• . N ^2^V ' .- ■ ■ LIBRARY OF THE University of California. GIFT OF" L^J-Lr\jdjULrv> \A/S&Lr*!!< \jJLr^Xs^\ Class Q Aberdeen University Studies : No. 6 Rectorial Addresses Universities of Aberdeen UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN. COMMITTEE ON PUBLICATIONS. Convener: Professor James W. H. Trail, M.A., M.D., F.R.S., Curator of the University Library. UNIVERSITY STUDIES. General Editor : P. J. Anderson, M.A., LL.B., Librarian to the University. No. i. — Roll of Alumni in Arts of the University and King's College of Aberdeen, 1596-1860. Edited by P. J. Anderson. 1900. No. 2. — Records of Old Aberdeen, 1157-1891. Edited by Alexander Macdonald Munro, F.S.A. Scot. Vol. I. 1900. No. 3. — Place Names of West Aberdeenshire. By the late James Macdonald, F.S.A. Scot. 1900. No. 4. — The Family of Burnett of Leys. By the late George Burnett, LL.D., Lyon King of Arms. 1901. No. 5. — Records of Invercauld, 1547-1828. Edited by the Rev. John Qrant Michie, M.A. 1901. No. 6. — Rectorial Addresses delivered in the Universities of Aberdeen, 1835-1900. Edited by P. J. Anderson. 1902. No. 7. — The Albemarle Papers, 1746-48. Edited by Charles Sanford Terry, M.A., Lecturer in History in the University. 1902. No. 8. — The House of Gordon. Edited by John Malcolm Bulloch, M.A. Vol. I. 1902. ^L^z^t^t Rectorial Addresses delivered in the Universities of Aberdeen 1835— 1900 Edited by Peter John Anderson, M.A., LL.B. University Librarian and formerly Rector's Assessor in the University Court or THE I UNIVERSITY OF Aberdeen Printed for the University 1902 4^4 THE ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS LIMITED. PREFACE Collections of Rectorial Addresses delivered in St Andrews, in Glasgow, and in Edinburgh, were published in the respective years 1894, 1848, and 1900. In Aberdeen the area of editorial selection is wider than elsewhere. Before i860 a Rector was elected every year in Marischal College and University, and at longer intervals in University and King's College. It is believed that old students of Aberdeen may be no less ready than those of the sister universities to welcome a volume that will recall one of the most engrossing and picturesque episodes of their College days. Permission to reprint the Addresses delivered by them has been cordially granted by the Marquis of Huntly, the Earl of Rosebery, Viscount Goschen, Lord Strathcona, Sir M. E. Grant Duff, and Emeritus Professor Bain ; while Earl Russell, Mr. Leonard Huxley and Mr. Arnold Forster have authorised the reproduction of the Addresses by the first Earl Russell, Professor Huxley and Mr. W. E. Forster. A selection is given of Addresses by earlier Rectors, from Dr. John Abercrombie, Rector of Marischal College in 1835, to Lord President Inglis, Rector of King's College in 1857, and E. F. Maitland, Lord Barcaple, first Rector of the united University in i860. Appended will be found a full list of Aberdeen Rectors from the earliest times, with notes on Rectorial -*- i a Elections and Inaugurations, as illustrative of student life and manners at different periods. These notes are mainly drawn from the file of the Aberdeen Journal (1748- 1900) in the University Library, and from the students' magazine, Alma Mater (1883- 1900). Occasional use has been made of the files of the Aberdeen Chronicle (1806-32) succeeded by the Aberdeen Herald (1832-76); the Aberdeen Observer (1829-37) succeeded by the Aberdeen Constitutional (18 35 '-44) ; and the North of Scotland Gazette (1847-53) succeeded by the Aberdeen Free Press (1853-1900). The MS. collections of the late Professor William Knight, which Miss Knight has courteously allowed the Editor to examine, have supplied much interesting matter. The Editor is indebted to his friend, Mr. John Malcolm Bulloch, M.A., for a chapter on "The Rectorship, its origin, its meaning, and its practical value." The plate of the view of Marischal College in 1835 has been kindly lent by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland ; and the negative of the photograph of King's College by Mr. W. F. Webster, Old Aberdeen. The Editor has also to thank Charles Scribner's Sons for permission to reproduce an illustra- tion, " The students' rectorial fight," which appeared in Scribners Magazine for June, 1901. P. J. A. ibth September, 1902. VI CONTENTS PAQE The Rectorship, its origin, its meaning and its practical value. By John Malcolm Bulloch ... 3 The culture and discipline of the mind. By John Abercrombie, Rector of Marischal College and University, 1835, 1836 45 Systems of education. By [Sir] Archibald Alison, Rector of Marischal College, 1845, 1846 • • 62 The influence of education upon character. By [Sir] Austen Henry Layard, Rector of Marischal College, 1855, 1856 73 University reform. By John Inglis [Lord Glencorse], Rector of University and King's College, 1857 . 92 The true aim of study. By Philip, fifth Earl Stanhope, Rector of Marischal College, 1858 . . . 107 Scottish University life — its objects, its pleasures and its duties. By Edward Francis Maitland [Lord Barcaple], Rector of the University of Aberdeen, i860 121 The general aspect of the world : Does it teach us to hope or to despond ? By John, first Earl Russell, Rector, 1863 138 The changes most wanted in Aberdeen University. By [Sir] Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff, Rector, 1866, 1869 153 Universities, actual and ideal. By Thomas Henry Huxley, Rector, 1872 170 The University a trainer of politicians. By William Edward Forster, Rector, 1875 . • • • !99 History and a chair of history. By Archibald, fifth Earl of Rosebery, Rector, 1878 .... 223 The University ideal, past and present. By Alexander Bain, Rector, 188 1, 1884 241 Intellectual interest. By George Joachim [Viscount] Goschen, Rector, 1887 259 Social interest. By Charles, eleventh Marquis of Huntly, Rector, 1890, 1893, 1896 . . . 280 Imperialism and the Empire. By Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, Rector, 1899. . . . 305 The Rectors of University and King's College, 1498- 1857 329 The Rectors of Marischal College and University, 1619-1859 342 The Rectors of the University of Aberdeen, i860- 1899 363 Index of Rectors ....... 395 ILLUSTRATIONS Alexander Bain, LL.D., Rector, 1881-87 ; from a photograph by Macmahon, Aberdeen ...... Frontispiece Marischal College in 1835 ; from a drawing by the late James Skene of Rubislaw Page 45 King's College ; from a photograph by Mr. W. F. Webster ,,92 Election squib : Mr. Grant Duff and Sir W. Stirling Maxwell, 1869 . . „ 374-5 Election cartoons: Dr. Bain and Lord Randolph Churchill, 1884 . . „ 383-4 Election cartoon : Lord Huntly and Dr. Hunter, 1893 „ 388 The students' rectorial fight in 1896 ; from a painting by Mr. Howard Giles . „ 390 THE RECTORSHIP " Sicut in Parisiensi et Bononiensi Generalibus Studiis." — Bull of Pope Alexander VI., erecting Aberdeen University, 1494-95. It is not only in its curriculum — in the wide range and the regular suc- cession of subjects prescribed to its students — that the Scotch University preserves to this day the impress of the Middle Ages. Here alone perhaps in Europe were the bulk of the students in the Arts Faculty, till very recently, boys of about the same age as the Artists of mediaeval Paris and Oxford. The average age is still below that of most Universities. Here also does the ancient Chancellorship — no longer held by a Bishop — survive side by side with the Rectorship. Above all, here alone do the students — students still at Glasgow and Aberdeen divided into Nations under the government of Proctors — elect the head of the University. These Scotch Rectorial elections, now used as the means of paying a triennial homage to some distinguished public man, reproduce perhaps more both of the outward mechanism and of the ancient spirit of mediaeval student life than any feature of the more venerable, but also in some respects far more altered, constitutions of Oxford and Cambridge. — (Mr. Hastings Rashdall's Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages (1895), vol. ii., pt. i., pp. 314-15). The Rectorship: its Origin, its Meaning, and its Practical Value It is a paradox strange but true that the distinction attaching in the mind of the layman to the Rectorship of a modern Scots University has resulted in the stultification of the original significance of the office. Without that dis- tinction, conferred through the election of popular politicians, notable writers and eminent men of science, chosen mainly for their oratorical gifts, this volume would not have been printed. Without the significance, which is as valid as ever, this introduction would be unnecessary. The times are peculiarly ripe for a generation which is crying loudly for efficiency, to remove the stultification, to abandon oratorical ornament and to return to business : and an examination of the origin of the Rectorship will demonstrate that its purpose is as valuable to-day as ever it was for the proper government of the University. True, Mr. Hastings Rashdall in his admirable book, The Uni- versities of Europe in the Middle Ages, while admitting that our Rectorial elections " reproduce perhaps more both of the outward mechanism and of the ancient spirit of mediaeval student life than any feature of the more venerable, but also in some respects far more altered, constitutions of Oxford and Cambridge," records without a protest that they are " now used as the means of paying a triennial homage to some distinguished public man." It is an undoubted fact that the student autonomy involved in the Rectorship, which was contemplated by the original founders of the Scots Universities, early sank in practice to what Mr. Rash- dall calls a mere phantom, although it is in these very Universities that the doctrine has longest maintained its ground. Thus the Universities Act of 1858, by no means a sentimental measure, made the Lord Rector — elected The Rectorship: its Origin solely by the undergraduates — President of the University Court, the chief governing body of the academic corporation ; and the Act of 1889 empowered him to confer with the Students' Representative Council on the selection of an Assessor, although, as if frighted by the excess of demo- cracy, it reduced the student representation in the Court from one-third, as arranged by the Universities Act of 1858, to one-seventh. It might plausibly be argued that the Universities Com- missioners would not have made even that concession but for the fact that the system of electing as Rectors distin- guished absentees, and thus making the President of the Court a " mere phantom," was likely to prevail ; but having got so much, the electors have only to exercise a little common sense in order to benefit fully by the proud position which their special representative occupies in the administra- tion of the University. Having thus explained how the inherent importance of the office is absolutely wasted by a distinguished absentee, and how it receives but little com- pensation from the delivery of an address, however eloquent, one may consider how the Rectorship came into existence and what it was intended to do in the economy of a Uni- versity. It must strike the casual observer as remarkable that a constitution so democratic as that which marks the Scots Universities should have been granted by the Papal power, and the wonder increases when the genesis of the Rector- ship is understood, for the office, created in Bologna by and for the students, was adopted by the masters of Paris for the express purpose of fighting the Church. The meaning of the Rectorship cannot be grasped until one knows that the word Universitas connotes nothing so well defined as our modern " University." Universitas in its first use signified simply "a number, a plurality, an aggregate of persons ; Universitas vestra, in a letter addressed to a body of persons, means merely ' the whole of you.' " In the earliest period the word was never used absolutely. The phrase was " University of Scholars," "University of Masters and Scholars," and the like. The word which was used to denote the academic institution in the abstract was Studium Meaning and Practical Value rather than Universitas. Mr. Rashdall, who acknowledges his deep debt to the monumental work of the Dominican Father, Heinrich Denifle, sums up the position neatly when he says : — There was originally no necessary connexion between the in- stitution denoted by the term Universitas and that denoted by the term Studium Generate [which means not a place where all subjects are studied, but a place where students from all parts are received]. Societies of Masters or Clubs of Students were formed before the term Studium Generate came into habitual use ; and in a few instances such Societies are known to have existed in Schools which never be- came Studia Generalia. The University was originally a scholastic Guild whether of Masters or Students. Such Guilds sprang into existence, like other Guilds, without any express authorisation of King, Pope, Prince or Prelate. They were spontaneous products of that instinct of association which swept like a great wave over the towns of Europe in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The development of Universitas, the mere general "plurality" into the well-defined "plurality" which was bent on education under an organised system, is exceedingly instructive. The process was initiated on the lines of secularism, and takes us back to Italy and the twelfth- century Renaissance. It was further developed under totally different circumstances in the University of Paris. The Renaissance affected the countries south and north of the Alps in different ways. In Italy it found a most favourable soil in that civic civilisation which was the legacy of Rome, and which the conquest by the barbarians had never managed to destroy. In Northern Europe on the other hand the cities which the Caesars had planted were too young to withstand the shock of the downfall ; and so it came to pass that the Church, drawing its impulses from Rome, had alone managed to preserve the continuity of civilisation ; and the Church was able to manipulate the new impulses to its own ends. In Italy the Renaissance took a much more practical side. Indeed, it might be said that it taught the men of Italy how to live ; while in France, under the influence of the ecclesiastical life, it taught men how to die. Thus in Italy you have at the beginning of the twelfth century a school of medicine at Salerno, and a school of law at Bologna ; while Paris The Rectorship: its Origin became the nursery of scholasticism — devoted to dialectics, to metaphysics, to theology ; to the theory, rather than the practice, of the art of life. Looked at from another point of view, Italy was the successful exponent of a self-respecting republicanism, while France remained in the grip of a feudalism which left culture to the cloister. It is to Bologna, albeit a later product than Salerno, that we must look for the development of the University as we know it. This was only natural, for Bologna was the nursery of law, and its students knew precisely how cor- porations of every kind were created ; for they had before their very eyes a striking example of a highly municipalised ideal in the city itself. The fame of Bologna as a law school was capped by two notable men — by the jurist, Irnerius, a native of the town, who died before 1 140 ; and by the canon lawyer, Gratian, a Benedictine monk, who compiled his Decretum between 11 39 and 1142. Up to the time of Irnerius, Ravenna had been the centre of Italian jurisprudence ; but its anti-papal and anti-national attitude led to its fall, while the geographical position of Bologna, coupled with the distinction which Irnerius gave it, shifted the legal centre of gravity. At the beginning of the twelfth century Bologna was the greatest Law School in Europe. It was, however, in no sense a University as we understand the word. Into the Bologna lecture rooms the idea of discipline, as bred in the school and in the cloister, did not enter, for the law students were no longer boys. " The professor was not originally the officer of any public institution ; he was simply a private adventurer-lecturer — like the Sophist of ancient Greece, or the Rhetor of ancient Rome — whom a number of independent gentlemen of all ages, between seventeen and forty, had hired to instruct them." If there was no discipline on the academic side, the law students, or rather those of them who were not natives of Bologna, were confronted by a powerful and highly muni- cipalised City-State, where they had no rights whatever. Mr. Rashdall puts the case in a nutshell :— The conception of citizenship prevalent in the Italian Republics was much nearer to the old Greek conception than that which prevails 6 Meaning and Practical Value in modern States. Citizenship, which is with us little more than an accident of domicile, was in ancient Athens or mediaeval Bologna an hereditary possession of priceless value. The citizens of one town had, in the absence of express agreement, no civil rights in another. There was one law for the citizen : another and a much harsher one for the alien. The situation was full of irritating irony. Here in Bologna were congregated men from all parts, who had left behind them the rights conferred by their own cities ; who were old enough to be entering a political life ; who knew better than any of the Bolognese citizens how the civic corporation had arisen, how it was governed, and how it could be manipulated into a more compromising attitude to its outlanders. The way out of the difficulty, on the lines of law and order, was not difficult for the students to find. They saw that their amorphousness on the academic side must be replaced by an organised, yet thoroughly legal, resistance to the solid civic front ; and they set about evolving, slowly but surely, an academic republic, an imperium in imperio, a civitas in civitate ; and out of that opposition to their masters there grew up a code of statutes which gradu- ally settled down to a purely academic form. The particular steps by which the law students sought their own salvation were not so difficult to take as might be at first supposed. To begin with, the students wielded the weapon of retaliation, by threatening at any moment to migrate to another town. As the law school did not in any way consist of a faculty of professors, or of a series of classrooms in a particular building, the threat could easily be carried out ; and, as migration would have proved a financial loss to the town, the civic corporation placed fewer impediments in the way of the student republic than it might otherwise have done. Thus we are confronted with the anomalous position of the guest's becoming de facto, as it were, the enemy of his host, and an enemy who had to be propitiated out of sheer self-interest. Even at that, however, the city could afford to be generous without conspicuous loss of dignity, for by its conception of " Personal Law " it recognised the right of association. The Rectorship: its Origin Indeed, at an earlier period, " it had been quite common for three or four men to live in the same town, and yet, in matters of private law, be the members of as many distinct states." Furthermore, " the Roman law conferred a legal existence