire were desirous to immortalise his name
by improving the social life of the Edinburgh University Students, we should
recommend him (for anything done on a small scale would be a drop in the
bucket and comparatively useless) to buy up the whole of George Square and
turn it into sets of chambers for Students. With suitable restaurants within
the bounds, and with the centre of the Square for a place of recreation, this
plan might afford great convenience to some 500 Students. Perhaps this
idea may be carried out before the 400th birthday of the University, if not by a
Benefactor, by a Company (limited)!
488
(1827
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
Of course among the Students of the University of Edinburgh
there are, and always have been, many gradations of pecuniary
circumstances, from the sons of wealthy parents, down to those
whose families can give them next to nothing, and who get
through their University course by means of some small Bursary,
eked out perhaps by a little money gained in teaching. It is
probably the case that the greater number have no superfluities,
and practise careful thrift. The biographies of many distinguished
men, who have risen out of the most straitened family circum-
stances, all tell the same story of noble perseverance and self-
denial at the University. Principal Lee, in his evidence before
the Commission of 1826, gave some details of extreme frugality
on the part of Students; they were doubtless exceptional cases,
but they are very striking. He said: “I will mention the instance
of a young man who is now (1827) attending the third year of
his Philosophical Course, and who promises to be a very excellent
scholar, This young man states to me that during the two pre-
ceding sessions his expense of living averaged about 6s. 9d. a
week; this includes room-rent and fire, for which two articles he
paid 3s. a week; the amount for 24 weeks is £8:28., and as the
lodging cost £3 : 12S., the whole expense of maintenance was
£4: Ios. He stated that he had occasionally supplies of butter
and cheese from the country, but to a very small extent.
He
breakfasted on porridge and milk, and had for dinner, three days
a week, broth and a little meat; on the other days bread and
milk, sometimes potatoes and herrings; he had tea in the after-
noon, but no supper; and this he stated to be a very general
mode of living. He has known some who lived, as he expressed
it, more meanly than this—dining merely on potatoes and a little
butter. He knew one young man attending College last winter,
who never wore stockings, but merely gaiters ; this young man and
his companion lived all the winter on 5s. a week each, including
room-rent, fire and candles, and sometimes the expense was only
4s. 9d. This was only about £6 in the six months. I may
state that I have known some Students who scarcely ever allowed
themselves even candles, and who wrote their exercises, and pre-
pared their lessons, by the light of the fire. Many others do not
use fire, except in the evening, and some not even then.” All
this was self-imposed asceticism for a noble end, and it reminds
1760.]
489
NOTICES OF STUDENT LIFE.
one of the rule of Montague College, under Standonc (see Vol.
I. p. 179).
When we read of the pair of “companions” who lived
together at a total cost of 55. each per week, we are led to think of
another point, and that is the warm and lasting friendships which
the sharing of privations under this system of Student-life has
given rise to. One beautiful instance of this kind may be men-
tioned—the friendship between Dalzel and Sir Robert Liston.
Their paths in life widely diverged, for while Dalzel stayed at
home and became a Professor, Liston travelled abroad with
pupils, acquired an uncommon facility in modern languages,
became secretary to Hugh Elliot, the ambassador at Munich,
then chargé d'affaires, and so moved up in the diplomatic service,
and was ambassador at half the Courts of Europe. But their
mutual feeling never changed, and the affectionate letters between
“Bob" and "Andrew” were never intermitted till Dalzel's death.
Sir R. Liston has left the following account of their joint
Student-life: “We took up our quarters, for the first two years,
in a close to the north of the College and of the High Street,
with our windows looking to the Firth of Forth, in the house of
Mrs. Wilkie, a distant relation of us both, and a woman of great
respectability, who treated us with affection and attention. We
learned from her that we had succeeded John Home the poet,
who had passed the years of his education in the same house.
We certainly applied to our studies with great attention and
assiduity, from the time when we entered College till the day we
quitted it; and without the aid of any tutor, or the relief of much
exercise, unless it be the going backwards and forwards to the
College every day before and after breakfast, and walking to and
from the parish of Kirkliston, where we were born, at the end of
every week, if the weather was good; we used to study for fifteen
hours a day, and sometimes more, with little or no intermission.'
“It is a poor heart that never rejoices," and ebullitions of
good spirits on the part of the Edinburgh Students have occa-
sionally come to the surface in the shape of periodical literature.
In Universities it is invariably the case that periodicals are short-
lived; they always depend upon one or two leading spirits, who
presently find that they have other things to do, and so withdraw
from a labour which is never remunerative. The earliest literary
490
[1832.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
venture of the kind in Edinburgh seems to have been The Edin-
burgh University Journal and Critical Review, of which the first
number appeared on the ist January 1823, at a period when the
University was at its zenith in point of numbers prior to its re-
organisation. The University Journal was fortnightly, and twelve
numbers averaging twenty-four pages each were published, and it
then stopped. It was a solid little production, full of justly
critical remarks (not out of taste) on various deficiencies in the
University system and occasionally on the conduct of both Pro-
fessors and Students, and it also contained really good reviews of
works of the day. It seems probable that the Journal was con-
ducted not entirely by Students, but under the guidance of some
older head.
A year later (7th January 1824) a slighter and more lively
periodical was started; this was a small bi-weekly brochure of four
pages, entitled Lapsus Lingua, or the College Tatler. In its six-
teenth issue the Lapsus Linguæ justified its name by indulging in
a satire upon Sir John Leslie, the Professor of Natural Philosophy,
which was deemed actionable, and an action was threatened.
The publisher, Carfrae, withdrew the number, and refused to
publish any more. But another publisher, Huie, took it up, and
it was carried on with greater caution till the thirty-eighth number,
when it expired. What the editor of the Lapsus considered his
chef d'æuvre was an imitation of the famous Chaldee Manuscript
of Blackwood's Magazine, adapted to suit the incident of Leslie's
threatened prosecution. The original Chaldee Manuscript was
not very admirable, but it did for once; a copy of it was rather
too much. There was a good deal of ephemeral cleverness and
good spirits in the verses and squibs which were produced in the
Lapsus. A good many University grievances were aired, and
coarse pictures of the Students, classified as Medical, Law, and
Divinity, were given. Student-life appears to have been really
coarser in those days. The Students are said to have insisted
on wearing their hats in the class-rooms.
From January to April 1831 there was an Edinburgh Uni-
versity Magazine. In 1832 there was the Nimmo, or Alma's
Tawse, the name being taken from an eccentric person who used
to attend Professors' lectures and to borrow money from the
Students. At the end of the same year appeared, for two numbers,
1871.]
491.
NOTICES OF STUDENT-LIFE.
the Anti-Nemo, and at the same time University John, the Giant-
Killer. Perhaps the best of all these short-lived productions was
the University Maga, which appeared as a weekly sheet in the
winter of 1834. It was the work of Edward Forbes, the brilliant
Naturalist, then a Medical Student. Each number was illustrated
with a sketch by Forbes--who had a genius for caricature—of
some Professor or other personage connected with the University.
The verses on the “Anatomy Bill,” and other topics interesting
to "the Medicals,” were good, but the whole thing was rather too
much flavoured with the spirit of Christopher North and the
Noctes Ambrosianæ, Maga lived till its twelfth number. Those
who had assisted Forbes in concocting it formed a "Maga Club,"
which was afterwards developed into "the Oineromathetic," the
members of which wore a red ribbon across their breast, termin-
ating in a silver triangle which bore the words ΟΙΝΟΣ ΕΡΩΣ
MAOHSIE. This mystical Order, for the promotion of Truth,
Philanthropy, and Good-Fellowship, was joined by many who
afterwards became distinguished. In 1838 its name was changed
to that of “The Universal Brotherhood of the Friends of Truth."
Under this name the Order long subsisted, and Forbes used to
sign himself in writing to any of the brotherhood (in allusion to
their triangle) “Aly yours.
In 1835 there appeared The Edinburgh University Souvenir,
which was merely an Annual,” after the fashion of those days,
containing elegant verses and slight romantic stories.