upon Collegia or corporations of three persons or more, without any special authorisation of the State." And these Collegia possessed enormous power over their mem- bers, from the fact that their legal authority was based upon an unbreakable oath. The University, then, in its original form, was nothing more than a Guild of foreign law students in Bologna ; for the Medical University was not recognised until 1306, and there was no Theological Faculty until 1352. It cannot be too strongly urged that the University was formed, not by the town of Bologna, but in spite, and in defiance of it. Thus the students who belonged to the town of Bologna were not members of the Guild, for, as Mr. Rashdall says, they no more needed to be protected by the Universitas than a young Englishman reading for the bar in London requires to be protected by a consul. In fact, the Bolognese student had none of the disabilities which the Universitas was created to remove in the case of the aliens. He was by the fact of his birth complete master of the situation ; and his admission into the Guild was for that very reason inadvisable, since he could not give undivided allegiance to his city's natural enemy. Precisely the same objection against their admission as members of the Guild obtained in the case of the professors, who were mostly natives of Bologna. The objection to the professors did not lie in their academic attitude, for at first the Universities no more claimed authority over their teachers than the Literary Society claims the right to lecture the Professor of English. The educational aspect of the situation was managed by the Collegia of Doctors. True, the professors for a time stood out against the students on the ground that they were really apprentices, and could not form a guild as masters in a trade did ; but gradually they had to give in, and by the end of the thirteenth century their subjection to the students was complete. On one point the Student Guild differed from other guilds 8 Meaning and Practical Value in the city in being composed of aliens who declined to acknowledge the authority of the State where it conflicted with the allegiance which they had sworn to their own artificial commonwealth. The city, for instance, tried to check the students' migration plan of campaign by pass- ing a statute prohibiting citizens from following seceding scholars, or from aiding and abetting in any such secession. The students resisted, then lost and then won, being backed by the Church which was itself jealous of the city power ; but in course of time the city and the University settled down into mutual self-respect. If it is difficult to fix the precise starting-point of the Student University, it is still more difficult to discover the exact origin of the " Nations." Perhaps they had their germ in mere convivial clubs, where students of the same nationality would meet with all the perfervid good fellow- ship of exiles. Father Denifle makes the scholastic guilds start with the German Nation which was highly privileged and very well organised. Mr. Rashdall, on the other hand, regards the " Nations " as the direct descendants of the Roman Collegia. But whether they were created before or after the evolution of the Universities is very far from clear. From about the middle of the thirteenth century the organisation of law students at Bologna consisted of two closely allied Universities — a Universitas Citramonta- norum and a Universitas Ultramontanorum, each under a Rector of its own. Rashdall, arguing from the Univer- sities formed elsewhere by schisms or migrations from Bologna, decides that Bologna itself originally possessed four Universitates : (i) Lombards; (2) Ultramontanes ; (3) Tuscans ; (4) Romans ; and it must be noted that these remained the Nations of the University of Medicine and Law to the very last. In the later Cismontane Universities there were undoubtedly three original Nations : the Lom- bards, the Tuscans and the Romans ; and these, in turn, were subdivided into smaller Consiliarice (first heard of in 1224), which were bodies electing one or more councillors. As early as 1265 the Ultramontanes were divided into four- teen, and in 1432 into sixteen, Nations, namely : (1) Gaul ; (2) Portugal and the Algarve ; (3) Provence ; (4) England ; The Rectorship: its Origin (5) Burgundy ; (6) Savoy ; (7) Gascony and Auvergne ; (8) Berry ; (9) Touraine ; (10) Aragon and Catalonia with Valencia and the Majorcas (electing two Consiliarii) ; (11) Navarre; (12) Germany (two councillors); (13) Hungary; (14) Poland ; (15) Bohemia, and (16) Flanders. Rashdall, however, thinks that each of the Ultramontane Nations corresponded to a Consiliaria of the Cismontane University, and he blames Denifle for failing to recognise "the marked difference between the Ultramontane Nationes and Cismon- tane Consiliaria." One point, at any rate, is clear, that even in the fully developed academic constitution the Ultramontane Nations retained a much larger measure of individual corporate existence than either the three original Cismontane Nations or the Consiliaria into which they were divided. By 1432, however, the Ultramontane Nations (with the exception of the specially privileged German Nation) appear to have lost much of their autonomy. It is still far from clear whether the Nations preceded or followed the creation of the organised scholastic guild. For all the historical data at our disposal we might argue with almost equal validity on both sides. The organisation of the Student University was not complete without a president or chairman, and here the students borrowed the word Rector from the Guilds, as the Guilds had previously borrowed it from the cities, where it was used as the Latin equivalent of the Italian Podestd, the name given to the Chief Magistrate or Dictator of a Lombard town. The jurisdiction of the Rector rested on two authorities, first the oath of allegiance exacted from the members of the Student Guild, and second on the inherent right (under Roman Law) of every trade and profession to form a collegium and elect magistrates of its own. There were several important qualifications for the Rectorship. In the first place he was a secular "clerk," because the Rector had jurisdiction over clerks, and the Canon law forbade a layman to stand in judgment over a clerk. Any student could become a clerk by merely receiving the tonsure from a Bishop, and adopting the clerical dress and remaining celibate. In the second place the acceptance of the office by students of sufficient Meaning and Practical Value means was made compulsory, for in the early Universities the students were exigent not only towards those without their organisation, but also towards one another. The Rector was not allowed to leave the city without the permission of his Council or without giving security for his return — a very interesting comment on the foolish modern system of the absentee and ornamental Rector over whom the students possess no more jurisdiction than they have over the President of the United States. Among other qualifica- tions the Rector had to be a law student of five years' standing and at least twenty-four years of age. He was elected biennially, the electors being the ex- Rectors, the newly elected councillors and an equal number of special delegates. It is extremely interesting to note that he was chosen " by that method of indirect election which bore so prominent a part in the constitution of the Italian Republics ; " l for at Aberdeen the Nations first elect Pro- curators and it is the Procurators who elect the Rector. The Rector took precedence over all Archbishops and Bishops (except the Bishop of Bologna) and even over Cardinals. He had to be comparatively well off, for he was bound to keep two liveried servants and the installation expenses were heavy ; while his only salary was a moiety of the fines he was instructed to exact. Rashdall's summary of the installation ceremonies need not be paraphrased. He says : — If we may transfer to Bologna the custom of Padua [to which a migration had taken place in 1222], the ceremony took place in the Cathedral, where, in presence of the assembled University, the Rector elect was solemnly invested with the Rectorial Hood by one of the Doctors : after which he was escorted in triumph by the whole body of students to his house ; where a banquet, or at least wine and spices, awaited the constituents to whom he owed his exalted office. ... At Padua a tilt or tournament was held at which the new Rector was 1 For instance, the Doge of Venice was elected in 1268 by the following roundabout system, intended to minimise the influence of individual families ; and this complicated machinery remained, with some modifications, till the close of the Republic : Thirty members of the Great Council, elected by ballot, selected nine members, who in their turn chose forty. Of these forty, twelve, taken by lot, chose twenty-five and the twenty-five were reduced to nine, who elected forty-five. The forty-five were then reduced to eleven, and the eleven chose the final forty-one, in whose hands lay the actual election of the Doge. The Rectorship: its Origin required to provide two hundred spears and two hundred pairs of gloves for the use of combatants. The Statutes of the Bologna Uni- versity of Arts and Medicine forbade the Rector to feast those who escort him home, to give a banquet to more than twelve persons on the day of his election, or " to dance or make to dance with trumpets or without," for a month after that event. Although not regulated by statute, there was at least a banquet in connection with the election in Aberdeen, of which we find traces in the University accounts. Here, for instance, is the " accompt of the dinner given be the [King's] Colledge to my lord Rector " Mr. Robert Reynolds " the fyift of December 1670 " : — Item ane mutone buke for rosted meat and boyled and minched pyes, For tuo capones, . Thrie peices of beiff, Fyve whyt loaves, . Tuo pund of currents for the minched pyes Thrie pund of butter, Half a pund sugar, four drops cinamon, and four drops of meaces, Thrie oranges, Peares and aples, Ane pund of ryce, Tuo pynts of milk, For ane goose, For ane pect and qrter. pect of flower, For fyve pynts of wyne, For ane quair of paper to be the books for the Colledge plenishing, .... To Agnes Sangster for making the noprie and ane pund of soape for cleinging them, • £°°i 13 4 000 13 4 002 04 000 10 >, 000 04 000 A 15 J OOO 16 8 OOO 05 p OOO 06 OOO 05 OOO 04 OOO 15 002 00 O 005 00 000 06 o 002 08 Summa in all is, . . . £016 00 4 Sir, — Pay this compte and it shall be allowed to you at count and rekninge. Wreitten and subscrived the 24 of June, 1671. Mr. A. Middleton [Principal]. For Mr. Pat. Sandelands, Common Procurator. At the election of Mr. William Scrogie as Rector of King's College in 1665, the following expenses were in- curred : — Meaning and Practical Value Item, when Mr. Meinzies, and sume of the New Tone regents cam to the [King's] Colledge for choosinge of a rector; for wyne, and tobacco, and pyps .... I lib. 2S. Item when the rector cam here first, and was received, for wyne, sugger, bear, tobacco i lib. 13s. Item at severall sederunts at the visetation and divers rectorall meetings 350 These banquets have been replaced by the feasts of rhetoric and reason which have been the sole demand made on most of our latter day ornamental Rectors : and the present volume is a gathering of the best crumbs that have fallen from the Rectors' table. Mr. Rashdall points out that the banquetting which takes place in " a somewhat shrunken form " at the inauguration of the Vice-Chancellor and of the Proctors at Oxford, is a remnant of the original Rectorial installation festivities. The noisy nomination fight in the quadrangle of Marischal College which still takes place between the supporters of the rival candidates is nothing but a survival of the sixteenth century custom of setting upon the newly elected rector, tearing his clothes off his back, and then requiring him to redeem the fragments at an exorbitant rate. The Statute of 1552 which was passed to restrain " the too horrid and petulant mirth " of these occasions, does not venture to abolish the time-honoured " vestium laceratio." Other vestiges of this old custom at Aberdeen was the peasemeal reception of the Rectorial Address which was at last successfully put down by the Students' Representative Council ; and, if the Rector's clothes have not been torn off his back, it is on record that Edward Francis Maitland (afterwards Lord Barcaple) got a bruised nose from a splinter of wood hurled at him when he attempted to deliver his Rectorial Address in Marischal College, 16th March, 1 86 1 ; while it is well within recollection how the carriage in which the Marquis of Huntly rode, after delivering his address on the occasion of his first Rectorship, was wrecked by his enthusiastic subjects. In the early University of Bologna the Rector's juris- diction depended so much on statute that his functions were in many cases purely executive. He was bound to 13 The Rectorship: its Origin collect the fines that were statute. His very jurisdiction over the students was defined by statute, and in the enforce- ment of civil penalties he was dependent on the assistance of the Podesta and his officers. In fact he was nearly as much the creature of his electors as the Doge of Venice \ all of which is thoroughly in keeping with the democratic conditions which had called the Student University into being. His power was further diminished when the heavy expenses attaching to the office kept away candidates for the post, which was the butt at once of the City and of the University. Thus by the middle of the fourteenth century we get a case of the two jurist-rectorships being held by one individual, and towards the end of the following cen- tury this arrangement became the rule. The decay of the Rectorship may be traced through many stages, when it was held by professors or deputies and ultimately, in 1742, by the Cardinal Legate of Bologna. Such, in outline, is the evolution of the remarkable Student University at Bologna. You may epitomise the leading features of its existence in a sentence, for it was founded (1) by law students; (2) of foreign origin ; (3) to enforce their right to live ; (4) by modelling an organisation on Italian republican lines. But it was only one factor in the evolution of the University ideal, as we now know it, especially in Scotland. That organisation had to go through a further process of change to suit the wholly different set of conditions which obtained in the priest-countries, notably in Paris, for it must be remembered that the University of Aberdeen was founded on lines sicut in Parisiensi et Bono- niensi Generalibus Studiis. The organisation of the University at Bologna grew, as I have shown, not so much as an educational institution, but as a rival to the powerful Civic system which dominated the early Italian Republics. The University of Paris arose out of a determined opposition to the tyrannical conditions of the Church, and was, in the first instance, a University of Masters of Arts, whereas Bologna produced a University of Law Students. In both cases you cannot but be struck with the fact that the whole University ideal was a new co- ordination which the world as it stood was not prepared 14 Meaning and Practical Value to accept without a struggle ; and in this struggle arose the University King, High Priest, Chief Magistrate — what you will — namely, the Rector. I have already tried to describe the different directions which the Renaissance took in Italy and in Northern Europe, where educational activity was transferred from the monks to the secular clergy. It is in this change that we find the germs of the University idea. Each church had a cloister school with one authorised master who practically enjoyed a monopoly. He might, or might not, be a member of the cathedral body ; but from the eleventh century onwards we find a tendency to make him a member of that body. This was done in two ways. Either the new dignity of Scholasticus or Magister Scholasticus was created (as at Orleans and Angers) ; or the duty of presiding over the schools was annexed by some existing officer, as for instance the Chancellor. This was what happened at Paris. His immediate educational power, however, tended to become nominal, for with the spread of education in the twelfth century came an increasing number of Masters who were anxious to teach. Thus it became usual for the Scholasticus or Chancellor to grant a formal permission to other Masters to open schools for their own profit in the neighbourhood of the Church, and in 1 179 Pope Alexander III. commanded the Chancellors to grant a licence gra- tuitously to every properly qualified applicant. In this way the Chancellor became merely the licencer of teachers, an ecclesiastical Superintendent of Education. When the right to the licence was once established, there was nothing to prevent the multiplication of Masters in connection with any famous Church School, and the number was increased by the desire for a degree, that is to say, a magisterium, quite apart from the intention of the holder to become a professional teacher. The next step to be con- sidered is the association of the Masters among themselves. The idea of Guildship which was so prevalent at the time among all classes of craftsmen was bound to weld the great body of Masters together. It grew up in the first instance on a code of etiquette, vague and unofficial, and yet most truly binding. The new Master had to pass muster for his 15 The Rectorship: its Origin licence with the Chancellor : and he then had to pass the scrutiny of his fellow Masters and show what he could really do in the actual performance of his craft, by deliver- ing an inaugural lecture or holding an inaugural disputa- tion. The idea of an " inception " — which is still very common in all trades, when an apprentice banquets the journeymen on becoming one of their number — is preserved in Aberdeen to this day in the case of the Doctor of Medicine writing a thesis for his M.D. ; and a very amusing squib on buffoonery which prevailed at Paris in the twelfth century is to be found in the Buttery College, supposed to have been written in 1702 by Dr. Archibald Pitcairne. Mr. Rashdall draws a fascinating analogy between the " inception " of a Master and the institution of chivalry. The original conception of Knighthood was the solemn reception of the novice into the brotherhood of arms. The blessing of the Priest was required by the Knight Bachelor as the scholastic Bachelor required the Licence of the Chancellor ; but it was by the touch of the veteran's sword that the candidate received his actual initiation into the brotherhood of arms, as it was through the veteran Master's act that the Licentiate became a full member of the brotherhood of teaching. Both of these great institutions arose from the transference to the military and scholastic life respectively of one of the most characteristic, social and political ideas of the age — the idea of a Guild or sworn brotherhood of persons following a common occupa- tion. In the later ceremonies attending the bestowing of degrees there are many traces of the idea that graduation formed