In 1840
another Annual came out, but of a much more substantial charac-
ter; it was called the Edinburgh Academic Annual, and consisted
of serious papers contributed by Students of the previous session,
and very good they were : Edward Forbes wrote on Mollusca ;
George Wilson on Haloid Salts; Macquorn Rankine on the Con-
duction of Heat ; Samuel Brown on the Coagulation of Albumen;
James Dodds on the Study of Church History, etc. And as an
Introduction, Dr. John Lee, just before his appointment as
Principal, contributed a brilliant sketch of the History of the
University
In January 1871 a second Edinburgh University Magazine
was started, of which four monthly numbers appeared. This
production was enlivened by some of Lord Neaves' witty songs,
and the writing in it was, from a literary point of view, superior to
66
ز
492
(1883.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
I
I
We may
that of the older University periodicals. In it one who has since
been widely acknowledged as an artist in English prose-writing,
Robert Louis Stevenson, made his début.
Reference must now be made to the history of the numerical
increase of the Students in the University of Edinburgh. The
College started with an attendance of some 80 or go, divided
between Rollock's and Nairn's classes. Early in the seventeenth
century the total number, in five classes, had reached 320. By
the end of the century it appears to have risen to about 600.
In 1768 we find the numbers described as between 500 and 600.
In 1789 they had risen to 1000. In the next twenty years they
got up to 1900. In 1825-26 there were 822 Students in
Arts, 891 in Medicine, 298 in Law, and 249 in Divinity; alto-
gether 2260. In 1834-35 the total number of the Students
was only 1624, there having been a decrease of 293 in Arts, of
188 in Medicine, of 97 in Divinity, and of 58 in Law.
ask what was the cause of this decrease in every Faculty ? and it
is difficult to find an answer. We do not suppose that the litiga-
tions with the Town Council had anything to do with the matter.
Some say that prosperity in national commerce means depression
for the Scottish Universities, and vice versa. Sir R. Christison
thought that “openings for half-educated youth in the colonies'
drew away some of those that could have been Students. About
1830 the foundation of University and King's Colleges, London,
and of Queen's University in Ireland, took off many Medical
Students from Edinburgh, so that the number in this Faculty fell
from over goo (which it had once been) to 500 in 1860, and to
445 in 1868, when all the Students in the University were but
1565. But then the turn commenced, and every year subse-
quently there has been a steady rise, averaging more than 100
per annum, so that for the session 1882-83 the numbers were-
Arts 1023, Medicine 1732, Law 489, Divinity 97; altogether
3341. Thus, in the three hundredth year of its existence, the
University of Edinburgh has gained its greatest numerical ex-
pansion.
The History of the Speculative Society traces the subsequent
career of all those of its members who became in any way dis-
tinguished. It would be too great a task to attempt this with
regard to the Matriculated Students or even the Graduates of the
I
1798.]
493
NOTICES OF STUDENT-LIFE.
а.
University. But there are a few names of former Students which
are too interesting to be passed over in silence. The University
did not make them what they became, but it "entertained" them
awhile, like "angels, unawares." Oliver Goldsmith and Walter
Scott in the last century, Thomas Carlyle and Charles Darwin in
this century, were Edinburgh University Students. Goldsmith in
his uncertain youth took a session of Medical studies in Edinburgh
(1753), and thence going on to Leyden wrote home to say:
“Physic is by no means taught so well here as in Edinburgh;
and in all Leyden there are but four British Students, owing to
all necessaries being so extremely dear, and the Professors so very
lazy (the Chemical Professor excepted) that we don't much care
to come hither.” Scott came from Adam's class in the High
School, and said he lost much of his Latin under Professor Hill;
in Dalzel's class he was piqued by finding himself so much behind-
hand in Greek, and to vindicate himself he wrote an essay, full
of out-of-the-way knowledge, maintaining Ariosto to be superior
to Homer, on reading which Dalzel pronounced that “ dunce he
was, and dunce he would remain !” He studied more success-
fully Ethics under John Bruce and Dugald Stewart, History under
Lord Woodhouselee, and Civil and Scots Law under Wilde and
Hume. In his Autobiography he expresses regret at his neglect
of the opportunities of learning which the University opened to
him. Carlyle, on the other hand, coming as a peasant lad to the
University, was deeply indebted to its teaching, and manifested
his gratitude, as we have seen (p. 146), in his old age. Darwin
doubtless received an impulse from Jameson, but he was after-
wards a self-developed genius. Another interesting name may be
.
extracted from the lists of Edinburgh Matriculated Students :
that of Barthold George Niebuhr, the great historian of Rome,
who in 1798, attracted by the scientific fame of the University,
came and studied for one year under Playfair, Robison, Hope,
Rutherford, Coventry, and Walker.
At the end of last century it became the fashion for young
Englishmen to take the University of Edinburgh as an intermediate
preparation for that of Cambridge or Oxford. Such were Henry
Petty (afterwards Lord Lansdowne), Henry Temple (afterwards Lord
Palmerston), Lord John Russell, and William Lamb (afterwards
Lord Melbourne). Lord Palmerston, speaking of this time, says :
I
.
494
[1864.
THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.
1
a
“I lived with Dugald Stewart, and attended his lectures at the
University. In those three years I laid the foundation of what-
ever useful knowledge and habits of mind I possess.” 1
In more recent times the University of Edinburgh has had a
connection, which it must always prize, with the Royal Family of
England. The late illustrious and profoundly-instructed Prince
Albert expressed a regard for the University, and he manifested
this by sending two of his Royal sons for a certain portion of their
education to Edinburgh. Under date 8th September 1859 we
find in the Matriculation book the signature of “ Albert Edward,
Prince of Wales, London.” But this entry into the University
was nominal, as His Royal Highness received his instructions
from Dr. Schmitz, then Rector of the High School. And the
High School, accordingly, is in possession of a bust of the Prince
of Wales, in commemoration of the fact. Under date 29th
October 1863 the Matriculation book contains two subscriptions
to the Sponsio Academica (promising fidelity and all good service
to the University)—those of " Alfred, Windsor Castle," and of
“ William, Prince of Hesse-Darmstadt.” Prince Alfred (now His
Royal Highness, the Duke of Edinburgh) lived for nine months
at the Palace of Holyroodhouse, and during that time, with his
friend, the German prince, very regularly attended the classes of
Lyon Playfair (Chemistry), Tait (Natural Philosophy), Allman
(Natural History), and Cosmo Innes (History). In 1864 a
number of the citizens of Edinburgh, headed by the Lord Provost
(Lawson), resolved to present to the University a bust of Prince
Alfred, in commemoration of the high esteem and golden opinions
which he had won among them. His Royal Highness gave
sittings to Mr. (now Sir John) Steell; and on the 3d November
1865 the bust was presented by the Lord Provost and a numerous
following, in the Library Hall, and it was received on the part of
the University by Mr. Gladstone, then Lord Rector, who in
acknowledging the gift said : “It does not only commemorate the
fact that we have enrolled in our books an illustrious and dis-
tinguished pupil, but it will remain here as a marked and striking
testimony to the union of feeling that prevails between the highest
in our land, and the great masses of the enlightened and cultivated
community, as well as the nation at large." And accordingly the
1 Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer's Life of Viscount Palmerston (1870), p. 11.
I

UNE
ee
H.R.H. THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH.
FROM A BUST BY SIR JOHN STEEL.
1883.)
495
NOTICES OF STUDENT LIFE.
bust of Prince Alfred, in his youthful beauty, stands in the
Library Hall, at the apex of two long lines of the marble effigies
of the most eminent Professors of the University in bygone
times. And every one must feel that the post is worthily occupied
by a Royal Prince, who, by his great ability and scientific attain-
ments, might, if his other public duties did not prevent him, take
a distinguished place among the savants of the kingdom.
主
​t
INDEX.
A
Adam, Robert, architect, ii. 202.
Adamson, John, at Disputation at
ABERCROMBY, George, Professor of Stirling, i. 172 ; Regent of Philo-
Public Law, ii. 315.
sophy, ii. 279; account of, 244-246.
Aberdeen, Lord, Chairman of 1826 Alexander VI., Bulls of, i. 26-31, 33,
Commission, ii. 39; member of the 34; his Indulgence, 35.
1858 Commission, 101.
Alfred, Prince, Student at the Univer-
Aberdeen, University of, its founda- sity, ii. 494.
tion, i. 26-33 ; Bull for its protec- Alison, William Pulteney, Professor
tion, 33, 34; King's College, 35- of the Institutes of Medicine, ii.
41; its successful career, 41-44 ; 407-409, 412; Professor of Medical
its collapse, 45; its purging, 51 ; Jurisprudence, 447.
new schemes for, 64; Fundatio Allman, George James, Professor of
Nova proposed and resisted, 90; Natural History, ii. 435.
Chair of Latin founded, 193; pro- Alston, Charles, Professor of Botany,
posal of a Cursus Philosophicus to i. 318; account of, ii. 381.
be drawn up by the four Univer- Amedeus, Professor of Hebrew, i.
sities, 210; its Regents changed to
215; ii. 288.
Professors, 263; introduction of a Anderson, Patrick, “ Angelic Pills"
University Board proposed, ii. 92 ; of, i. 217.
amalgamation of the two Univer- Anderson, R. Rowand, appointed
sities proposed, 93.
architect for new University build.
Academia, i. 42; meaning of, 88, ings, ii. 211.
130; Academia Jacobi Sexti, 131. Andrews, St., University of, its
Act of Parliament for higher education foundation, i. 1-10; its Colleges,
of gentlemen (1496), i. 27; ratify. 10-16; its collapse at the Reforma-
ing Fundatio Nova (1597), 91; tion, 18; its purging, 52; new
for repealing the same (1619 and schemes for, 63, 68, 91; Chair of
1621), 94, 96; Act of Confirma- Latin founded, 193 ; proposal of a
tion (1621), 204; peculiarities in, Cursus Philosophicus to be drawn
205; Act “anent the Tunnage up by the four Universities, 210;
(1698), 362 ; Test Act (1690), ii. its Regents changed to Professors,
86; Acts renewing Ale Duty (1716, 263; University Board for, pro-
1722), i. 285; Test Act (1853), posed, ii. 92.
ii. 88; Universities (Scotland) Act Angaria and Perangaria, i. 5 (note).
(1858), 100; Act for regulating Arbuthnot, Alexander, i. 83.
City Debt (1838) 224; for trans- Areskine, Charles, Professor of Public
ferring University property to Law, i. 232; account of, ii. 310.
Senatus (1862), 225.
Arran, Earl of, i. 158.
Acts of Town Council, passin. Arts, Faculty of, at St. Andrews, i.
- Acts” in Universities, i. 154 ; ii. 9; at Glasgow, 22; A. Melville's
182; i. 241.
curriculum in, 80-82; curriculum
VOL. II.
2 K
.
498
INDEX.
of, in the College of Edinburgh, Bishop, Sir Henry Rowley, Professor
148-150 ; Arts Faculty created in of the Theory of Music, ii. 459.
Edinburgh, 262; new curriculum Bishops, dispute concerning, i. 106.
in, 263; disuse of graduation in, Black, Adam, his protest against the
265; Professors' programmes in, Universities Bill, ii. 93.
266-274 ; attempts to revive gradu- Black, Joseph, Professor of Chemistry,
ation in, 277; relation of Arts
ii. 395-397
classes to the Church, 279-282 ; Blackie, John Stuart, his protest in
graduation in Arts as settled by the favour of Entrance Examinations,
Commission (1858), ii. 112-122 ; ii. 80-82 ; his exertions to obtain a
scholarships in, 137, 138, 142; Celtic Chair, 152-154 ; appointed
Bursaries in, 145, 146.
to the Greek Chair, 327.
Ascensii, printers at Paris, i. 42. Blair, Hugh, Professor of Rhetoric, i.
Aytoun, William Edmondstoune, Pro- 276 ; account of, ii. 357.
fessor of Rhetoric, ii. 360.
Blair, Robert, Professor of Practical
Astronomy, i. 339-341 ; account of,
ii. 361.
B
Blake, Miss Jex, ii. 259-162.
Boece, Hector, i. 39-44.
BAIRD, George Husband, Principal, Boece, Arthur, i. 43.
ii. 270.
Bologna, University of, compared with
- Bajan” Class, i. 144.
that of Glasgow, i. 19, 20.
Balcanquall, Walter, i. 105, 195. Book of Discipline, i. 54-68.
Balfour, Dr. Andrew, i. 217-219; his Boyd, Robert, Principal of the College
Natural History collections, 374. of Edinburgh, i. 176 ; ii. 244.
Balfour, James, Professor of Public Brewster, Sir David, appointed Prin-
Law, ii. 315; Professor of Moral cipal, ii. 96, 103; account of, 274-
Philosophy, 339.
278.
Balfour, John Hutton, Professor of Brodie, trial of Deacon, i. 251.
Botany, ii. 385.
Brougham, Lord, elected Chancellor
Balfour, Robert, Provost of Kirk-of- of the University, ii. 104; account
Field, i. 103.
of, 235
Ballingall, Sir George, Professor of Broun, Joseph, honorary graduate in
Military Surgery, ii. 444.
Civil Law, i. 238.
Barclay, John, lecturer in Anatomy, Brown, Andrew, Professor of Rhetoric,
.
Baxter, Sir David, his Scholarships, Brown, Dr. John, ii. 106.
ii. 390.
ii. 359.
ii. 137, 139; Chair of Engineering Brown, Robert, Student, ii. 478.
founded by, 148 ; his bequest, 155. Brown, Thomas, Professor of Moral
Bayne, Alexander, Professor of Scots Philosophy, ii. 342-344.
Law, i. 288; account of, ii. 371. Bruce, John, Professor of Logic, ii.
Beaton, Cardinal, i. 17.
330.
Beaton, James, Archbishop of St. Bruce, Robert, Professor of Public
Andrews, i. 16.
Law, ii. 315.
Bell, Alexander Montgomerie, Pro- Brunton, Alexander, appointed College
fessor of Conveyancing, ii. 378. Librarian, ii. 16, 175; Professor of
Bell, bequest of Dr. Andrew, ii. 150. Divinity, ii. 291.
Bell, Sir Charles, Professor of Surgery, Burnett, Dr., i. 217.
Bursaries, Foundation of, ii. 145.
Bell, George Joseph, Professor of Scots
Law, ii. 374.
Benedict XIII., i. 2; his bulls, 6-8.
С
Bennett, John Hughes, Professor of
the Institutes of Medicine, ii. 76; CALAMY, Edmund, Doctor of Divinity,
account of, 409.
i. 337 ; ii. 190.
,
ii. 453.
INDEX.
499
.
Calvin, lectures of, at Geneva, i. Chirography, a misprint for choro-
176.
graphy, i. 81 (note).
Campbell, George, Professor of Di. Chorley, scene with Archbishop Leigh-
vinity, ii. 258, 282.
ton, ii. 251.
Cant, Andrew, Principal of the College Christison, Alexander, Professor of
of Edinburgh, ii. 254.
Humanity, ii. 320.
Carlyle, Alexander, reminiscences of, Christison, Sir Robert, Professor of
i. 275 ; his degree, 279; reminis- Materia Medica, ii. 425-431 ; Pro-
cences of the Divinity Class, 336. fessor of Medical Jurisprudence, 447-
Carlyle, Thomas, his bequest, ii. 146- 449.
148; his opinion of Sir William Clark, Alexander, laird of Balbirnie,
Hamilton, 333 ; candidate for Chair
i. 158.
of Practical Astronomy, 362 ; Lord Cleghorn, William, candidate for degree
Rector, 237
of M.A., i. 277.
Carstares, William, his schemes for Cleghorn, William, Professor of Moral
the improvement of the Scottish Philosophy, ii. 337.
Universities, i. 229-231 ; his in- Clement VII., rescript of, i. 36.
fluence with the Town Council, Colt, Adam, Regent of Philosophy, i.
244-247; his influence in the re-
146 ; ii. 278.
moulding of the College, 259-263 ; Colvill, Alexander, Divinity Chair
account of, ii. 258.
offered to, ii, 281.
Chalmers, Thomas, paper submitted to Colvill, William, Principal of the
the Commissioners by, ii. 51; Pro- College, his rebuke by the Town
fessor of Divinity, ii. 284-287. Council, i. 211; account of, ii. 252.