a sort of intellectual knighthood. In this theory of intellectual knighthood, of installa- tion among his compeers, arose the germs of the spirit of community among the Masters, quite apart from the licence granted by the Chancellor. The fact that the community thus created was in no sense formal did not detract from its real potency, for enormous power may be wielded by a society which has no legal or corporate existence. The " Circuit Mess," as Rashdall notes, is a case in point. A barrister expelled therefrom for breach of professional etiquette retains his legal position, but he is effectually incapacitated from practice, since no member of the Mess will hold a brief with him, even if a Solicitor should be found bold enough to give him one. Equipped with this power the nebulous and unofficial 16 Meaning and Practical Value Society of Masters, of which we have the first definite mention in 1170, started on its journey towards the evolu- tion of a JJniversitas. There is no trace of definitive statutes until about the year 12 10, and about the same period a Bull of Innocent III. empowers the Society to elect a Proctor to represent it in the Papal Court. In the exact organisation of the Society the influence of the Student University at Bologna was probably brought to bear, for though the Paris Society of Masters came into existence in a rudimentary form before the earliest Student University at Bologna, the capacity of the latter, in the atmosphere of Italian city life, was more favourable to any development of the republican idea as opposed to ecclesiastical tutelage. The youthful and vigorous University of Masters, con- scious of its latent powers, naturally became the object of the intense jealousy of the Chancellor, for in reality it dominated regions beyond his ken. The real strength of the University was gained in a long and bitter fight against the pretensions of the Chancellor who approached the Uni- versity less as the representative of Rome than as the jealous local prelate. The history of the University from, say, 12 10 to 1300 was like a vast chess match, with the Chancellor on the one side and the Masters on the other, their Rector representing the King on the board. The University attacked ; the Chancellor, doubtful of his security, made a move ; the University said check ; the Chancellor evaded ; the University, bringing up the Pope himself, said check ; and so on through a series of very com- plicated moves the game proceeded until the Chancellor was practically beaten off the field, left with nothing but the mysterious right to confer degrees and deprived of the power even to refuse them or to grant them inde- pendent of the Masters. Let me trace some of the main moves in the game. In the first instance the Chancellor could refuse a licence, and could take away a licence once granted. He was an ecclesiastical judge as well as superintendent of education, and could shut up Masters in his special prison ; he could fine them and pocket the proceeds, and he could excom- municate them. He even commanded the University to b 17 The Rectorship: its Origin swear allegiance to him : and though he was not a member of the body academic, yet in his natural position as a theo- logian he could harass the University under cover from the Faculty of Theology. The University on its side had to check his priestly pretensions by moving forward its pawn of boycotting. That is to say, though the Chancellor could grant a licence, he could not compel the Masters to receive the newcomer into their midst. In fact the University and the Chancellor were at once dependent on each other and yet perfectly able to defy each other. The Chancellor could licence: the Uni- versity could render the licence null and void to all intents and purposes. This, however, was at best a very negative form of warfare, a mere battle from behind intrenchments. The University was the first to advance by appealing to Rome : and the Papacy " with that unerring instinct which marks its earlier history " sided with the power of the future and against the efforts of the local hierarchy to keep it in leading strings. In 1212 Innocent III., himself a Paris Master, promulgated a Bull, forbidding the Chancellor to extract an oath of allegiance to his sacred self: and requiring him to grant licences gratuitously and to all candidates recommended by the Masters. His power to imprison Masters was also curtailed. But the Chancellor, tenacious of his old monopoly, was not to be beaten without a fight for it. He adroitly retreated, and in 12 18 revived an obsolete ordinance against " conspiracy." That is to say, he construed the regula- tions which the corporate body of Masters had begun to make for their internal organisation into the creation of a secret society, and he excommunicated the University en masse. Although the definitive answer of Rome to this demand has not come down to us, " there can be no doubt from the sequel that Honorius III. and Gregory IX. con- tinued in the main the policy initiated by Innocent III. by supporting the claims of the new Society : " and Rome ultimately forbade the unauthorised excommunication of the Masters. The really interesting feature of the Bulls of 12 19 and 1222 is the development of the Nations. The Masters 18 Meaning and Practical Value seem to have come to the conclusion that the mere word of a friendly Pope was not sufficient for their defence. They felt that they must fight Chancellors by their own efforts. It was not difficult for the Masters of Arts to do this. In the first place the Faculty of Theology was from its very nature too much mixed up with the Chancellor in his theological capacity to lend a hand, while the other two Faculties were not sufficiently developed. So we find the fight taken up heart and soul by the Masters of Arts who were at once the most numerous body, and the one most likely to come into collision with the Chancellor, for as Mr. Rashdall puts it : — It was not the elderly and dignified Doctors of Divinity, but the young Masters of Arts and their still younger pupils who would be most in danger of having their heads broken in a tavern brawl or being lodged in the Chancellor's prison for breaking other people's heads and who would have needed a powerful organisation for the " aveng- ing of their injuries." The Student University at Bologna had shown how a great engine of attack for the preservation and extension of privileges could be constructed in the shape of Nations and a Rector ; and so the Paris Masters of Arts seem to have annexed the theory and practice of Nations direct from Bologna for the purpose of fighting the Chancellor and representing their case against him in Rome ; for it is in the Bulls of 12 19 and 1222, dealing with the Chancellor's pretensions, that we find the first mention of the Nations. The Nations were named after the nationalities which predominated in each of them at the time of their forma- tion. The suggestion that they were modelled on Bologna is strengthened by the fact that, as at Bologna, they were four in number, and that the strictly French members of the University had less influence than the other three Nations, just as the three strictly Italian Nations, the Tuscans, the Lombards, and the Romans had less inde- pendence than the Ultramontanes who included the rest of Europe. The Paris Nations were the Normans ; the Picards, including all the low countries ; the French, em- bracing the Latin races ; and the English, which included the Germans and all inhabitants of the North and East of J9 The Rectorship: its Origin Europe. In passing, I should mention that this explanation of the rise of Nations, as given by Rashdall, differs from the origin suggested by Denifle. Denifle holds in the first place that the Nations were an organisation of Scholars, in which the Masters of Arts were included as scholars of the " superior " Faculties ; and, secondly, that they were formed for purposes of discipline among the scholars. It may also be noted that the Nations, that is to say, the divisions of the Faculty of Arts and their Officers, performed precisely the same functions as were discharged by the other three Faculties in relation to their own studies. Each Nation had a chairman in the shape of a Procurator, a name that is still retained at Aberdeen for an important officer at a Rectorial election. The term Procurator, sug- gesting a financial function, strengthens the idea that the Nations were formed to fight the Chancellor, when the Masters of Arts collected funds to send representatives to Rome. The Nations ultimately joined hands, as it were, in electing a common president — the Rector ; the general who was to lead the University to victory, the King of the chess- men who were to checkmate the Chancellor. Leaving for a moment the organisation of the Nations, and coming back to the chronological history of the struggle between the University and the Chancellor, I should note that the Chancellor of Notre Dame was not the only source from which the Masters could obtain their licence. The Cathedral had a rival in the Abbey of St. Genevieve which lay on the other side of the river. The Cathedral authority tried to choke the Abbey, but in 1227 Gregory IX. recognised the right of the Abbey to licence Masters, and in 1255 we actually find the Abbey setting up a rival Chancellor of its own. Thus the University once again scored. It cried check still more powerfully in 1231. Two years be- fore, the University had dissolved itself as a protest against the slaughter of some students by the Crown, instigated by the Church, as punishment for a tavern brawl. Some of them went to the smaller French Cathedral Schools of Toulouse, Orleans, Reims, and especially Angers, where they were allowed to grant licences on their own authority without the intervention of Bishop or Chancellor. Some Meaning and Practical Value of the Masters may have crossed the channel and settled at Oxford. In 1231 the Pope, siding once again with the Masters, granted a Charter of Privilege, the Magna Charta of the University, by which the University received Apos- tolical sanction and the Chancellor's wings were clipped, to such an extent that he lost his criminal jurisdiction altogether. The last vestiges of the Chancellor's power were destroyed by the tyranny of the holder of the office in 1280-90, for he simply declined to accept the conditions laid down by a long series of Bulls for the granting of licences. But he was beaten here again, and only his " mysterious prerogative " of conferring the licence was left him. In 1292 Nicolas IV. conferred on the licentiates of Paris the prerogative of teaching in all other Schools and Universities throughout the world without any additional examination. Henceforth, the Chancellor conferred the licence in the name of the Pope, not of the Bishop of Paris. The University was ready with another head for itself in the person of the Rector, who had become President of the entire University by 1290. It may seem strange that the Rector who was elected only by the " inferior " Faculty of Arts should have managed to place himself also at the head of the three " superior " Faculties of Theology, Law and Medicine. Rashdall explains the fact on the analogy of the power of the House of Commons as against that of the House of Lords ; but he might have come much nearer home, by citing the remarkable fact that even the latest Act of Parliament has retained the Rector, who is elected solely by the undergraduates, as chairman of the Court which governs each Scots University — undergraduates, graduates and the professoriate alike. The reason for the predominance of the Rector in Paris University is to be found in several facts. In the first place the Arts Faculty, of which he was primarily the head, contained the greatest number of members, and it had attained the full attributes of a corporate body at a time when the University as a whole was acephalous. Thus Arts had a good start of the other Faculties. We have found that it had Nations as early as 12 19, while the The Rectorship: its Origin Faculties of Law and Medicine acquired corporate seals only in 1270, that is exactly a hundred years after the beginning of the bare existence of a University of Masters. As a fully organised corporate body the Arts Faculty was the one which had fought the Chancellor most prominently on behalf of the entire University, and it was only natural that when he was displaced, the head of the Arts Faculty, the Rector, should step into his shoes. The Arts Faculty was very pushful in other directions, and managed to force the other Faculties into accepting the Rector by divers means. At first the oath administered to a Bachelor of Arts had bound him to obey the Rector " only so long as he should profess the Faculty of Arts ; " but about the year 1256 this last clause seems to have been omitted, and the oath to "obey the liberties and honest customs of the Faculty " was supplemented by the words " to whatever state you shall come." Thus as the members of the superior Faculties had nearly all passed through Arts, they still owed allegiance to the Rector though he was still chosen by Arts. In this way the Rector came to be the head of the whole University, and he grew so powerful that he secured the precedence of Bishop's rank in the ecclesiastical world. " The ex-Rector, Du Boulay, records with a glow of official and antiquarian pride the numerous occasions on which some plebeian and moneyless Rector of the Artists took precedence of Bishops, Cardinals, Archbishops, Papal Nuncios, Ambassadors and Peers of France." The method of the election of the Rector is interesting. He was chosen, just as at Aberdeen to-day, by representa- tives of the four Nations, who were shut up after the manner of the Sacred College at Papal elections. At first he was chosen only for a month or six weeks ; afterwards his term of office was extended to three months. His jurisdiction extended only to members of the University, and his punish- ments, which were pronounced in his special Court, were purely academical, taking the shape of fines, suspension and expulsion. It has been absolutely necessary to work out the evolu- tion of the Universities at Bologna and Paris, because there- in lie the germs of all other Universities, which are indeed 22 Meaning and Practical Value imitations of these two great prototypes in a greater or lesser degree, according to local requirements or national idiosyn- crasies. A study of Bologna and Paris is not merely the investigation of two isolated cases of University founding. It is in reality the whole theory of the University idea in its original conception. Just consider what that idea involved. The University was to all intents and purposes a new combination in the society of the mediaeval world. It was the creation of a knighthood of intellectualism : the visible cyclopaedia of the world's knowledge. This new combination was not the work of one year or two ; it had to force itself on a civilisation which believed that all the possible or, at any rate, all the necessary, combinations had been formed. In Bologna, as we have seen, the new combination had to fight the civic combination and insist on its right to live coexistent with the older institution. In Paris, on the other hand, the struggle was carried on against the local church, and victory was gained, not with- out a heavy debt to Rome it is true, but still on lines that made automatic development possible. The general result of the two prototype Universities, then, is a new educational combination, which was a good deal more than rudimentary before the close of the thirteenth century, and which had by the end of the fourteenth become so well defined that its methods could be transferred to any particular country or town with a very good chance of becoming perfectly workable under new conditions. In the case of Oxford, Mr. Rashdall, setting aside all the old traditions, boldly ascribes the origin to a migration of Paris Masters ; Cambridge is admittedly the result of the migration from Oxford. It is equally certain that the Chan- cellor at Oxford was an imitation of the functionary at Paris. " It is the Cathedral dignity reproduced in a University town which possessed no Cathedral." But Oxford was not a slavish imitator, for, though the Rector also existed at Oxford, he was soon rejected, and his functions were monopolised by the Chancellor. Even the Nations were copied, but they, too, disappeared. There is just the shadow of a suggestion that at first there were four Nations, but they soon reduced themselves to two — the Northerners and 23 The Rectorship: its Origin the Southerners. In 1274 they were united, and from this time the term " Nation " ceases to be used. Mr. Rashdall sees in the early extinction of Nations in the English Uni- versities " a symbol of that complete national unity which the English was the first of European kingdoms to attain." Again, the Rector owed little to the Paris model save in point of nomenclature, for the Proctors were called " Rectores," though even that name dropped out of use at a very early period. In short, as Mr. Rashdall has it, " the constitution of Oxford may be said to represent an arrested development of the Parisian constitution." That constitution was gladly annexed by Scotland almost in its entirety. The cause is not far to seek. The Scot from an early time looked to the Continent of Europe, and not to England, for his models in all things. It is this fact, illustrated in education, in commerce, in war, in fact in every aspect of activity, that has made the Scot so much more cosmopolitan than the predominant partner. The subject has not been sufficiently explained, but the truth of the statement is borne out by Rashdall himself who does not suffer from the patriotic bias, when he speaks of "the adventurous disposition of the young Scotchman." In the middle ages the Scots student "was to be found everywhere." A Scots College was established in Paris in 1326 ; and there are many traces of the presence of large numbers of Scotsmen in the smaller French Uni- versities during the mediaeval period. They even had a Nation all to themselves at Padua. Under these conditions it is not surprising that when the University system was introduced it should have had a marked Continental aspect. Scotland, as we know it in the fifteenth century, does not seem at first sight to have been a congenial ground in which to plant the highly developed Continental University ideal. Yet it was that ideal which was impressed on the virgin soil by the far-seeing ecclesiastics to whom we owe the three senior Universities — St. Andrews founded in 141 1 by Bishop Wardlaw ; Glasgow in 1450 by Bishop Turnbull ; and Aberdeen in 1494 by Bishop Elphinstone, the most remarkable man of the three. Even Edinburgh, founded in 1 583 by the antago- 24 Meaning and Practical Value nists of these three Roman statesmen, was able to modify the mediaeval system very slightly. By the time the older Scots Universities were founded, the Bologna and Paris models had been improved by the practice of the lesser French Universities, notably by Orleans and Angers, where " the Bologna system of Student-elections was modified by the reservation of greater rights to the Bishop on the one hand and to the Masters on the other." The most notable imitation in the Scots Universities was the theory of four Nations and a Rector. I say theory, because as a matter of fact the Student-autonomy, while clearly stated in the foundation Bulls, was soon throttled by the professoriate, although strange to say it is in the Scots University that the mediaeval ideal has been maintained in a purer form than in any other Universities whatsoever. It is not surprising that the Continental model should have been transplanted in its entirety almost ; nor is it remarkable that it should have failed in the matter of the Student-autonomy, for from the first the student had to be created, whereas the professoriate was by its very nature an accomplished fact ; and, further, it was a more permanent element in the University. What is remarkable is the fact that the original ideal should have been allowed to stand in the University Statute-book even as a dead letter, until a democratic age which could realise, as it has done in the Act of 1889, the founders' intentions. The history of the Rectorship at Aberdeen is by far the most interesting, because it is there that the mediaeval system remains most completely, and it is there that the genuine working and non-absentee Rector has been tried in recent times, as if with the greater preservation of the original machinery of the office a clearer idea of its un- diminished value at the present time had been gained. At Aberdeen also do we find the four Nations and the Procu- rators intact. Edinburgh never had Nations. St. Andrews abolished them (Fifana, Angusiana, Lothiana, and Albana) in 1 858. The Glasgow Nations (which have no Procurators) are Glottiana (Lanarkshire) ; Rothseiana (Ayr, Renfrew, and Bute) ; Transforthana (all the country north of the Forth) ; Loudoniana (all other places not contained in the other three). as The Rectorship: its Origin The Bull of Alexander VI. founding the University in 1494 merely mentions the Rector. Nothing is said of the mode of his election and very little about his duties. His mere existence took these points for granted, for the nature of his functions was left to the common University law, which by this time had taken definite shape on the Continent. Bishop Elphinstone, however, in granting the charter to the College of St. Mary in the Nativity (now King's College), in 1505, is quite explicit on the duties of the Rector : — Further, we enact and ordain that the Rector of the University aforesaid, so long as he is not a member of the said College (in which case the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and the Official of Aberdeen), shall once a year inspect the said College both in head and members [that is, as detailed in the instrument of Bishop Dunbar, 1531, the doctors, masters, and students, the canonist, civilist, mediciner, the grammarian and chaplains], with their manses, and examine whatever may be wrong in persons and in things, both alienations, mortgages, or waste of the goods of the said College, especially of the money subscribed for the repair of the buildings, and of the vestments of the said College, with the advice of four persons specially deputed by the University for that purpose, who shall draw up a report thereupon and present it to the Chancellor, who, with the advice of the said four, shall reform any abuses. The next important Charter is that of Bishop Dunbar, 1 53 1. Dunbar generally confirms the duties of the Rector as laid down by Elphinstone, but he emphasises his localism by enacting that the Rector, whether belonging to the College or not, "shall be an actual resident within the University." It is very significant of the tenacious hold which the mediaeval University maintained that when Aberdeen equipped itself (in 1593) with its second University, the system of Nations and Rectors should have been initiated there too. The qualifications of the Rector are defined in the foundation charter thus : — The Rector shall be a grave, godly man, a lover of law and justice, and well skilled therein. He shall have ordinary jurisdiction over all the enrolled members of the Academia (called Supposts) ; shall be present at all the more important meetings of the Academia, [that is, the University,] especially at elections as above described, [that is, of Principal, Professors, etc.,] preside thereat, especially in the absence of the Chancellor, and shall conduct, manage, and execute 26 Meaning and Practical Value all matters that the Rectors of St. Andrews, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and any other [Academia] are, by law, custom, or usage, understood to be able and bound to conduct, manage, and execute. He shall be elected by all the Supposts of the Academia divided into four nations, in such wise that the Diocese of Aberdeen, on account of the greater number, be divided into two nations, Mar and Buchan, the Garioch being included in Mar, and the rest, as far as the river Deveron, belonging to Buchan. The remainder of the kingdom north of the Grampians shall be comprehended under the name of the Moray nation ; all to the south of the Grampians shall be known as the Angus nation. Procurators, chosen one by each of the nations, shall elect the Rector and his Assessors, [the only mention of Assessors in the Charter]. The Lord Rector when elected shall swear that he will faithfully and diligently perform the duties ; that he will, with good faith, administer equal justice to all, without any respect of persons ; that in elections he will give his vote with the same good faith according to his conviction and for the interest of the Common- wealth and Academia ; that he will zealously forward the interests of the College and Academia so far as consistent with religion, and never in anywise knowingly and willingly do what is detrimental to them ; in fine, that, to the best of his ability, he will adorn and aug- ment this Republic of Letters. The Rector was installed with some degree of ceremony. In the first place he had to take an oath of allegiance, the form of which at King's College was as follows : — Ego tactis sacris Dei evangeliis juramentum praesto corporale, me officio Rectoris, hujus Universitatis fideliter functurum ; omnia statuta et constitutiones, quae in primaeva Collegii hujus fundatione continentur, in quantum cum vera et orthodoxa religione in Ecclesia hac palam proposita et stabilita consistere possunt (nisi forte Can- cellario Universitatis, aliisque legitimis superioribus in quibusdam permittere visum fuerit) inviolabiliter observaturum ; singula dicti Collegii jura ac privilegia defensurum, ejusque commodum et utili- tatem in omnibus juxta posse meum procuraturum. Ita me Deus adjuvet. Another formality was to deliver to the new Rector the " keyis of the librarie and chartour kist, the coppies of the fundatione, of inventar of the buikes, colledge plenessing and colledge rentall." The duties of the Rector as described in the Charter, were, to visit, or rather examine into, the College. The Rector held a special meeting, which came to be known as a Rectorial Court, and which enacted College Laws. There was a Rectorial minute book, in which these statutes were set 37 The Rectorship: its Origin down. In 1664 it was enacted that a fine of twelve shillings should be imposed on all who absented themselves from these Courts. In the early period of the Rectorship the duties of the Rector may be described as distinctly paternal. Thus in 1676 the Rectorial Court had to see that "the Sabbath day is observed be the students." In Marischal College there was no Rectorial Court between 1738 and 1825, m which year Joseph Hume, the Rector, resuscitated it, much to the disgust of the Professors, who were very lukewarm on the occasion, and utterly repudiated it at a Court in the following year held by a Rector after their own hearts — Sir James M'Grigor. This was the last Rectorial Court held at Marischal College. The last Rectorial Court at King's College was that held by Mr. John Inglis, on 14th October, 1857. It was characterised by a newspaper of the period as a farce. The Rectorial Court was abolished by the Act of 1858, when the Univer- sity Court took its place. In Aberdeen the Rector did not exercise an extra academic judicial function to any marked extent. By the Act of the Scots Parliament of 1 593, ratifying the Foundation Charter of Marischal College, it was provided that " the masters, members, students, and bursars, and haill inhabitants " of the College were to be under the jurisdiction of the civic authorities in all things "committed by them out- with the walls of the said College." In Glasgow, however, the Rector played a much more important part, for it was his duty, * along with his Assessors, to judge in all civil and criminal causes wherein any member of the University was a party. Every member, who either sued or answered before any other Court was guilty of perjury, and incurred the penalty of expulsion." This right he exercised till 1870, when the University shifted to its new quarters at Gilmore- hill. A policeman who ventured within the quadrangle, even as late as 1 860, has been known to be stripped naked by the students. This is not the place to detail minutely the duties per- formed by the Rector in the early years of the Scots Universities. Even if it were, we should find that the functions of surveillance bore a strong family resemblance to the duties performed by the mediaeval Rectors. The 38 Meaning and Practical Value main question to consider is this — In whose interests were those functions carried out ? I think there can be no doubt whatever that the entire point of view was professorial. The professoriate took for granted the duties appertaining to the office. What they did was to change the mode of electing the official who was to carry those duties out. That is to say they reduced, and sometimes took wholly away, the electoral right of the student : and made the Rector their own creature ; though even then they could not forget the original conception of his very exist- ence. There is something to be said for the Professors. While the duties of the Rector were plainly enumerated in 1505 and elaborated in 1 531, nothing whatever was said about the mode of his election. The omission is very remarkable, for the mode of electing every other official in the University was set forth. Dunbar may have felt that election by the students was unsuitable in a University where the students were young. That the machinery of the Nations existed there can be little doubt, for nearly all the other officials — the Principal, Canonist, Civilist, Bachelors, or Students in Laws, Mediciner, Sub-Principal, Grammarian, and six Prebendaries — were to be chosen by the Uni- versity officials, the Rector, and the Procurators of the four Nations, the casting vote lying with the Principal. It need not be pointed out that the original meaning of Nations, as the committees of the students belonging to different nationalities, can at no time have had the slightest meaning in Aberdeen University. The Nations were merely an arbitrary imitation, which, as we have seen, Oxford shed at an early period in its history. So little do we know of the constitution of the Nations at Aberdeen that we do not find their names until 1593. In 1634 the Nations at King's College are given as Aberdeen, Moray, Lothian, and Angus. Their geographical division was on the basis of Synods, even down to 1856. The Moray Nation included the Synod of Moray ; Aberdeen or Mar the Synod of Aberdeen north of the Dee ; Angus, from the Dee to the bounds of the Synod of Lothian, including the Synods of Angus and Mearns, Perth and Stirling, and Fife. Lothian contained 29 The Rectorship: its Origin all other places not included in the other three. It is difficult to see how Lothian should have been a Nation. At the Union of the Universities in i860 the King's Col- lege Nations were abolished in favour of those at Marischal College, and by these the election is now settled. All matriculated students are divided into these Nations ac- cording to where they were born. The modern Nations are Mar, Buchan, Moray, and Angus. Mar includes the city of Aberdeen and its neighbourhood (as in- cluded in the parishes of St. Nicholas and Oldmachar), and within the parishes of Banchory-Devenick, Belhelvie, Drumoak, Durris, Dyce, Fintray, Kinnellar, Newmachar, Maryculter, Newhills, Nigg, Peterculter, Skene, Cruden, Ellon, Foveran, Logie-Buchan, Methlic, Slains, Tarves and Udny. Buchan Nation includes the county of Banff, and such part of the county of Aberdeen as is not included in the Mar Nation. Moray includes the counties of Moray, Nairn, Inverness, Ross, Cromarty, Sutherland, Caithness, and Orkney and Shetland. Angus Nation consists of all matriculated students not included in any of the other Nations. Who composed the Nations ? Was it the students alone or the Students and the Masters? The evidence is very obscure. The fact that in the election of a Civilist at King's College in 1640 four students were the Procurators, proves nothing, for on that occasion the Procurators were elected by the Professors, and we know that they were sometimes not students at all. The Professors, you see, kept to the bare formula of the mediaeval University ; but its whole intention was vitiated. Let me cite some steps in the gradual reduc- tion of the Rectorship to the merest phantom. In the return of Dr. William Guild as Rector of King's College in 1640, the Senatus, including the Rector's four Assessors and the Professors, chose the four Procurators, and, in the second place, three of these Procurators were Regents or Professors themselves. To crown all, the Rector elected was actually Principal of the College. As evidence of how summary a proceeding the choice of a Rector was, the election of 1637 may be quoted, for it is also interesting on account of the Rector, Dr. Arthur Johnston, the great Latinist of the period. On 23rd June of that year, Dr. Alexander Scrogie, Rector of King's College, his Assessors, and the Professors, met and "receawit" Johnston "within 30 Meaning and Practical Value the bosome of the said Universitie." The minute then goes on to say : — The said day, Dr. Alexander Scrogie, present Rector, demitted his office of Rectorshipe ; whairwpon the memberis and assessorouris procedit to ane new election, and electit, nominat, and choosit the said Arthour Jhonstoun rector of the said universitie, from the dait of thir presentis to the 24 day of Junii, 1638 yeiris. Whilk office of rectorschipe the said doctour Arthour Johnstoune, personallie present, acceptit in and upon him, and gawe his oathe de fideli administratione, etc. Here was the Rector chosen, nominated, and elected in the course of a single meeting — a process which now takes about three or four weeks, and with which no one but a ma- triculated undergraduate has anything to do. This farce is described with a fine irony as having been performed with "haill solemnitie." If such a proceeding was possible in 1637, the nullifi- cation of the office was rendered still easier at a later date when the practice of the mediaeval Universities might be presumed to have been lost sight of. Thus in the election of 1763 the Procurators were swept bodily away by the decision of King's College Rectorial Court which summarily decided that in all Time Comeing, the Annual! Election of a Rector shall proceed without Procuratores Nationum, chosen to join in the said Election, . . . and, with regard to the Procuratores in generall, find that previous to every election where the Procuratores Nationum are entitled to vote by the Foundation of the college, [i.e., for all college officials other than the Rector,] their Election shall not be for a Year or any Stated Time, but pro re nata. The Chancellor subsequently ratified this finding, which obtained apparently as late as the year 1856. Precisely the same sort of professorial tactics against the Rectorship were pursued in the other Scots Universities. Thus in 1625 the Senatus of St. Andrews "jusserunt ne quisquam eligeretur Rector praeter primarios collegiorum magistros." In 1642 the Professors were made eligible. Principal Tulloch when a student at St. Andrews led a protest against the custom by which the Rectorship was filled by certain professors in rotation, without reference to the wishes of the students. Again, we find a Commission 31 The Rectorship: its Origin of Glasgow enacting in 17 17 that no student should vote in the election, the electors being the Chancellor, Rector, Principal and the Dean of Faculty. Fortunately a second Commission of 1727 restored the franchise. A further step towards the nullification of the Rector- ship was taken, consciously or unconsciously, by electing absentee holders of the office — which was a direct evasion of Dunbar's injunction of 1 53 1 that the Rector was to be an " actual resident within the University." The practice of the absentee Rector began with the election of county lairds, King's College leading off in 1698 by the return of Sir Thomas Burnett of Leys who held office for six years. He was followed by the lairds of Leslie, Putachie, Craigievar, Invercauld, Echt, Grandholm, Seaton, Kemnay and so on. In short the Rectorship became a territorial perquisite, dis- tributed in rotation round the county. Then the " honour " of it all increased in inverse ratio to the service rendered, and it came to be conferred on distinguished Scots, such as Lord Glenbervie, who was re-elected seven times (1806-13), Lord Aberdeen and Lord Arbuthnott. Marischal College was the first to go out of Scotland for its Rector, for in 1764 it returned John Gray, residing in London, the founder of the Gray Scholarship. It was Marischal College also which went on to the next step of nullification by electing a Rector who was not even a Scot, to wit Lord Brougham, returned in 1838, while Sir John Herschel was elected in 1842 and Sir Archibald Alison in 1845. Carlyle, Tenny- son, Dickens and Thackeray were all invited, but declined the honour. It is to the credit of King's College that it never went in for the purely ornamental Rector, for it limited its choice to Scotsmen, who presumably knew what a Rectorship involved and what a Scots University stood for in the national life. The restoration of the Rectorship to something of its original meaning was begun in 1824, curiously enough in Marischal College, which had gone farther than the senior University in nullifying the office. Its conscience had been pricked so early as 17 14 when the Principal and Regents took into "serious consideration the great advantages that may attend the electing of a Rector 3 2 Meaning and Practical Value (conform to the foundation), which many difficulties have interrupted for some years past." The Marischal College students, who had never lost their power to the extent of the brethren at King's College (though they equalised matters by choosing complete absentees), took up the question in 1824 when a Letter to the Students of Marischal College on the Subject of the Approaching Election [by James Forbes, M. A.] very strongly advocated the claims of Joseph Hume, the M.P. for the Aberdeen Burghs. To the absentee type of Rector was attributed the " defects and corruptions " existing in " some of our Universities " : — Elect no one who is