Chancellors of the University, ii. 235. Commissions, of General Assembly
Charles I., his visit to Scotland, ii. to purge Universities, i. 50-52; to
245.
draw up Book of Discipline, 54.
Charles II., his warrant for the Royal Coventry, Andrew, Professor of Agri-
College of Physicians, i. 221, 222. culture, i. 345-347; account of,
Charteris, Henry, Principal of College
of Edinburgh, at Disputation at Craig, James, Professor of Civil Law,
Stirling, i. 172 ; ousted from Prin- i. 284; ii. 364.
cipalship, 197 ; his appointment as Craig, William, Regent of Philosophy,
Professor of Divinity, 201 ; account
of, ii. 242.
Craufurd, James, Professor of Chem-
Charteris, Henry, printer, i. 105, 129. istry, i. 297 ; Professor of Hebrew,
Charteris, Lawrence, Professor of ii. 289; account of, ii. 392.
Divinity, ii. 282.
Craufurd, Matthew, Professor of
Charters, Bulls constituting Charter Church History, ii. 308.
of St. Andrews University, i. 6-8; Craufurd, Thomas, Regent of Human-
of Glasgow University, 19; of ity, ii. 279; Pro
ity, ii. 279; Professor of Mathe-
Aberdeen University, 26-31; Char- matics, ii. 294.
ter of James IV., 31-33; of Bishop Crawford, Thomas Jackson, Professor
Elphinston, 36-39; of Mary Queen of Divinity, ii. 288.
of Scots, 70-73, 193; of New Foun- Creech, William, one of the founders
dation at Glasgow, 73-76; Charter of the Speculative Society, ii
. 485.
of Foundation of College of Edin. Cromwell, Oliver, his patent institut-
burgh, 107-121; of James VI., ing a College of Physicians, i, 221;
121-126; draft Charter of James his grant to the College of Edin-
II., 235-237, 253.
burgh, ii. 250.
Chatelherault, Duke of, i. 128, 170. Cullen, William, Professor of Chemis-
Cheape, Douglas, Professor of Civil try, ii. 393-395; of Institutes and
Law, ii. 366.
Practice of Physic, 399-401.
Chepman, Walter, patent for printing Cumming, John, Professor of Church
press granted to, i, 27.
History, ii. 306.
ii. 456.
ii. 279.
500
INDEX.
Cumming, Patrick, Professor of Church | Douglas, John, i. 57.
History, i. 335; account of, ii. 308. Douglas, Robert, appointed Rector of
Cumming, Robert, Professor of Church College of Edinburgh, i. 210.
History, ii. 309.
Drummond, Adam, Professor of Ana-
Cunningham, Alexander, appointed tomy, i. 296 ; ii. 385.
Professor of Civil Law, i. 283 ; Drummond, Colin, Professor of Logic
account of, 361; Regent, ii. 280. and Metaphysics, i. 262, 266, 275 ;
Cunningham, Sir Hugh, Lord Provost Professor of Greek, ii. 323, 328.
of Edinburgh, his Visitation of the Drummond, George, Lord Provost, i.
University, i. 240-244.
304, 363-373
Dunbar, George, Professor of Greek,
ii. 327,
D
Dunbar, Sir William, ii. 97.
.
!
i. 4.
Duncan, Andrew, primus, Professor
DAILL-SILVER, i. 71 (note).
of the Institutes of Medicine, i. 291;
Dalzel, Andrew, Professor of Greek, account of, ii. 406.
ii. 323-327, 489.
Duncan, Andrew, secundus, Professor
Damman, Sir Adrian, Professor of of Medical Jurisprudence, i. 292 ;
Laws, i. 185-187.
Professor of the Institutes of Medi-
Davidson, John, Principal of the Col- cine, ii. 407; Librarian, 14-16;
lege of Glasgow, i. 77.
Professor of Materia Medica, 424;
Dawson, William, Professor of Hebrew, account of, 445-447.
ii. 289.
Dundas, Laurence, Professor of Hu.
Deas, George, ii. 39.
manity, i. 239, 262 ; account of, ii.
Decrees, Doctors of, at St. Andrews, 317.
Dundas, Thomas, Professor of Civil
Decretals, the main study in the early Law, ii. 364.
Italian Universities, i. 20.
Dunlop, Alexander Murray, M.P., ii.
Dick, Robert, Professor of Civil Law, 96, 99, 1o.
ii. 365.
Dunlop, Dr. Vans, his bequest to the
Dickson, David, Professor of Divinity, University, ii. 142-145.
ii. 281.
Dunlop, William, Professor of Church
Divinity, Reformers' scheme for teach- History, ii. 307.
ing, i. 63; Melville's course in, 83;
his scheme for New College, 93;
Rollock's teaching of, as Professor
E
of Theology, 157; change in teach-
ing of, at Paris, 163 (note); separate EDINBURGH, University of, its origins
Professor of, appointed in College and outset, i. 97-100; struggles to
of Edinburgh, 201 ; subscriptions obtain a site for, 100-107; Royal
for endowing the Chair of Divinity, sanction obtained, 107; Charter of
202; state of the Divinity Faculty Foundation, 107-121 ; Charter of
(1741), 334-336; honorary degrees James VI., 121-125; founded as a
in Divinity, 337; scheme of Com- College on the model of Geneva,
mission (1826) for degrees in, ii. 126, 127; purchase of building for,
46; Commission of 1858 decline to and appointment of a Head of,
legislate for, 131-132; Professors 128-133; opening of College, 137 ;
in the Faculty of Divinity, 280-292, Collegiate life and regulations, 138-
306-313, 461-464.
142; curriculum and classes, 143-
Donaldson, James, appointed tutor to 151 ; examination for degrees, 151-
the Greek class, ii. 79.
155 ; School of Theology created,
Donaldson, John, Professor of the 155-158; Professorship of Laws,
Theory of Music, ii. 459-461.
185-189; Tutorship of Humanity,
Douglas, Alexander, Professor of 189-195; Professorship of Divinity
Hebrew, ii. 288.
created, 201; Act of Confirmation,
INDEX.
501
204 ; Office of Rector, 205-212; Test Act, 87; movement for Uni-
Professorship of Hebrew created, versity reform, 89; the Universities
213; Professorship of Mathematics, Bill, 91-100; the Executive Com.
216; origin of the Medical School, mission, 100-103 ; Ordinances of
217-223; Professors of Medicine the Commission, 103-135; the
created, 223; Professorship of General Council, 103-105; election
Botany created, 220; the College of a Lord Rector, 105;. formation
styled a “University,” 225; Chair of the University Court, 106; Cura-
of Church History created, 231; torial Board appointed, 107; the
Chair of Public Law created, 232; Ferguson Scholarships, 122-125;
the Chancellorship, 234; draft the B.L. degree, 130-131; Univer-
Charter of James II., 235-238, 253- sity Endowments Association, 136 ;
257 ; degree in Civil Law conferred, foundation of Scholarships, 137-
238; the Faculty of Philosophy, 148; the Carlyle bequest, 146-148;
239; visitation of the College, 240- Chairs of Sanskrit, Engineering, and
244 ; College Records seized, 245- Geology, 148; Chair of Commercial
247 ; first organic change, 259; Law, 149 ; Chair of Theory, His-
the Faculty of Arts, 258-282; tory, and Practice of Education, 150;
Professorship of Greek, 260-262; Fine Art and Celtic Chairs, 151-
new curriculum, 262-264; Pro- 154 ; recent benefactions, 154-156;
fessors' Programmes, 266-268, 271. local examinations, 157 ; University
275 ; Chair of Rhetoric and Belles Education of Women, 158-163;
Lettres, 275-277 ; the Faculty of degrees, 163-165; enfranchisement
Laws, 282-292; Chair of Civil of the University, 167; the Uni-
History, 286; Chair of Scots Law, versity Library, 168-184; history
288-291 ; Chair of Medical Juris- of the University Buildings, 184.
prudence, 291; the Medical Faculty, 215; history of the Finances of the
292-333; Professorship of Anatomy, University, 215-235; Chancellors,
294-296; Chair of Chemistry, 296; 235; Rectors, 237; Principals,
Chair of Medicine, 307 ; the Medi- 238-278; Regents, 278-280; Pro-
cal Faculty founded, 311-313 ; fessors, 280-469; Notices of Student-
Chair of Midwifery, 315; Clinical Life, 469-495.
teaching established, 317; Chair of Elder, Adam, Monk of Kinloss, i. 165.