related in any degree to a Peer or Baronet ; for, believe us, whatever he may tell you, he is looking to his own interests at your expense, and will be happy to honour his relative by voting him Lord Rector. Elect none of those quiet deceitful caterpillars, who look on the constituted authorities as infallible, and who would lick the very dust beneath his feet to gain the favour of a Professor. But elect bold, decisive fellows, who speak what they think, and will not be intimidated. The pamphlet had its desired effect, and Hume was returned in 1824 and 1825. With his wonted energy he resuscitated the Rectorial Court, which had not been held since 1738. This Court, held on 14th November, 1825, was considered a great novelty, and it was very largely attended by students. The student grievances more especially ven- tilated at this Court were that the Professors did not attend regularly ; that the state of the bursaries wanted looking into ; that students had been deprived of their privileges in the Library; and that the Charter had been infringed on several points. This Rectorial meeting was not appreciated by the Professors, and even one of the Rector's Assessors — the Provost of Aberdeen — declined to attend. Hume strongly advocated a resident Rector, and spoke generally on academic reform. As soon as his back was turned, however, nothing was done, and he afterwards wrote from London that he was " deeply concerned that the hopes held out to him of having induced a majority of the Senatus to make alterations and improvements in the University had not been realised." As already noted, the Professors had a counterblast Rectorial Court in the following year ; from c 33 The Rectorship: its Origin the whole tone of which it is clear that nothing was further from their minds than the carrying out of any of Hume's suggestions. A reform in the whole subject of the Rectorship seemed within the grasp of the University by the Commission of 1826, which advocated the principle of a working Rector, and that the office should be held for four years, instead of one. But that Commission, like many others, came to nothing. The King's College students quietly submitted to the state of matters. As Paris University had been formed by Masters, in contradistinction to the Student University of Bologna, so it was that the King's College graduates took up the question of the Rectorship. They also had been ignored, and had had a tough fight with the Senatus to get a share in the government of the University. The Senatus looked on the graduates with extreme suspicion and jealousy. In 1826 the graduates of Marischal College had agitated on the same lines, and had formed a com- mittee for this purpose. The attitude of Principal William Laurence Brown was indicative of the general professorial feeling. He held that such a committee " would go to the utter subversion of all order and subordination. It would lead to the most pernicious consequences." The Senatus of King's College stood out against the aspirations of the graduates, but, as a sop, gave them the privilege of electing the Rector in 1855. Voting by Nations, they elected the Earl of Ellesmere, who died within six months. The grad- uates then elected Mr., afterwards Lord President, Inglis, voting, however, par capita, not per nationes. The first step which really put the Rectorship on its feet, so to speak, was the Union of the Colleges in i860. Four radical changes were then made, the most important of which was that the election was to lie entirely in the hands of the matriculated students (represented nominally by "Procurators") voting in Nations, the Marischal Col- lege four being adopted, namely, Mar, Moray, Angus and Buchan. Another move, entirely in the favour of the students, was the restriction that no Professor in a Scots University was eligible. Before this not only Scots, but even Aberdeen, Principals and Professors had been elected 34 Meaning and Practical Value over and over again. Furthermore, the election, which was to be for three years instead of annually, was insisted on by the provision that in the case of the equality of Nations a casting vote should be given by the Chancellor of the University. In former years the Professors had been only too glad to have an equality of Nations, for that decided for them that no election need be made. A definite status was also given to the Rector — he is not referred to in the Act as " Lord Rector " — for he was made President of the newly constituted University Court, to which he nominated an Assessor. This gave the students a direct representation amounting to a third of the Court. Thus the Rectorship was restored by Statute in two essential points — first, who was to elect (the students) ; and, secondly, who was not to be elected (any acting Professor in a Scots University). Unfortunately, the third essential (who was to be elected) was not specified in so many words, though the duties assigned to the Rector were a strong presumption against his being a mere ornament. Unhappily this positive side to the proposition has not yet been settled, although the interest in the contest has in- creased, the percentage of the students voting having risen from 72 in i860 to 92 in 1890. Some of the electors of i860 had a perfectly clear notion of the immense import- ance of selecting a local candidate. If you refer to the contest of Maitland (afterwards Lord Barcaple) and Sir Andrew Leith Hay, you will find [see Appendix] that the supporters of the latter saw clearly that the interests of the Professors and the Students were diametrically opposed in this matter. The Students' safety lay in the local man " so that the University Court may be independent." The Professors' point of view, on the other hand, was to make the Rector a non-attender at the Court so that student repre- sentation might be reduced to a minimum. The pioneers of 1 860 were however as premature as the charter-makers of 1494, 1505, 1 531 and 1858. It was not until 1884 tnat the theory that the undergraduates form an integral and a vital part of the University was really grasped. It then took tangible form in the shape of the Students' Represen- tative Council, which was granted a legal status so recently 35 The Rectorship: its Origin as 1889. The consequence is that the student has bartered his birthright for a mess of " distinction," of " honour," of spasmodic rhetoric. In the forty odd years since he got his charter, the student has realised only in four instances the ideal of the Rectorship as a serious office and not a sinecure. Mr. Grant Duff had a scheme of reform which dealt with the Faculty of Arts ; Professor Huxley proposed several reforms in Medicine. There have, however, been only two Rectors who could actually attend to the routine business of the University, namely, Dr. Alexander Bain and the Marquis of Huntly. That the efforts of these strenuous Rectors were appreciated was shown by the fact that three of them were elected for two terms, while Lord Huntly served three terms. And yet the student goes on suggesting and electing the absentee Rector, who is of little value to him, though it must be cynically admitted Lord Goschen and Lord Strath- cona both brought money into the University treasury. The theory of the student's rights in the Rectorship was further enlarged in the Universities Act of 1889, which replaced the Chancellor's casting vote in the event of an equality of Nations by a numerical majority of the elec- tors, and gave the Rector the option of consulting the Students' Representative Council in the selection of his Assessor. In actual practice, however, the student's power has been reduced, inasmuch as his representation in the University Court is now only one-seventh, instead of one- third, of the whole. But the Rectorship has such enormous tenacity to its first forms and intention that the student may yet see it in its true light. Its tenacity in point of intention is clearly indicated by the most recent Act ; its adhesion to the traditions of its outward form is still more extraordinary. Just consider the method still pursued at Aberdeen of voting by Nations. It remains to this day a slavish copy of the Bologna method, which was based, firstly, on the elaborate system of indirect election as practised by the early Italian Republics which I have explained, and, secondly, on the model of the Sacred College at Papal elections in a " Conclave." The system at Aberdeen is in this wise. The Nations vote in four different rooms, the doors of which are locked at the time 36 Meaning and Practical Value appointed, so that all the voters must be in by a certain time. Two Professors preside over each Nation — one to read out the names of the voters, the other to take a record of the vote. A student — usually one who has taken a prominent part in the election campaign — is proposed and seconded in each Nation to represent the Rectoral candi- dates whose names are never mentioned. The name of each voter is then read out and he names not the Rectorial candidate but the student representing him. The student elected becomes the " Procurator." Then the four Procura- tors go to the Senatus and vote for the Rector. It is theoretically possible for a Procurator to vote at the last moment for the other Rectorial candidate. If the votes within a Nation are equally divided, it is held that two Procurators have been elected and their votes of course cancel each other. The election is therefore entirely a matter of proxy. On one occasion only since i860 has the numerical majority been in favour of the defeated candidate. The winning candidate has had also a majority of votes ; least in the Rosebery election of 1878 (3 votes), and greatest in the Forster election of 1875 (233 votes). On three occasions only has there been a majority in all the Nations, and only on three occasions has there been an equality of Nations. As another curious example of the tenacity of the mediaeval tradition, I must refer to the Nomination fight, for it may possibly have to go the way of the peasemeal which used to be a great feature at the delivery of the Rectorial address. The fight is a remnant of the old Bolognese system of destructive rowdyism at the Rectorial election, which I have already noticed. The best descrip- tion of such a battle at Aberdeen is that which was written by Dr. W. Cardiff Hossack (M.B. 1894), though it appeared anonymously in the pages of the students' magazine {Alma Mater, viii., 34). It is all the more interesting in that it applies to the struggle of 1890 to revive the old, and the only sound, ideal of insisting on the Rector's being a work- ing official and therefore a local man. The antagonists were the Marquis of Huntly, the only Rector of modern times who has been elected for three consecutive terms, and 37 The Rectorship: its Ofigiri the Rt. Hon. James Bryce, M.P. for South Aberdeen. The ridiculousness of introducing Parliamentary politics into the contest was brought out by the Liberals (and, there- fore, presumably the National Home Rulers) supporting Mr. Bryce, who could not possibly have been a University Home Ruler owing to his duties in London. At a quarter to ten, the followers of Bryce, under the leadership of [Patrick William] Diack, [M.A.'88: M.B., CM.] marched out from their meeting place, Golden Square, with their banner at the head in the hands of Mackintosh [a medical student who afterwards 'listed in the Life Guards] the mighty. Quarter of an hour later, the partisans of Huntly formed up in Bon-Accord Square, and set out in three divisions ; first, the general body of the defenders with the Football men in front, next, the left attacking party, and lastly, the right attacking party, the pick of the company. Three pipers and a drummer led the van. The march down was without special incident, at least, to the pro- cessionists. Doubtless the happy occupants of shop-doors, balconies, or buses, and the still more happy possessors of tall hats might have something else to say on this point. Any one having any doubt on this point can consult the billsticker on whom such liberal attentions were showered in Broad Street, or the old gentleman who was going to a funeral but somehow didn't. Entering the quadrangle amid the cheers of its opponents, the Huntly force took up position on the Pathological lecture room steps, and was soon arranged round the standard in a dense compact body flanked by the two attack parties. The Football men were placed immediately round the flag. The disposition of the other party on the Natural History steps was the same, but looser and less organised. The respective nominations having then been made by [Dr. William] Findlay [M.A. '88 : M.B., CM., now in Aberdeen] and [Dr. A. H.] Bennett [M.B. '91 : now in Moonta, South Australia], the word was given, and " what a yell was there, as if men fought upon the earth and fiends in upper air." When the first smoke of battle had cleared away, and the floating clouds subsided a little, it was seen that on both sides the attack — though furious — had been unsuccessful. However, the men were fresh, so for some time the combat raged with unabated fury, neither party being able to pierce the front, for though some strong giant would now and then penetrate as far as the steps, it was only to be cast out a minute later. In about quarter of an hour it became evident that while Huntly was firm and unbroken as ever, the looser and less compact front of the Brycites was commencing to succumb to furious assaults it had to sustain. Reinforcements accordingly were sent, and in a short time, despite the splendid efforts of the mighty standard bearer and his men, the standard was gradu- ally dislodged. They now became furious, but purposeless, for the 38 Meaning and Practical Value standard once down, its capture was but a matter of time. Frag- ments of bunting now began to deck the Huntly banner, and before long, a tremendous cheer announced that the body of the standard was in the hands of the enemy, and that thus the toughest fight for many a day was virtually at an end. But how narrow is the line that separates the sublime from the ridiculous 1 O Alfred, Alfred Bennett, thy very name shouldst have kept thee from so unromantic a denouement, from dishonouring that poor tattered remnant by a hiding-place so ignoble that tongue cannot speak, pen write of it without shame. Of this more hereafter. . . . All this time a good deal of desultory fighting had been going on around the Huntly stronghold. Here a small Brycite would rush, head down, into a looser part of the defence, and by assiduous twisting and boring work his way unnoticed pretty well into the mass, to be eventually thrown out with a force that sent him half across the quadrangle. There some towering Hercules would, for a moment, carry all before, clearing men off right and left like ninepins, to meet in the end the same fate. Now even this ceased, and one had leisure to look round and see the traces of the struggle on the combatants. This man with a cut lip, that with a bleeding nose, one with a jersey split from top to bottom, another with the tattered remnants of what had once been a jacket turned inside out ; scatter some battered hats, some trampled caps among the assemblage, soak every man in perspiration and peasemeal, and a more disreputable, ferocious looking lot I defy you to produce. Little recked they of this, so the Huntly banner was now unrolled, and led the jubilant procession of victors up Union Street, with cheers and songs, to Bon-Accord Square once more, when, after hearty self-congratulation on this good omen of success in the election, they parted. The vanquished, instead of quietly dispersing, brought out the tattered fragments of their banner from the shop to which it had been in so diplomatic and unromantic a manner conveyed, and had their procession too, eventually breaking up opposite the Infirmary. The tenacity of the Nation idea as a manageable method of dividing the students is very remarkable. The latest example of its use has occurred in the case of such a recent institution as the University Company of the ist Volunteer Battalion of the Gordon Highlanders, which is divided into four sections — Moray, Buchan, Angus and Mar. The Rectorial Address, which has been almost the only tangible evidence of the existence of a Rector in the Scots Universities during the last forty years, and which is the main excuse for the present volume, is quite modern ; 39 The Rectorship: its Origin and yet it may be looked upon as a relic of the curious inaugural ceremonies which took such curious forms in the mediaeval Universities. Most unfortunately it has come to be the whole duty of the Rector ; but it is no more the whole or even of a part of the Rector's duties than the coronation is the sum total of the Sovereign's reign. Indeed it has infinitely less reason for existence than the coronation, for the address is absolutely unknown to University Acts. It is in short merely an incidental, which has run the risk of being regarded as an essential. If this introduction has the appearance of a polemic, it is less the result of the writer's opinions than of the material with which he has had to deal. To state, even in the baldest way, the origin and the evolution of the Rectorship is de facto to formulate a plea against making the office a mere sinecure. The whole facts point that way, culminating with the most recent Universities Act (1889) which has gone far to restore the idea of the Student-University of Bologna on which our Alma Mater was so largely modelled. By that Act and its immediate predecessor the student has been given a direct voice in the government of the University ^— a privilege absolutely unknown in the "arenas of the south," which are typical of a country where caste still counts for a great deal. Oxford and Cambridge remain Universities of Masters. Scotland is equipped with an organisation much more kin to the Student-University of Bologna. Yet what has the Scots Student done with his right ? As Rashdall puts it, the Rectorial elections are " now used as the means of paying a triennial homage to some distinguished public man " — in nine cases out of ten a mere party politician. Could anything be more wasteful ? It cannot be stated too often that the Rector is elected (by the law of the land, mark you) solely by the students, and his duties are to preside over the University Court, the chief governing body of the body academic. The efficient, the genuine, the historical Rectorship is of first-rate importance not merely to the students, but to the whole University ; which is made up of three great classes — the undergraduate, the graduate, and the professoriate, with a small admixture (under the most recent Act) of the muni- 40 Meaning and Practical Value cipality. For the Scots University the greatest of these is unquestionably the undergraduate. The Scots Universities can never, and should never, be " seats of learning " in the archaic sense of the cloister and the cell. They are essentially practical assets in the nation's struggle for life. They bear the same relation to the country as H.M.S. Britannia does to the Navy, or Woolwich to the artillery. They exist not to support a learned class of teachers, nor to confer honours on a large class of graduates, but to train