Botany, 317-319; additional Chairs Elliot, Sir Gilbert, Assessor, i. 241.
founded, 319-321; Chair of Clinical Elliot, Robert, Professor of Anatomy,
Surgery, 323; Chair of Military i. 295; ii. 385.
Surgery, 325; Chairs of Pathology Elphinston, William, Bishop of Aber-
and Surgery, 325-328; Medical deen, i. 26-39.
Degrees, 329-333; Faculty of Di- Erskine, John, Professor of Scots Law,
vinity, 334-338; Chair of Biblical his programme of lectures, i. 289;
Criticism, 337; Chair of Practical account of, ii. 372.
Astronomy, 338-344 ; Chair of Examinations, i. 8; for degrees, 151.
Agriculture, 344-348; Chair of 155 ; Medical, 330-333; entrance,
Music, 348-354 ; Chair of Tech- ii. 79-82 ; local, 157.
nology, 354-361; Relations of the
Senatus Academicus to the Town
Council, ii. 1-83 ; "Faculty” of
F
the College recognised, 7; increase
of Professors' fees, 12, 13; the “ FACULTY," a term used to mean the
Visitation of the University, 31-35 ;
Senatus Academicus, i. 239; dis-
the Royal Commission, 36-43; allowed by Town Council, 245, 246;
Scheme of the Commissioners, 43- ii. 5; recognised by them, 7.
52; extra-Academical classes, 71; Fairly, James, at Disputation at
induction of Professors, 76-78; Stirling, i. 172 ; Professor of Di.
entrance examinations,
79-82; vinity, ii. 280.
9)
502
INDEX.
ii. 391.
ii. 331.
Fenton, John, i. 107.
degrees conferred by the College of
Fenton, Bailie Thomas, protest of, Edinburgh, ii. 263.
against Senatus Academicus, ii. 5. Goldsmith, Oliver, ii. 493.
Ferguson, Adam, nominal Professor Goodall, John, Professor of Hebrew,
of Mathematics, ii. 302 ; Professor
ii. 289.
of Moral Philosophy, 339; account Goodsir, John, Professor of Anatomy,
of, 349.
Ferguson Scholarships, ii. 122-125. Gordon, John, appointed General Sec-
Ferme, Charles, Regent, i. 147 ; ii. retary of the University, ii. 58.
278.
Gowdie, John, Professor of Divinity,
Ferrerius, Joannes, epistle of, i. 43; i. 334 ; Principal, ii. 265.
lectures of, 163.
Graham, David, legacy of, to College
Ferrier, James Frederick, Professor of of Edinburgh, i. 208.
Civil History, ii. 370.
Graham, Robert, Professor of Botany,
Finances, History of University, ii.
ii. 384.
215-235.
Greek taught in the Montrose School,
Finlayson, James, Professor of Logic, i. 44 (note); provision for teaching
of, in the Book of Discipline, 65;
Fleming, John, gift of, for College introduced into the University of
buildings, i. 208.
Glasgow, 81; taught in the Bajan
Forbes, Edward, Professor of Natural class, Edinburgh, 149;
Greek
History, ii. 434.
Grammar taught by the Regent of
Forbes, James David, Professor of Humanity, 191; Greek only to be
Natural Philosophy, ii. 354-357. taught in Colleges, 208 ; Scott's
Fundatio Nova of King's College, patent for teaching, 260; not to be
Aberdeen, i, 9o.
taught in schools, 267 (note); its
neglect in Scotland, 269; entrance
examination in, proposed by Com-
G
mission (1826), ii. 45; enacted by
Town Council, 79-82 ; abolished by
GALLOWAY, Alexander, Rector of Commission (1858), 112; Professors
University of Aberdeen, i. 45. of Greek, 322-327.
Geneva, Academy of, i. 126, 127, Greenfield, William, Professor of Rhe-
176-178.
toric, ii. 358.
Gib, John, Provost of Kirk-of-Field, Gregory, David, Professor of Mathe-
matics, ii. 296.
Gibson, Joseph, Professor of Mid- Gregory, James, Professor of Institutes
wifery, i. 315; account of, ii. 415. of Medicine, ii. 404-406, 412.
Glasgow, University of, its founda- | Gregory, James, Professor of Mathe-
tion, i. 19-21; Faculty of Arts, matics, i. 215, 239 ; account of,
22-24 ; Mair's account of, 24 ; its ii. 295-296.
collapse, 25; new schemes for, 63; Gregory, James, secundus, Professor
bursaries founded and grants of land of Mathematics, ii. 297.
made by Mary Queen of Scots, 69, Gregory, John, Professor of the Prac-
70, 72; deed of New Foundation, tice of Physic, ii. 403; account of,
73-78; new curriculum introduced
411.
by Melville, 80-83; Erectio Regia, Gregory, William, Professor of Chem.
84-90; Chair of Latin founded, istry, ii. 399.
193; proposal of a Cursus Philoso-
phicus to be drawn up by the four
Universities, 210 ;
its Regents
H
changed to Professors, 263; it
maintains a three years' curriculum HALKET, James, appointed Professor
in Arts, 282; the University of of Medicine, i. 224 ; ii. 400.
Glasgow refuses to recognise the Hall, John, i. 195.
i. 103
ܪ
INDEX.
503
i. 17.
ii. 323.
;
Hamilton, Alexander, Professor of Hope, John, Solicitor-General, ii. 38.
Midwifery, i. 322 ; account of, ii. Hope, Sir Thomas, ii. 186.
;
416.
Humanity originally not confined to
Hamilton, Archbishop of St. Andrews, Latin, i. 78, 191; Regent of, ap-
pointed, 190 ; his duties and posi-
Hamilton House, i. 128, 129; ii. tion, 191, 192; is turned into a
184.
Professor, 162; Professors of Hu.
Hamilton, James, Professor of Mid- manity, ii. 317-322.
wifery, ii. 17; the cause of warfare Hume, David, Professor of Scots Law,
between Senatus and Town Council, opinion of, ii. 9-11; account of,
22-24 ; his victory, 56; account of, 373.
417-419.
Hunter, Andrew, Professor of Divinity,
Hamilton, Robert, Professor of Divin.
ii. 283.
ity, ii. 283.
Hunter, Robert, Professor of Greek,
Hamilton, Robert, Professor of Public
Law, ii. 317.
Hamilton, Sir William, appointed
I
Secretary of Senatus, ii. 58; his
quarrel with the Town Council, 63- INFIRMARY, foundation of the Royal,
67; his opinion upon the adminis- i. 305; extract from George Drum-
tration of University patronage, 98;
mond's Diary, 371.
account of, 332-335; Professor of Inglis, the Right Hon. John, his
Civil History, 369.
Universities Bill, ii. 91 ; his election
Hamilton, William, Principal of the as Chairman of the Universities
College, ii. 264.
Commission, 101 ; honorary degree
Hardy, Thomas, Professor of Church conferred upon, 102; elected Chan-
History, ii. 309.
cellor of University, 236.
Harly, Jonathan, Graduate in Medi. Innes, Cosmo, Professor of Civil His-
cine, i. 312.
tory, ii. 370.
Henderson, Alexander, Rector of Col. Innes, John, i. 308, 310; Professor
lege of Edinburgh, i. 207-209 ; of Medicine, 313; his lectures, 315.
changes made under his auspices, Irving, Alexander, Professor of Civil
213, 214.
Law, ii. 366.
Henderson, Thomas, Professor of Prac-
tical Astronomy, i. 341-342, 380;
J
account of, ii. 362-364.
Henderson, William, Professor of JAMES II., grant of, to the Bishops of
Pathology, ii. 450.
Edinburgh, i. 234; his draft charter,
Hepburn, John, Prior of St. Andrews, 235-237, 253-257.