undergraduate students. Therefore that University will best realise the purpose of its existence which understands most clearly the demands of its students, for these in turn are only the demands of the world outside. It is perfectly natural that the professorial caste, with the best intentions in the world, will to some extent fight for its own hand, and to that must be attributed the long dead letterism of the Rectorship. But it behoves the University to check this as far as it can, and to understand exactly what service it has to render for the equipment of every rising generation. Thus it was a very wise provision of the Act of 1858 (corroborated by the one of 1889) to give the under- graduate a voice in the management of the machinery which is to mould him. There need be no violent caste opposition involved in this, for that involves the decay of the whole organism. The theory of the Rectorship is not opposition, but intelligent co-operation. That can be gained only by electing a representative who is first and foremost an edu- cationist, who is in touch with his electors, and who will attend strictly to the business which he is selected to perform. The most recent legislation on the point is very encourag- ing, for it has really restored the original conception of the Rectorship to a tenable position. I can only wish that in this twentieth century the students may take an additional dose of courage and utterly abolish the absentee, the ornamental, the wholly unsuitable Rector — even if this involves that the present volume shall have no successor. J. M. Bulloch. RECTORIAL ADDRESSES 43 The Culture and Discipline of the Mind 1 By John Abercrombie I FIND it impossible to express, as I ought, the feelings with which I appear before you, in entering upon the duties of the distinguished office to which you have been pleased to call me in so flattering a manner. Allow me, in the first place, to express my most grateful thanks, and to assure you, that I appreciate most highly this distinction, and feel most warmly the honour you have conferred on me. Of my ability to discharge the duties of the office, I must speak in the most guarded terms ; but I may express, with greater confidence, my earnest wish to discharge them, and my earnest desire to contribute, if it were in my power, towards advancing the interests and promoting the usefulness of this ancient and venerated seat of learning. My earliest and most tender recollections are closely associated with it ; and the hall, in which we are now assembled, recalls, with that kind of feeling which is pleasing yet mournful, the memory of years which are long gone by, — of fellow- students who have been cut off in the midst of their days, — and of eminent and revered preceptors who have finished a course distinguished alike by their talents and their virtues. This ancient fabric itself is now mouldering into decay, but I rejoice in the prospect which is before us, of seeing it reared in new splendour ; and I trust the time is not far distant, when we shall lay the foundation of another Marischal College, and unite our earnest prayers to the Giver of all good, that it may rival these ancient walls in celebrity and in usefulness. The University of Marischal College has long held a very high place among our schools of literature and science ; 1 Address delivered in Marischal College, 5th November, 1835. 45 Rectorial Addresses: and its character has been supported by a succession of eminent men, whose names are well known and highly honoured among the great promoters of truth. Without going beyond the recollection of the present generation, I need only mention Campbell, Beattie, Brown, Stewart, Hamilton, Copland, to whom, with various others, some of us look back with respect bordering on veneration, and who are deeply associated in our minds with our first intro- duction to the delights of literature and the wonders of science. Their places are now occupied by individuals eminently qualified for the various departments to which they have devoted themselves, and eminently fitted both to enlarge the boundaries of science, and to extend the reputation of the seminary which has the benefit of their talents. In this slight allusion to them, I shall only express my sincere regard for them as a body and as individuals, and my earnest wishes for their personal happiness and the long continuance of their invaluable labours. Under their instructions, may you, my beloved young friends, grow up in all that sound knowledge, and that true culture of the mind, which shall qualify you, in your progress through life, for extensive respectability and extensive usefulness The course of elementary instruction, which has long been pursued in Marischal College, is admirably and peculiarly calculated for laying a sound foundation in the various departments of knowledge ; — and those who improve the opportunities which are here afforded to them will, I am persuaded, have reason, in after life, to look upon the years which they have spent in this place as a period pro- ductive of inestimable results in their mental discipline and moral culture. But, that these important results may be accomplished, it is necessary that you not only pay minute attention to the various branches of knowledge which are here presented to you, but that you bear in mind the higher purpose which all science ought to serve in the culture of the understanding itself, and in qualifying it for the attain- ment of truth, — particularly for the acquirement of those great and ultimate truths, by which science ought to lead us to the omnipotent and eternal cause. Philosophy fails of its noblest object, if it does not lead us to God ; — and, 46 John Abercrombie, 1835 whatever may be its pretensions, that is unworthy of the name of science, which professes to trace the sequences of nature, and yet fails to discover, as if marked by a sunbeam, the mighty hand which arranged them all ; which fails to bow in humble adoration before the power and wisdom, the harmony and beauty, which pervade all the works of Him who is eternal. But all that is furnished by early study gives only the elements for forming the mind, and for gradually training it to that intellectual vigour and moral discipline by which it may be prepared for farther and greater pursuits. While, therefore, you prosecute with ardour the various depart- ments of science, you will remember that a higher and more extended object is still before you. You will feel the necessity of rising above the details of individual sciences, to those results to which all science ought to combine in leading us, — the culture of the understanding itself, — and the practical application of those rules by which the mind may be directed towards the discovery of truth, and by which the truth so discovered may be applied to the actual duties and responsibilities of life. You will learn to estimate the value of that greatest of all acquirements, a well-regu- lated mind, and to study with anxious care what those qualities are which constitute such a mind, and what are the particular pursuits, and the mode of conducting them, which are best adapted for the high attainment. You will learn to estimate the benefits which arise from such a regu- lation of the mind, — to see how, in every inquiry, it tends to conduct us to truth, — how it leads the mind to apply itself to various pursuits with a degree of attention adapted to their real value, and to follow out the inductions of each to its last and highest object, — the culture of the moral being. Judging upon these principles, we are taught to feel that life has a value beyond the mere acquirement of knowledge, and the mere prosecution of our own happiness. This value is found in those nobler pursuits which qualify us for promoting the good of others, and in those acquirements by which we learn to become masters of ourselves. It is to cultivate the intellectual part for the attainment of truth, 47 Rectorial Addresses: — and to train the moral being for the solemn purposes of life, when life is viewed in its relation to a life which is to come. These exalted pursuits are not more conducive to the great objects which are presented to us as moral and responsible beings, than they are calculated to promote our own happiness and peace. Constituted as we are, indeed, and placed in certain relations to objects of sense, and to other sentient beings, we are, in some degree, under the influence of external things. But the powers which wield the destiny of our happiness are chiefly within. It is there that we trace the elements of those noble faculties, which, if duly cultivated, secure at once our usefulness and our happiness ; — and it is there that we find the germs of those vulture passions whose dominion is worse than eastern bondage, and, under whose relentless tyranny, a man who is master of the world may be himself a slave. In the conquest of these consists the highest dignity of our nature, — and in the control and subjugation of them is our only solid peace. Among the phenomena presented by human character, none will strike you as more remarkable than the various objects which men propose to themselves in life. In all a certain vision of happiness seems to float over the scene ; — but how various are the courses by which the phantom is pursued, — and how many enter upon the pursuit without proposing to themselves any definite course at all. They never seem distinctly to put to themselves the question, in what the imagined enjoyment consists, and what are the elements by which it is constituted. One expects to find it in wealth, — another in power, — a third in rank, — a fourth in fame, — while not a few are found to seek it in a mere round of excitement, perishing with the hour which gave it birth. Thus a large proportion of mankind pass through life, pursuing an imagined good which too often eludes their grasp, — or which, even after it has been attained, is found incapable of giving satisfaction. They live upon the opinions of other men, and are thus left at the mercy of a thousand external circumstances, by which the good they had so long pursued is blasted in the enjoyment. They enter upon life without forming any definite conception of what the great John Abercrombie, 1835 business of life ought to be ; — and, when they perceive that it is drawing to a close, they look back with astonishment to find that it has passed over them like a dream, — that they cannot say for what purpose they have lived, — or perhaps are compelled to acknowledge that they have lived in vain. But life presents another aspect, when we view it as a scene of moral discipline ; — when we look not at its pains and its pleasures, but its high duties and its solemn responsibilities, — and at the discipline of the heart, from which springs a true and solid happiness which external circumstances cannot destroy. All then is defined and clear. The object is definite, and the way to it is marked as by a light from heaven. Each step that is gained is felt to be a real and solid acquirement ; and each imparts a sense of moral health which strengthens every principle within for farther progress. I know that I carry your best feelings along with me, when I thus call your attention to that course of life, which alone is adapted to its real and solemn importance, — which alone is worthy of those powers of our intellectual and moral nature with which we have been endowed by Him who formed us. In the culture of these is involved not only a duty and a responsibility, but a source of the purest and most refined enjoyment. For there is a power which is calculated to carry a man through life, without being the sport and the victim of every change that flits across the scene ; — this power resides in a sound moral discipline, and a well-regulated mind. The foundation of all mental discipline, in the words of an eminent writer, consists in the " power of mastering the mind." It is in having the intellectual processes under due regulation and control, — and being able thus to direct them, upon sound and steady principles, to the acquisition of useful knowledge, and the discovery of truth. Here we are, in the first place, reminded of that remarkable power which we possess over the succession of our thoughts. We can direct the thoughts to any subject we please, and can keep them directed to it with steady and continuous atten- tion. In the due culture of this power consists a point in mental discipline of primary and essential importance. By the neglect of such culture the mind is allowed to run D 49 Rectorial Addresses: to waste amid the trifles of the passing hour, or is left the sport of waking dreams and vain delusions entirely un- worthy of its high destiny. There is not a greater source of difference between one man and another, than in the manner in which they exercise this power over the succes- sion of the thoughts, and in the subjects to which these are habitually directed. It is a mental exercise which lies at the foundation of the whole character. He who, in early life, seriously enters upon it, under a sense of its supreme importance ; — who trains himself to habits of close and connected thinking, — and exerts a strict control over the subjects to which his thoughts are habitually directed, — leading them to such as are really worthy of his regard, and banishing all such as are of a frivolous, impure, or degrading character, — this is he who is pursuing the highest of all earthly acquirements, the culture of the understanding, and the discipline of the heart. Now, it cannot be too anxiously borne in mind, that this great attainment is, in a remarkable degree, under the influence of habit. Each step that we take in the prosecution of it will facilitate our farther progress, — and, every day that passes over us, without making it the object of earnest attention, the acquirement becomes the more difficult and the more uncertain ; — and a period at length arrives, when no power exists in the mind capable of correcting the dis- order which habit has fixed in the mental economy. The frivolous mind may then continue frivolous to the last, amusing itself with trifles, or creating for itself fictions of the fancy, no better than dreams, and as unprofitable : The distorted mind may continue to the last eagerly pur- suing some favourite dogma, while it is departing farther and farther from truth : And the vitiated and corrupted mind may continue to the last the slave of its impure and degrading passions. Such is the power and such the result of mental habits ; — and let us ever bear in mind how such habits are formed. They arise out of individual acts of the mind ; and we have not the means of determining what number of such acts are necessary for forming the habits, — and at what period these may acquire a mastery which shall peril the highest interests of the mind. We 5° John Abercrombie, 1835 cannot determine how many instances of frivolity may constitute the permanently frivolous mind ; — how many trains of impurity may constitute the permanently corrupted mind ; — or what degree of inattention to the diligent culture of the powers within may be fatal to the best interests of the man, both as an intellectual and a moral being. Hence the supreme importance of cultivating in early life the mastery of the mind, — and of watching with earnest attention the trains of thought which we encourage there, as we cannot determine at what period a habit may be formed, the influ- ence of which shall be permanent and irremediable. When we take this extended view of that which con- stitutes sound intellectual culture, we perceive that it does not consist in the mere acquirement of knowledge, however extensive that knowledge may be ; for this may be an exercise of memory alone. We feel that there is a culture of the higher powers of the mind, of greater difficulty, and greater importance far, without which knowledge is vain: This is a due regulation of the various mental faculties themselves, so that each may perform its proper office upon the knowledge we have acquired ; that the various powers within may observe a healthy relation towards each other ; and that from the whole, there may result a due influence upon our motives and principles of action, as moral and responsible beings. Without attention to these considera- tions, a man may accumulate a mass of knowledge which yields him no real advantage ; — he may have gone the round of the sciences, commonly so called, while he has made no progress in that higher department, the knowledge of himself. The great principle of self-government, therefore, consists in calling ourselves to account, both for what we know, and what we do, and for the discipline which we exercise over the processes of our minds. It consists in questioning ourselves rigidly, what progress we are making in important acquirements, — what are the subjects which chiefly occupy our attention, — whether these are such as are really of adequate value, or whether, amid undue devotedness to some favourite pursuit, others of higher importance are overlooked and forgotten ; or whether, under a habit of listless vacuity, 5 1 Rectorial Addresses: and inactivity of mind, we may be allowing the best of our days to creep on without eager attention to any solid acquire- ment at all. It consists in questioning ourselves in the same manner, what opinions we have formed, and upon what grounds we have formed them ; whether they have been received from others without examining for ourselves, or after a slight and partial examination, directed it may be by some previously formed prejudice, — or whether they have been deduced from a full and fair examination of all the facts which ought to be taken into the inquiry. It consists, finally, in scrutinizing our mental habits, our moral feelings, and our principles of action ; — what are the subjects to which our thoughts are most habitually directed ; — what the motives which chiefly influence our conduct ; — what the great objects which we propose to ourselves in life ; — what place among these have the principles of selfish indulgence, personal distinction, or mere human applause ; — and what place have those exalted principles which spring from a higher source, and rise to that elevation from which they spring, — a spirit of devotedness to Him who made us, — and views and feelings which point to an existence beyond the grave. A leading defect in many characters, and one which lies at the foundation of much and serious imperfection, both intellectual and moral, is the want of this habit of self-inspection. This deficiency is not confined to the listless and vacant mind, which allows life to glide over it amid frivolities and waking dreams. It may be found in those who are intensely and actively occupied with external things. It may be found alike in the laborious student, who is eager in the pursuit of knowledge, — and in the active man of the world, who, engrossed with the affairs of the living scene which is moving around him, has neglected the wondrous scene that is passing within, — has never cultivated the rigid scrutiny of his own intellectual and moral temperament. The truth, indeed, seems to be, that, after a certain period of life, few have the hardihood thus sternly to look within. For a high degree of moral courage is