James IV., Petitions of, i. 28, 35;
Hill, John, Professor of Humanity, charter of, 31-33.
James VI., charters of, i. 107-126; at
Hislop, Philip, Regent, i. 146; ii. 278. Stirling, 171-175; other relations
Hodgson, W. B., Professor of Politi- to College of Edinburgh, 175, 176;
cal Economy, ii. 466-469.
his expedition to Norway, 186; his
Home, Francis, Professor of Materia warrant for the establishment of a
Medica, i. 319; account of, ii. 424. College of Physicians, 221.
Home, James, Professor of the Prac-Jameson, Robert, Professor of Natural
tice of Physic, ii. 412 ; Professor of
;
History, i. 375; account of, ii. 433.
Materia Medica, 424.
Johnson, Dr., visit to the University
Hope, Charles, Professor of Chemistry, of Edinburgh, ii. 195.
Johnston, John, supervisor of College
Hope, John, Professor of Botany and affairs, i. 199.
Materia Medica, i. 318; account Jossie, John, College Treasurer, ii. 187.
of, ii. 382.
Julius III., Bull of, i. 17,
i. 15.
ii. 319.
ii. 397
504
INDEX
K
into Tutorship of Humanity, 189;
Public Law, Chair of, created, 232;
KAITERPULLIES, what? ii. 472.
degree in Civil Law conferred, 238;
Keith, William, Professor of Divinity, Faculty of Laws established, 283-
ii. 281.
288; programmes of, 289; Chair
Kelland, Philip, Professor of Mathe- of Medical Jurisprudence added to,
matics, ii. 304.
291; also of Conveyancing, 292;
Kennedy, Bishop, i. 11.
Scheme of Commission (1826) for
Ker, John, Professor of Humanity, degree in Laws, ii. 46; Ordinance
i. 275 ; ii. 318.
;
of Commission (1858) for LL.B.
King, Robert, i. 107.
degree, 128; degree of B.L. intro-
King's College, Aberdeen, foundation duced, 130; Professors of Laws,
of, i. 36-39.
313-317, 364-378.
Kirk-of-Field, treaty for, i. 101 ; its Lawson, James, i. 105-107; banish-
Provosts, 101-103 ; its purchase by ment and death, 158.
the Town, 107 ; history of, 169-171. Laycock, Thomas, Professor of the
Kirkpatrick, William, Professor of Practice of Physic, ii. 413.
Public Law, ii. 314.
Lee, John, Principal, ii. 271-274 ;
Professor of Divinity, 287.
Lee, Robert, Professor of Biblical
L
Criticism, ii. 461-464.
Leighton, Robert, Principal, i. 259;
LAING, David, ii. 180.
account of, ii, 246-252.
Latin, the language of, teaching and Leonard, St., College of, i. 12-14.
conversation in the College of Edin- Leslie, John, Professor of Mathematics,
burgh, i. 136; failure of entrants to
i
ii. 300; Professor of Natural Philo.
pass in, 137; higher standard of,
sophy, 354.
after Renaissance, 193; Chairs of, Library, University, history of, ii.
founded, 193 (note); Sibbald's ad- Appendix P, 168; graduates ad-
vertisement in, 227 ; Scotland mitted to use of, 83.
famous for its Latinity, 269. Lister, Joseph, Professor of Clinical
Lauder, candidate for Chair of Hu- Surgery, ii. 441.
manity, ii. 318.
Liston, David, Professor of Hebrew,
Law, Robert, teacher of Greek, i.
267 ; ii. 323.
Liston, Sir R., ii. 489.
Law, William, Professor of Moral Little, Clement, i. 105.
Philosophy, ii. 335.
Little, William, i. 105.
Law taught imperfectly at Glasgow, Louvain, University of, the model for
i. 23; Elphinstone goes abroad to that of Glasgow, i. 21.
study it, 26; Act of James IV. Low, David, Professor of Agriculture,
requiring barons' sons to learn it,
ii. 456.
27; ecclesiastics encouraged to study Lumisden, Regent of Philosophy, ii.
it at Aberdeen, 35; Canon Law 278.
taught there as at Paris, Civil as at Luna, Peter de, i. 2; vide Benedict
Orleans, 39; Reformers' scheme XIII.
for teaching Law, 63; Melville's
scheme for, 92; Laws, mention of,
M
in the Charter of James VI., 123;
Bishop Reid's idea of a College for, MACDOUGALL, Patrick Campbell, Pro-
167 ; Professorship of, founded by fessor of Moral Philosophy, ii. 77 ;
College of Justice, 184; curious account of, 347.
treatment of, by first Professors, Mace, history of the University, i.
185-187; hypothesis as to, 188; Appendix G, 250.
jealousy of the clergy towards a Law Mackay, Æneas J. G., Professor of
Faculty, 188; Chair of Laws turned History, ii. 371.
ii. 291.
INDEX.
505
ii. 454.
271; his
Mackenzie, William, candidate for Surgery, i. 327; his Bill, ii. 52,
degree of M.A., i. 277.
53.
Mackie, Charles, Professor of History, Meldrum, George, Professor of Divin-
i. 286; account of, ii. 367.
ity, ii. 283.
Macknight, candidate for Chair of Melville, Andrew, i. 78-83; his
Mathernatics, ii. 303.
schemes for University reform, 83-
Maconochie, Allan, Professor of Public 94 ; his removal to St. Andrews,
Law, ii. 315.
95.
Macpherson, Norman, appointed Pro- Melville, Sir John, ii. 106.
fessor of Scots Law, ii. 376. Menzies, Allan, ii. 39; Professor of
Mair, John, criticism of, i. 47, 48. Conveyancing, 377.
Maitland, Edward, Lord Barcaple, ii. M'Gill, John, Professor of Anatomy,
106,
i. 296 ; ii. 385.
Marischall College, i. 204 ; Appendix Miller, James, Professor of Surgery,
F, 247.
Mary Queen of Scots, Charters of, i. Mitchell, Nathaniel, candidate for
70-73; erroneously supposed founder degree of M.A., i. 277.
of University of Edinburgh, 97-99; M‘Kenzie, Kenneth, Professor of Civil
Town Council's petition to, 100. Law, ii. 365.
Mary's, St., College, i. 16-18; Mel. M‘Laurin, Colin, Professor of Mathe-
ville's scheme for, 93.
matics; his programme,
;
i.
Maxwell, Sir William Stirling, Lord efforts to provide an Observatory,
Rector, ii. 237.
378; account of, ii. 298-301.
M‘Douall, Charles, appointed to the Moir, George, Professor of Rhetoric,
Hebrew Chair, ii. 75-77.
ii. 359; Professor of Scots Law,
Medicine taught and then discontinued 375.
in St. Mary's College, i. 16-17 ; |-Moncreiff, Lord, his Test Act, ii. 88;
teaching of, at Aberdeen, 32, 37,
his draft Universities Bill, 91;
43 ; scheme of Reformers for teach- member of the Universities Com-
ing, 63; Melville's scheme for, 92; mission, 100; honorary degree con-
Medicine mentioned in Charter of ferred upon, 102; elected Lord
James VI., 123; Medical School in Rector, ii. 237.
Edinburgh, beginnings of, 217-222; Monro, Alexander, Principal of the
three nominal Professors of Medicine College of Edinburgh, ii, 254-256;
created, 223-224; Medical Faculty, anecdotes of, 478.
history of foundation of, 294-317 ; Monro, Alexander, primus, Professor
Chairs of Botany, Materia Medica, of Anatomy, i. 298-304 ; account
and Natural History added to, 318- of, ii. 386.
320 ; also Clinical Surgery, 322; Monro, Alexander, secundus, Professor
also Military Surgery, 324; also of Anatomy, ii. 387-389.
Surgery and Pathology, 327; Medi- Monro, Alexander, tertius, Professor
cal graduation, 329; successive regu- of Anatomy, ii. 389-391,
lations for, 330-333; conflicts with Monro, John, President of Surgeons,
Town Council as to, ii. 17-35 ; i. 298.
scheme of Commission (1826) for, Montague College, i. 131; Appendix
44; recognition of extra-mural E, 178.
teaching in Medicine, 68-75; Ordi. Monteith, Robert, candidate for the
nance of Commission (1858) for Divinity Chair, ii. 280.
graduation in Medicine, 108-112; Moodie, William, Professor of Hebrew,
Professors in the Faculty of, ii. 378-
456.