required to face the disclosure which awaits the mind, when it is thus turned inwards upon itself; — a disclosure, it 52 John Abercrombie, 1835 may be, of the result of years and years that have passed over it, in listless inactivity, which yields nothing to reflec- tion but an empty void ; or in the eager pursuit of objects which are seen to be worthless ; or in the acquirement of habits which are felt to be destructive of the health of the mind ; — the disclosure, it may be, of important duties neglected, and important pursuits overlooked, and the conviction that life is drawing to a close while its great business is yet to begin. Few have moral courage to meet this disclosure ; and, when it is met, with an attention in some degree adequate to its supreme interest, the impres- sions which it yields are encountered by the force of con- firmed moral habits, which seem to claim every faculty and feeling of the mind as theirs by hopeless bondage. Hence the supreme importance of cultivating in early life the habit of looking within ; the practice of rigidly questioning our- selves as to what we are, and what we are doing, — what are our leading pursuits, and what our mental habits ; what are our plans and prospects for life, and what influence over the whole of our moral discipline, have the solemn realities of a life which is to come. What I have called the power of mastering the mind, consists, if I may use a strong mode of expression, in compelling it to listen to such a course of interrogation as this ; and compelling it to return distinct and definite answers. Each hour that, in early life, is spent in such an exercise, is fraught with results of greater value than aught that the world can give. The exercise is gradually confirmed into a mental habit ; and, under the influence of a power from on high, the consequences are likely to be such as reach beyond the narrow limits of time, and extend into eternal being. The regulated condition of the mind, which has been the subject of these observations, is applicable to every situation in which a man can be placed in life, and leads him to feel his way through its various pursuits and re- sponsibilities in a manner adapted to the requirements of each of them. But it more properly belongs to the aim of my present suggestions, to mark its influence upon the progress of the mind itself; — and, in this respect, I may allude, in a very few words, to its remarkable bearing upon 53 Rectorial Addresses: three leading objects of mental discipline, — the acquisition of knowledge, — the formation of opinions, — and the culture of those moral emotions of the heart, which are the last and highest object to every responsible being. I. A regulated condition of the mind contributes, in a most material degree, to our progress in knowledge. In this respect, it is, in the first place, the source of a quality which ought to be carefully cultivated in early life, which I may call mental activity. This consists of an eager inquiring state of mind, ever on the watch for information from any source from which it can be drawn — and ever anxious to make its information more correct and more extensive. It leads to a habit of observation, by which we learn to derive knowledge from all that is passing around us. It teaches us, farther, to direct this mental activity in a proper manner, by selecting such objects as are really deserving of our regard, and by directing the mind to them with a steady and continuous attention, so that we may acquire a full and connected knowledge of all the facts and their relations to each other, — and thus prepare them for the conclusions, or general principles, which they are calculated to yield. It thus tends to preserve us from frivolous pursuits, by leading us to a steady culture of those which are of real importance, and with an eager and persevering attention adapted to their true value. For, among many pursuits, no man can excel in all ; and the foundation of eminence is a due selection, and a leading direction of the mind to those which are thus selected. You will be at no loss to discover around you remarkable and instructive examples of the effects produced by the want of this sound discipline of the mind. One you will find dreaming through life, without directing himself with energy to any object, — a second wasting his powers, perhaps of a superior order, in a desultory application to a variety of studies, without ex- celling in one, — while a third devotes himself with eagerness and zeal to some favourite pursuit, neglecting others which really merit his chief regard. Closely connected with the habit of mental activity is the habit of reflection on the relations of the facts which are acquired, — leading us to observe their connections, and the 54 John Abercrombie, 1835 conclusions which they yield ; — and the habit of association, — referring facts to others with which they bear an analogy, and to principles or opinions which they tend to confirm, modify, or overturn. It teaches us also to trace among facts the relation of cause and effect, and to deduce from them general conclusions or general principles, the last and main object of science. Now, the whole of this course of mental activity is productive not only of intellectual im- provement, but of the highest mental enjoyment, — while the frivolous, or ill-regulated mind, is not only fatal to improve- ment, but is a burden to itself, and, as life advances, becomes its own tormentor. Let, then, the eager desire of knowledge carry you above those pursuits which waste the best years of so many around you, and leave them, even to the close of their days, the victims of frivolity still. II. The second great mental operation, in which is felt the value of a regulated mind, is the formation of opinions. Here various errors are committed, but all of them are of serious moment. There is a listless vacuity of mind which prevents it from being directed with attention or interest to the formation of defined opinions, even on subjects of supreme importance. There is a servility of mind which leaves it the slave of mere authority, without forming opinions for itself by personal inquiry. And there is a rude and reckless affectation of mental independence, or liberty of thinking, which leads a man to despise authority, to aim at striking out for himself a system distinguished from the received opinions of those around him, — led, it may be, by a love of singularity or the vanity of appearing wiser than his neighbours ; — or perhaps impelled by the condition of his moral feelings, to argue himself into the disbelief of what he wishes not to be true. From all such distortions of the understanding a regulated mental discipline tends to pre- serve us It induces us to approach every subject with a sincere and humble desire for truth, — to give its due influ- ence to authority, without being blindly led by it, — to give its due weight to every kind of evidence, without partial views or imperfect examination, — and to direct the whole powers, not to favour, establish, or overturn particular opinions, but honestly and anxiously to discover what is truth. 55 Rectorial Addresses: This is a subject of intense and solemn interest. A slight attention to the philosophy of it will enable you to perceive its true bearings upon us as responsible beings, — and how, on the highest of all subjects, a man may incur moral guilt in the formation of his opinions. Both as intel- lectual and moral beings, the great agent by which we are acted upon, is truth. Truth derives its power from evidence ; and there are laws of evidence which, in their nature, are as absolute and immutable as the laws of physical relations. But for the operation of them a state of the mind itself is required, and without this, even the best evidence may be deprived of its power to produce conviction. For the result of evidence upon the mind depends on close and continued attention ; and this is a voluntary process which every one may be able to perform. It is on this ground, therefore, that we hold a man to be responsible for his belief, — and contend that he may incur deep moral guilt in his disbelief of truths which he has examined in a frivolous or prejudiced manner, — or which, perhaps, he indulges in the miserable affectation of disbelieving, without having examined ithem at all. The remarkable fact, indeed, appears to be, that the chief source of unbelief, on the greatest of all subjects, is generally to be found in a previous moral corruption of the mind. It arises from no defect of evidence, but from a state of mind on which the highest falls without power. This striking moral process begins by a man renouncing the guidance of sound moral principle, and the restraints of religious truth, both on his conduct and on the discipline of his heart. The great truths which he thus violates are then repelled as intruders, which disturb his mental tranquillity ; and, from this stage in his down- ward progress, the career is short, and the mental process simple, by which he succeeds in driving the belief of them from his mind. Such is the wondrous economy of the human heart, — and such is the history of many a man, who, after a certain course of moral degradation, has sought refuge in infidelity. III. But I must leave this deeply important subject, and hasten to offer a very few remarks on the third of the topics to which I have alluded, — the influence of a regulated 56 John Abercrombie, 1835 mind on the moral emotions of the heart. In these consists the highest state of man, — his soundness as a moral being ; and there flow from them, by direct and natural sequence, all those affections and motives of action which guide his conduct to his fellow-men, — and those nobler emotions still which raise the feeble and finite being to Him the infinite and eternal. In the culture of these are involved not only the chief dignity of our nature, and our prospects as moral and responsible beings, — but also, in an equal degree, our present sound and solid happiness. They constitute that true wisdom, of which we are entitled to say, on the best of all authority, " her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace." Here we are reminded of that remarkable principle which pervades the whole economy of the mind, — the intimate relation which exists between the moral emotions and intellectual processes over which we have a direct and absolute control. As moral and responsible beings, the power by which we are acted upon is truth. But all truth must first be presented to the understanding, — and being, by an appropriate process of examination, received into the mind, it is then, by a voluntary exercise of attention and reflection, to be applied in such a manner as to produce its proper influence on the moral emotions of the heart It is thus that a beautiful harmony and consistency pervade the whole economy of the mind, eminently worthy of Him who made it ; — and it is thus that a solemn responsibility attaches to ourselves, in regard to those emotions of the heart over which we have not a direct control. It is precisely the same principle to which I have already referred, respecting the responsibility of man for his belief. He cannot believe as he wills, by any direct effort of his mind ; — yet a deep responsibility attaches to him in the formation of his opinions. And he cannot call forth at his bidding the moral emotions of the heart ; but the deepest guilt may be involved in the absence of them ; because, by an established economy of his mind, they arise out of processes of the under- standing, over which he has an absolute power, applied to truths which, under a higher influence, are calculated to exert a direct control over the moral emotions of the heart. 57 Rectorial Addresses: This part of the mental constitution is worthy of the deepest attention of every one, who appreciates that most essential of all pursuits, the culture of the moral feelings. It is by means of it that truth, which is received by a process of the understanding, is made to exert its power in controlling the tempests of the heart. It is by means of it that we can invite and cherish mental images and trains of thought, which tend directly to the highest purposes of our moral culture; — and can banish those which have an opposite tendency, as enemies which would poison the springs of moral health, and peril the safety of the moral being. And what are the truths which, under a supreme influ- ence, our intellectual nature is thus to use as the engines of a power to control and regulate the emotions of the heart. They are those which refer to the attributes of God, — and our relation to Him as the creatures of His hand, moral, responsible, and immortal. They rest upon evi- dence so extensive and so varied, that its authority will be best appreciated by those who have made the greatest attainments in the laws of rigid inquiry. This evidence is above us, and within us, and around us. Every step that we take, amid the wonders of creation without, leads us to new discoveries of the power, and wisdom, and goodness of Him who called them into being by His word, and main- tains them all in undeviating harmony. When we turn our attention within, we read in the moral impressions of our own minds, or, in other words, in the light of conscience, His attributes of holiness, and justice, and truth. And, meeting with difficulties in the book of natural religion, we have only to turn to the page of revelation, where all these difficulties are removed, and the divine character is displayed with a harmony and consistency which carry conviction to every candid mind. We have there disclosed the wondrous provision which has been made by infinite wisdom, and infinite mercy, for the restoration of man from his state of moral ruin, — and a power adapted to his moral weakness, — and a light to shine upon his moral darkness, — and a code of ethics more high, more pure, and more extensive far, than ever was contemplated by the wisest of men. The whole is supported by a weight of evidence 58 John Abercrombie, 1835 which fixes itself upon the mind with irresistible power, — and, with a tone of authority, it calls our attention to all the responsibilities of life, and all the realities of a life which is to come. Such are the truths, which, as moral causes, are calculated to act upon the mind, and thus to control and regulate our emotions, and our whole character, as moral and responsible beings ; — and it is of the utmost consequence that we attend to the philosophy of that process by which they may be made to answer this great purpose, and without which it may be entirely lost to us, with all its important results. This is an exercise of attention and reflection, over which every man feels that he has a voluntary control. The truths are endowed with certain tendencies which are as uniform as the operation of physical causes; but their actual efficiency is closely connected with this exercise of the mind itself; and it is thus, that, by ignorance or in- attention, a man may incur the deepest guilt, in the want of that moral culture, the great agents of which are thus presented to him, and pressed upon his attention as a rational being. Now, the truths to which I have thus referred are usually called objects of faith, — and you will often find a distinction made between objects of reason and objects of faith, — as if the latter were, in some respect, inferior to the former in their evidence and stability. But this is entirely without foundation. The truths which are the objects of faith are properly so called, because they do not come under the cognisance of any of our senses ; but they are as directly addressed to the understanding as the most obvious inductions of physical science ; and they carry with them a weight of evidence, as direct and incontrover- tible, to every mind which is open to its power. This evidence, indeed, is of a different character, but its strength and its authority are the same. The truths themselves are calculated to engage the highest powers of the mind ; and the most exalted understanding, that ever dwelt in human form, will derive from them a new feeling of intellectual vigour and moral health, by which it shall wing its way to those regions where shine forth in a peculiar manner the divine perfections ; and shall there prostrate these highest 59 Rectorial Addresses: powers in devout and humble adoration of Him, who was, and who is, and who is to come. This, and nothing less than this, is true philosophy ; for it is this alone that traces the phenomena of nature to their cause ; it is this alone that takes within its grasp the whole range of truth, and places fairly and deliberately against the mere objects of sense, those great realities which are the objects of faith. Let it then be your study in early life, to cultivate that sound condition of the mind, by which its powers are not kept in bondage to the mere objects of sense, but are trained to the habit of bringing down upon it the habitual influence of the truths which are the objects of faith. Devote yourselves with eager enthusiasm to the high acquirements of science; but cultivate also that habit of the mind by which science shall continually lead you to the eternal cause. And, while you are taught to follow the planet through the wondrous regularities of its move- ments, — when you find the comet, after being lost for a century, returning at the appointed period from the soli- tudes of its eccentric orbit, — when you extend your view beyond the system in which we move, and penetrate into that field in which ten thousand other systems revolve around ten thousand other suns in ceaseless harmony, — Oh rest not in a cold recognition of the facts, but take one single step, and say, — "These are thy wondrous works, — thyself how wondrous : " — And rest not here, but take yet another step, and recognise this Being as the witness of all your conduct, — as the witness even of the moral condition of the heart. Seek after purity of character, for you cannot go where you are not followed by that eye ; aspire after purity of heart, for that eye extendeth even there. And, feeling your inability for this mighty under- taking, seek continually a power from God, — a power which He alone can give, a power adapted to your utmost want, and which is promised to every one that asks it. In your progress through life, indeed, you will not fail to meet with those by whom this momentous truth is treated with derision, as the vision of fanaticism, unworthy of a philo- sophical mind. But never allow yourselves to be imposed upon by names ; and never suppose there can be anything 60 John Abercrombie, 1835 unphilosophical in the belief, that an influence should be exerted on the mind by Him who framed the wondrous fabric. And be assured you follow the dictates of the most exalted philosophy, when you commit yourselves to Him as the guide of your youth ; when you resign yourselves to that guidance, and ask that powerful aid, both for your conduct through this life, and your preparation for the life which is to come. 61 Systems of Education 1 By Archibald Alison 2 I GLADLY seize this opportunity of returning you my warmest thanks for the honour you have done me, in permitting me to address you from this place. It is an honour of which any one in any rank or station might be proud ; but which is in a peculiar manner gratifying to me, from early association, and the connexion of my forefathers with this ancient seat of learning. Seven and thirty years have elapsed since I first visited this in- teresting country, and beheld, in its cities and plains, the proud triumph of human industry over the disadvantage of climate and situation ; in its mountains, the highest sublimity of majestic nature. The summit of Benachie, the rocks of Lochnagar, the wells of Dee are well known to me ; and many of my happiest days have been spent in traversing your dusky moors. But I have yet a closer and a dearer tie with this city and this university. If I cannot say it is my native, I may at least say it is my ancestral land. I feel, I hope I may say, a legitimate pride in being descended from a family, which, for many genera- tions, added to the cluster of eminent men whose labours have shed such imperishable lustre over this city. Two hundred years have elapsed since my great-great-great- grandfather, James Gregory, commenced, within the walls of Marischal College, that brilliant course of mathematical dis- covery which rendered him the worthy friend of Newton and antagonist of Huygens. One hundred years have elapsed since my collateral ancestor, Thomas Reid, first entered, also within the same walls, on those profound researches into the human mind which have rendered his name im- mortal. It was in this city that my grandfather, Dr. 1 Address delivered 17th March, 1845. 