More, expulsion of Andrew, ii. 480.
Meiklejohn, Hugh, Professor of Church More, John Schank, Professor of
History, ii. 309.
Scots Law, ii. 375.
Melbourne, Lord, representation to, Muir, Dr. John, ii. 134; Sanskrit
concerning Chairs of Pathology and Chair endowed by, 148.
ii. 290.
506
INDEX.
ii. 399.
ii. 379.
Murray, Alexander, , Professor of Physicians, Royal College of, i. 221-
Hebrew, ii. 290.
224.
Museum, Natural History, i. 319 ; Pierson, Hugo, Professor of the Theory
Appendix K, 374; dispute with of Music, ii. 459.
the Town Council concerning, ii. Pillans, James, Professor of Human-
60; of Science and Art, i. 355. ity, ii. 80, 84 ; account of, 321.
Myllar, Andrew, patent for printing Pitcairne, Archibald ; appointed Pro-
press granted to, i. 27.
fessor of Medicine, i. 224 ; ii. 400.
Myln, Abbot, letter of, i. 49, 50. Plague, outbreak of the, i. 145.
Playfair, John, Professor of Mathe-
matics, ii. 302; Professor of Natural
N
Philosophy, 353.
Playfair, Lyon, Professor of Chemistry,
NAIRN, Duncan, i. 137, 145; ii. 278.
Nairne, James, his bequest of books Playfair, William, Architect for Uni-
to the College Library, ii. 178. versity buildings, ii.
Napier, Macvey, lecturer on Convey. Plummer, Andrew, Physician, i. 308,
ancing, i. 292; account of, ii. 376. 310; Professor of Medicine and
Neaves, Lord, ii. 105.
Chemistry, 313; his lectures, 315;
New College, foundation of, i. 17. account of, ii. 293.
Newton, Adam, Professor of Laws, i. Porterfield, William, Professor of
185.
Medicine, i. 307.
Nicholas V., Bull of, i. 19.
Preston, Charles, Professor of Botany,
Niebuhr, Berthold George, ii. 493.
Nimmo, Divinity Student, ii. 480. Preston, George, Professor of Botany,
i. 309, 318; account of, ii. 380.
Prestongrange, Lord, Rector of Col-
O
lege of Edinburgh, i. 205.
Prince, Sir Magnus, Provost of Edin-
OBSERVATORY, Edinburgh, i. 341 ; burgh, i. 234.
Appendix L, 37.
Principals of the College of Edinburgh,
Ogilvie, Henry, bearer of Papal docu- ii. 238-278.
ments, i. 7.
Pringle, John, Professor of Moral
Oldfield, Joshua, Doctor of Divinity, Philosophy, programme of lectures,
i. 274 ; account of, ii. 337.
Otto, Julius Conradus, Professor of Pringle, John, Professor of Universal
Hebrew, i. 214; ii. 288.
History, ii. 368.
Privileges, i. 5.
Pulteney, Sir William Johnstone,
P
founder of Chair of Agriculture, i.
344-346.
Pedagium, meaning of, i. 76 (note).
Pædagogium of St. Andrews, i. 9, 10,
R
15, 16; of Glasgow, 22.
Paterson, Bishop, his claim to be re- RAMSAY, Andrew, appointed Rector
cognised as Chancellor of the Uni- of Edinburgh College, i. 198, 199;
versity of Edinburgh, i. 234.
his resignation, 200 ; his reappoint-
Patterson, John Brown, ii. 39; Ap- ment, 209, 210; ii. 280.
pendix N, 83
Ramsay, Sir Andrew, Provost of Edin-
Paul III., Bull of, i. 16.
burgh, i. 211,
Penicuik, John, Provost of Kirk.of. Ramsay, Robert, Professor of Natural
Field, i. 101, 102.
History, i. 319, 374; account of,
Periodicals, University, ii. 489-492.
Perth, Earl of, his aid in procuring a Ray, John, Regent of Humanity, ii.
College of Physicians, i. 222.
279.
i. 337
ii. 431.
INDEX.
507
as
ii. 375.
Rector of the College of Geneva, i. | Robertson, James, Professor of Church
177 ; of the College of Edinburgh, History, ii. 311.
198; functions of, 199, 205, 206; Robertson, Mrs. Stark, i. 348-352,
Henderson's services Rector, 382.
207-209 ; his successors, 210; the Robertson, Patrick, his defence of the
Lord Provost made perpetual Rec- Students, i. 212 ; ii. 482.
tor, 211, 212; this title revived Robertson, Principal, ii. 266-270 ;
(1825), ii. 32, 33; recognised by anecdote of, 329.
the Senatus, 56.
Robison, John, Professor of Natural
Rectors of the old Universities, i. 5, Philosophy, ii. 351-353.
26, 30; Rectorial visitation, 45; Rollock, Robert, i. 131-132; his Com-
;
Douglas twenty-three times Rector, mission, 133; his emoluments, 134-
57 ; Reformers' scheme for election
136 ; appointed Principal and Pro-
and powers of, 60, 62; Rector at fessor of Theology, 155-158 ; his
Glasgow, 73, 74; scheme of Com- pupils, ii. 278; account of, 238.
mission (1826) for election and 242.
duties of Rector of University of Roman Catholic Church, what it did
Edinburgh, ii. 41 ; provisions for, in for the Scotch Universities, i. 48.
Universities Act (1858), 92, 99; Ross, George, Professor of Scots Law,
first election of Lord Rector, 106;
Rectors of the University, 237. Row, John, i. 57, 58.
Rectors of High Schools, i. 130 (note); | Rule, Alexander, Professor of Hebrew,
Rector of Edinburgh High School ii. 288.
formerly called Principal, 192. Rule, Gilbert, Principal, i. 239 ;
Regent, meaning of the term, i. 61; account of, ii. 256-258.
Regents, by the Erectio Regia, to Russell, James, Professor of Clinical
teach special subjects, 87; same Surgery, i. 322; account of, ii.
rule for Aberdeen, 90; Regenting 437.
system in College of Edinburgh, Russell, James, Professor of Natural
145-147 ; Regenting proper for a Philosophy, ii. 350.
College, not for a University, 182; Rutherford, Daniel, Professor of
Regent of Humanity, 191; mut- Botany, ii. 382-384.
iny of the Regents, 240; Regents Rutherford, John, i. 308-310; ap-
turned into Professors at Edin- pointed Professor of Medicine, 313;
burgh, 262; in the other Univer- his lectures, 315; account of, ii.
sities, 263 ; Regents of Philosophy, 411.
ii. 278-280.
Reid, Bishop of Orkney, i. 97, 98;
S
Appendix A, 159.
Reid, General John, i. 348-354; Ap- SALVATOR's, St., College, foundation
pendix M, 382.
of, i. Il-12.
Reid, James, at Stirling Disputation, Sands, Patrick, appointed Principal
i. 172; treatment by the Ministry, of College of Edinburgh, i. 197 ;
196.
his resignation, 200; Latin verses
Reid, Walter, Abbot of Kinloss, i. by, ii. 217; Regent of Philosophy,
165.
278; account of, 243.
Richard II., Writ of, i. 2.
Sanders, William Rutherford, Professor
Ritchie, David, Professor of Logic, ii. of Pathology, ii. 451.
332.
Scarborough, Sir Charles, Physician,
Ritchie, William, Professor of Divinity, i. 221.
Scholarships, the Ferguson, ii, 122-
Robertson, George, Regent of Philo. 125; in the Faculty of Arts, 137 ;
sophy, ii. 279.
in Science, 139; in Divinity, 140;
Robertson, James, College Librarian, in Medicine, 141; the Vans Dunlop,
ii. 174; Professor of Hebrew, 289. 142-145.
ii. 283
508
INDEX.
i. 241.
i. 105.
Scots College, i. Appendix E, 178.
.
Spottiswoode, John, i. 57.
Scott, Sir Walter, ii. 493.
Spottiswoode, John, lectures upon
Scott, William, his edition of Grotius, Roman and Scottish Law, i. 284.
i. 233; his class, 239, 242; Pro- Standonc, John, Principal of Montague
fessor of Greek, 260-262 ; account College, i. 179.
of, ii. 322; Professor of Moral Stevenson, John, Professor of Logic,
Philosophy, 336.
ii. 328-330.
Scott, William, secundus, Professor Stevenson, Robert Louis, ii. 492.
of Greek, ii. 323.
Stevenson, William, Professor of
Scougall, Patrick, Divinity Chair Church History, ii. 312.
offered to, ii. 281.
Stewart, Alexander, i. 14-16.
Scrimger, Alexander, Regent, i. 146; Stewart, Dugald, Professor of Mathe-
ii. 278.
matics, ii. 301; Professor of Moral
Scrimger, Henry, Professor at Geneva, Philosophy, 340-342.
i. 178.
Stewart, Sir James, Lord Advocate,
Sharp, John, Professor of Divinity, ii.
280.
Stewart, John, Professor of Natural
Sibbald, Sir Robert, his work in con- Philosophy, ii. 349.
nection with the Medical School, Stewart, Matthew, Professor of Mathe-
i. 217-222 ; appointed Professor of matics, ii. 301.
Medicine, 224 ; his advertisement, Stewart, Robert, Professor of Natural
227; his Natural History Collection, Philosophy, i. 262; programme of
374 ; ii. 400.
lectures, 272 ; account of, ii. 348.
Simpson, Andrew, Perth, schoolmaster, Stirling, Disputation at, i. 110; Ap-
pendix C, 171.
Simpson, James Young, Professor of Stirling, James, Mathematical Chair
Midwifery, ii. 419-423.
offered to, ii. 301.
Simson, John, charge of unorthodoxy Strachan, John, Professor of Divinity,
brought against, ii. 4.
ii. 256, 282.
Sinclair, Andrew, i. 308, 310 ; ap-Struthers, William, i. 196.
pointed Professor of Medicine, 313; Stuart, George, Professor of Humanity,
his lectures, 315; account of, ii. 401. ii. 318; College Librarian, 174.
Sinclair, George, Tutor of Mathematics, Stuart, James, Regent Murray, peti-
tion to, i. 100; at Dieppe, 162.
Skene, Professor of Civil History, his Student-Life, notices of, ii. 469-495.
treatment by the Town Council, ii. Sutherland, James, Professor of Botany,
67 ; his appointment to the Chair, i. 218-220, 317; account of, ii. 378.
370.
Swinton, Archibald Campbell, Profes-
Small, John, appointed College Libra- sor of Civil Law, ii. 366.
rian, ii. 175.
Syme, James, letter to the Town
Smeton, Thomas, i. 91.
Council, ii. 68-69; account of,
Smith, Adam, lectures on Taste and 438-441.
Composition, i. 276.
Smith, James, Principal of the College
T
of Edinburgh, ii. 264.
Smith, Robert, Professor of Midwifery, TARVET, Church of St. Michael de, i.
i. 316 ; ii. 415.
ii. 294.
7
16.
Societies and Clubs of the Students, Thomson, Allen, Professor of the In-
ii. 484-487.
stitutes of Medicine, ii. 409.
Somerville of Sauchton Hall, his giſt Thomson, John, Professor of Surgery,
to the College of Edinburgh, i. 202. i. 324-327 ; account of, 441-444 ;
Spalding, William, Professor of Rhe- Professor of Pathology, 450.
toric, ii. 360.
Thomson, John, Professor of the Theory
Spence, James, Professor of Surgery, of Music, i. 352 ; account of, ii.
.
ii. 455.
458.
INDEX
509
Thomson, Wyville T. C., Professor of lose the patronage of the Univer-
Natural History, ii. 435-437. sity, 97 ; their last appointment of
Town Council of Edinburgh, the, to- a Principal, 102; their continued
gether with the Ministers, the real interest in the University, 209
founders of the University, i. 99; (note); their grant of Mortcloth
their efforts towards this end, 100- dues to the College, 218; their
106; they obtain the royal sanction, bankruptcy, 223-225; remarks on
107; receive charters, ull; fit up their financial administration of
Hamilton House, 128; appoint the University, 225-229; their re-
Rollock, 132; make College re- gulations for the government of
gulations, 138-155; visit the Col- Students, 469-473.
lege, 159; reproved by James VI. Traill, Thomas Stewart, Professor of
for appointing Boyd Principal, 176; Medical Jurisprudence, ii. 449.
appoint a Rector to the College, Turnbull, Bishop of Glasgow, i. 19.
198; confer the Rectorship on the Turner, John William, Professor of
Lord Provost perpetually, 211; Surgery, i. 327; account of, ii. 452.
.
style the College a “University,” | Tytler, Alexander Fraser, Professor of
",
224 ; hold a visitation of the Col- Universal History, ii. 368.
lege, 240 ; seize the College re- Tytler, William Fraser, Professor of
cords, 245; present a new Mace, Universal History, ii. 368.
251; change the Regents into
Professors, 262; make Professors
of Law and History, 284-288;
U
establish the Medical School of
the University, 292-315; their UNIVERSITY, meaning of the term, i.
dispute with the Senatus as to the 29; universitates of various kinds
right of electing a member of in the Middle Ages, 30 : Mair's
General Assembly, ii. 3; they account of the Scotch Universities,
acknowledge the “Faculty" of the 47-48; University identified with
College, 7 ; for eighty years main- a College, 88; Universities re-
tain harmonious relations to the garded with jealousy after the Re-
University, 8; interfere with fees formation, 125; difference between
and Library Fund, 8-17; order a University and a College, 181-
Midwifery to be made a necessary 183; when the College of Edin-
subject, 17 - 30; interfere with burgh became virtually a University,
“small fees,” 31; hold a visitation 184; draft charter of James II.
of the University, 32-35; defeat for making it a University, 235-
the Senatus at law, 53-55 ; appoint 237, 253-257 ; John Knox's warn-
a General Secretary of the Univer- ing against the bondage of the
sity, 58; open the University Universities, 280; Universities
Museum to the public, 60; are (Scotland) Bill, ii. 91-100; Uni-
complimented by Government, 62; versity Court, 106.
their controversy with Sir W.
Hamilton, 63-67 ; their dismissal
of Professor Skene, 67 ; they order
V
the recognition of extra - mural
classes, 71; and defeat the Senatus Vaus, John, i. 42.
at law on the point, 74; they at-
tempt to appoint a Free Church
Professor of Hebrew, 75; but are
W
defeated at law, 76; they claim
the induction of Professors, 77; WALKER, John, Professor of Natural
they institute Entrance Examina- History, i. 320; account of, ii. 432.
i
tions, 79-82; they admit graduates Wallace, Robert, Professor of Church
to use of Library, 83; they partly History, ii. 313.
ވެ
510
INDEX.
>
Wallace, William, Professor of Mathe- | Wilson, John, Professor of Moral
matics, ii. 304.
Philosophy, ii. 345-347.
Wallace, William, Professor of Scots | Winram, John, i. 57.
Law, ii. 372.
Wishart, William, Professor of Di-
Wardlaw, Bishop, i. 1.9.
vinity, i. 334 ; Moderator of the
Watson, lecturer on Taste and Com. Assembly, ii. 4 ; Principal, 263,
position, i. 276.
Wishart, William, secundus, Principal
Watson-Gordon Chair, ii. 151.
of the College, ii. 264.
Watt, Adam, Professor of Humanity, Wotherspoon, John, candidate for
ii. 318.
degree of M, A., i. 277.
Webster, James, Minister of the Tol-
booth, ii, 4.
Welsh, David, Professor of Church
Y
History, ii. 310.
Whytt, Robert, Professor of the In-
stitutes of Medicine, ii. 401. YOUNG, Andrew, at Stirling Disputa-
Wilde, John, Professor of Civil Law, tion, i. 172.
ii. 365.
Young, Andrew, Professor of Mathe-
Williams, Daniel, Doctor of Divinity, matics, ii, 293.
Young, John, Tutor of Mathematics,
Willock, John, i. 57.
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i. 337
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