2 Afterwards Sir Archibald Alison, Bart. 62 Rectorial Addresses Gregory, wrote that Legacy to his Daughters, which is now to be found in every language of Europe, and that his son developed that powerful intellect which has since made his name revered wherever medical science is known throughout the world. And now your too indulgent kind- ness has brought me back again, as it were, from a distant part of the country to the cradle of my ancestors, to receive the highest academical honours which Scotland can bestow, within the halls where they first inhaled the breath of intellectual life. When I reflect on the many illustrious men who have occupied the chair which I now unworthily fill, I may well be proud of the honour which your kindness has conferred upon me. The highest in rank, the first in talent, have felt themselves honoured by being placed in it. It has recently been filled by Brougham and Lyndhurst — by Breadalbane and Mansfield — toy Herschel and Abercrombie. It has been graced by the powerful intellect of Sir William Grant — the far-famed acquirements of Sir James M'Grigor — the polished eloquence of Mr. Colquhoun. But the honour becomes doubly flattering when I reflect on the great eminence of the distinguished individual l between whom and myself your suffrages were divided. And when I call to mind the learning, the genius, the eloquence, by which that right honoured gentleman is distinguished, I may say, above all his compeers, I feel that I had no title to be preferred, excepting the unenvied one belonging to more advanced years ; and that I owe the honour of occupying this place solely to the accidental circumstance that, being the older in life, my work is done, while his is, in part at least, yet to do. Upon looking over the list of the eminent men who have preceded me in this chair, I perceive, as might have been anticipated, that even these philosophical retreats have not been entire strangers to the heart-stirring questions which have recently agitated and still agitate society. It could not — perhaps it should not be otherwise. When the old are in motion the young will not be at rest. When society is in a state of transition those who are to form 1 The Right Hon. T. B. Macaulay. 63 Rectorial Addresses: that society will not be quiescent. I know that this is unavoidable ; I do not believe it is hurtful. Yet, while it must needs be that youth should, in some degree, share in the general spirit of the times, you will, I am sure, all concur with me in one feeling, which is that of regret that the talent and the energy exerted in such contests should, in a certain sense, be employed in civil conflict ; that they should divide many whose hearts at bottom are one, and whose united efforts are required to arrest the many evils with which society is menaced. While we admire the talent, while we respect the disinterestedness displayed in these questions, let me remind you that there is one great contest to which all who love their country are called, and which has none of the melancholy features of civil warfare. There is the eternal conflict of knowledge with ignorance, of charity with selfishness, of liberty with oppression, of virtue with vice, of religion with infidelity. It is, I know, because 1 have been a humble soldier in this conflict that you have honoured me with your suffrages. In it I trust all our hearts will be at one. In it I am sure none would more cordially unite than my right honourable opponent and myself. We may differ occasionally in the means, but we concur in the end ; we ascend the mountain by different sides, but we meet on one common ground at the summit. And in reading with admiration many of his eloquent passages, I have often been led to repeat the beautiful words of the historian Thiers, in recounting the effect pro- duced on the republican Barnave, by meeting with Louis XVI. in the Journey from Varennes. "How often would parties the most opposite be reconciled, if they could meet and read each other's hearts." I rejoice that the highest honour I have ever received should have been conferred by the young men of a Scottish University. Belonging, as I do, to an engrossing and labo- rious profession, which, in a peculiar manner, brings us into contact with the selfish strife or depraved inclinations of men, it is gratifying to think that, in mature life, the bridge of communication with the young has not been entirely cut asunder. It is pleasing to find that some feelings still lurk in our bosoms which find a responsive echo in the youthful 6 4 Archibald Alison, 1845 heart, and that the cares and duties of the world have not entirely obliterated those more generous sentiments which are expanded In life's morning march, when our bosoms are young, in seats such as these, by the undying eloquence of ancient genius. If I have been so fortunate as to preserve such a link, I ascribe it mainly to the purifying influence of that education in which you are now all, in different stages, par- ticipant. I entertain a strong, perhaps it may be an illiberal, pre- possession in favour of the Scottish system of education, both at schools and colleges. It seems calculated, beyond any other with which I am acquainted, to enlarge and strengthen the human mind. In none is this system more happily carried out than in this university, and under the able professors who direct your studies. It has been founded on the suggestion of Bacon, that learning should be made subservient to action ; it aims at the lofty object proposed by Milton, of fitting men " to discharge worthily all the duties, whether of peace or of war." I should grieve to see it exchanged for the plan pursued elsewhere in illustrious seminaries, of cultivating one particular exact science, or the graces of composition in a single dead language, to the neglect or exclusion of other branches of knowledge. Such a system can seldom benefit more than one in fifty to whom it is applied. Nature has not given a greater number the peculiar powers necessary to profit by that exclusive attention to one subject. It has been said by Johnson that the Scottish education gives a smattering of everything and the mastery of nothing. Johnson was right ; it does so, and that is its highest praise. It is not the object of education to give the mastery of any one thing ; it is enough if life can do so. Its object is to enable men to discover, by a preliminary and tentative process, for what line of thought or action nature has intended them — in what they are qualified thereafter to attain the mastery, and to prepare them for it. So brief is the period of youth that excellence can be attained in it in one branch of study only by neglecting all the others. For one who 65 Rectorial Addresses: rises to eminence under such a system, ten will be ship- wrecked. On no other principle than the salutary effects of our academical course of study, in this view, is it possible to explain the extraordinary number of eminent men whom Scotland has produced during the last hundred years, and the progress the country has made from their exertions — a proportion and a progress greatly exceeding that of England and Ireland during the same period, and which will perhaps be considered by future ages as not the least marvellous circumstance in this age of wonders. It may really be inferred, from what I have now said, that I am no indiscriminate admirer of the English Univer- sity system. You will believe in my sincerity, therefore, when I, at the same time, observe that the study of the exact sciences and the classical languages is, and must ever be, the chief foundation of a liberal education. They are so, not because they are the end of knowledge, but because they are the means by which it is to be attained. They are so, because they can alone give access to the treasures of intellectual wealth ; for the first furnishes the key to the sciences which unfold the laws of the material — the latter opens the avenue to the triumphs of the moral world. At the very threshold of all branches of physical science we are stopped if we do not possess a knowledge of mathe- matics. Mechanics, hydrostatics, pneumatics, optics are all dependent on the propositions of geometry. Physical astronomy, the most sublime of all the sciences which the human mind ever attempted, and which, strange to say, it has first mastered, is but an extension of conic sections. The most useful arts of life — arithmetic, mechanics, navi- gation, mensuration, engineering — are entirely founded on geometry. Mathematics, it is true, are an abstraction, but they are an abstraction which lies at the foundation of the greatest practical benefits which man has ever conferred on man — of the greatest triumphs which human intellect has ever achieved. It was mathematical genius which enabled Archimedes, in its last agony, to prolong the life of his country, and gave Watt the means, in its highest prosperity, of doubling the power of his. It was mathematical genius which carried the arms of Napoleon to Vienna and the 66 Archibald Alison, 1845 Kremlin, and extended the conquests of Newton far beyond the limits of the world, to the utmost verge of the created heavens. That which Mathematics is to matter, the Classics are to mind. It has been often said that the principal use of classical knowledge is that it refines the taste, by rendering us familiar with the most perfect models of composition that have ever appeared on earth ; and certainly I am the last man who would contest the reality and the importance of that effect But this is neither its only nor its greatest advantage. Words are important, but they are so only as the organ of thought. A far greater benefit is to be found in the all-important circumstance of extending the sphere of our acquaintance with mind. Charles V. said a man who knew four languages was equal to four men ; but I believe the effect goes on as the squares, and that a man who knows four languages is equal to sixteen men. The addition made by steam to navigation, by printing to education, is but a faint image of the mighty power given by the command of language to thought — for it annihilates at once both space and time, and brings us into contact in a moment, not only with the most distant countries of the earth, but the remotest ages of the world. A knowledge of languages puts it in our power to communicate in their own tongue with the master-spirits of the earth. It enables us to converse, in a single evening, with Homer and Virgil, with Plato and Cicero, with Dante and Corneille, with Bacon and Leibnitz, with Shakspere and Goethe, with Caesar and Napoleon. Reflect, I beseech you, on the immensity of this advantage. Consider what an impres- sion would be created in the world if one even of these illustrious men were to reappear on earth — if the grave could yield up its mighty dead, and those whose deeds or thoughts have so long entranced mankind were to appear in the body before us ! How would society be convulsed — how would all rush forward to behold the departed great ! What a privilege would it be thought to see their features — to hear them speak — to touch their hands ! And yet what would it be to behold their bodies for a few minutes compared to reading their hearts for years together ? — and *7 Rectorial Addresses: what, a brief conversation, to an insight into their inmost thoughts for a whole lifetime ! No possible amount of information derived from the authors of our own country can compensate the want of an acquaintance, in their own language, with those of others. Whatever may be the greatness of individual ability, it can never be entirely emancipated from the influence of external things. We live in a moral and intellectual, as much as a physical atmosphere — we breathe thought not less than vital air. It is by changing its current, and letting in a new stream, that purity is given to the moral as well as the physical atmosphere. The union of oxygen and hydrogen is not more necessary to the air we breathe than the interchange of ideas between different nations is to the extrication of truth and a healthy state of general thought. Without it, error is perpetuated and prejudice confirmed. Genius moves in a circle ; independence is lost amidst imitation. The very greatness of a nation, cut off from intellectual intercourse with other nations, soon becomes fatal to its further progress ; ambition despairs from the magnitude of past achievements ; originality is extinguished by the uniformity of present ideas ; men become hopelessly inferior, because they have lost the sense of their own in- feriority. It was thus that the long night of the Byzantine Empire succeeded the brief sunshine of Athenian genius. To this extended intimacy with the ideas of other nations, and the immortal works of other ages, which is the only secure foundation for present greatness, an ac- quaintance with the dead languages is the best possible preparation. The nations around us are but the legacy bequeathed to the world by the arms of ancient Rome. If all historic record of the conquest of the Legions were to be swept away, indelible traces of them would still re- main in the languages of modern Europe. French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese are little more than dialects of Latin, with a slight intermixture of foreign idiom. Whoever is tolerably acquainted with the Roman tongue will find that a few months' study will render him familiar with any of them. German itself, though less deeply impregnated with the language of the ancient masters of the world, is yet 68 Archibald Alison, 1845 largely indebted to it, especially in its philosophical and scientific writings. English is mainly drawn from the same source — two-thirds of the words in daily use amongst us are derived from the classical authors. Whoever has mastered the ancient languages has turned the streams of modern thought at their source ; he has obtained the key to the boundless treasures of European genius. This is of itself an immense advantage ; but it becomes doubly so when we recollect the incalculable value of an accurate acquaintance with our own language, not only to all who would rise to eminence in life, but preserve even a respectable station in society. No rank is so high as not to be lowered by its absence ; none so low as not to be elevated by its presence. Look around you, and you will see, that not only in the learned professions, where it is indispensable, but in all walks of life, the power of com- municating thought by speaking or writing has now become the only passport to extended influence or general respect. The nobleman, the landholder, the merchant, the manu- facturer require it as much when they rise to eminence in their general spheres, as the lawyer or the divine. It is the peculiarity of an intellectual age, it is the glory of a free constitution, that influence is to be maintained in no other way. Mind will only yield to the ascendancy of mind. Thence it was that schools of rhetoric occupied so import- ant a place in the ancient world. It is in halls such as these, however, it is in studies such as you are engaged in, that the complete command of this mighty lever can alone be acquired. It cannot be gained elsewhere. The difference between the composition of a well-educated man, and one acquainted only with his own tongue, is at once conspicuous — it is felt in every assembly, and by none more strongly than by those who are least aware of the secret source from which the charm has been derived. Let me warn you, in an especial manner, against the common and delusive belief that the value of these studies is only felt within the walls of the university, and that they cease to be a source of either enjoyment or utility in after life. Cicero thought otherwise. Though actively engaged in an engrossing and laborious profession, he never ceased 69 Rectorial Addresses: to recur to the studies of his youth, as at once its solace and its ornament. " Haec studia," says he, " adolescentiam alunt, senectutem oblectant, prosperas res ornant, adversis perfugium ac solatium praebent." Every one has time, if its economy is duly attended to, to combine these intellectual enjoyments with the most active profession. It is indolence, not occupation, which is the real bar to the combination. Observation, equally with experience, has confirmed the remark which Sir Robert Peel — himself a bright example of the truth which he taught — addressed to the students of Glasgow College : " When you have lived half a century you will have seen many instances, in which he who finds time for everything — for punctuality in all the relations of life, for the pleasures of society, for the cultivation of litera- ture, for every rational amusement — is, at the same time, the man who is most assiduous and successful in the pursuits of his profession." Do you wish examples of this power ? It was when engaged in his campaigns that Caesar wrote his Commentaries, when he was Lord Chancellor of Eng- land that Lord Bacon composed his Essays. Romilly, when at the head of the English bar, kept pace with all the literature of his day. Rutherfurd, at the head of the Scotch, has lost none of the eminent scholarship by which he was distinguished on the very threshold of life. It is a curious circumstance that the two Lord Rectors, whom the unbiassed voice of the young men of Scotland has now raised, at the same time, in this and Glasgow l Universities, to this distinguished situation, were, six and thirty years ago, two boys, who attended the Greek classes together, and were always called up, at the same time, to construe the alternate speeches in the CEdipus Tyrannus. Eschew, also, as the very bane of all excellence, the fatal but, I fear, too common idea, that greatness is not now to be attained ; that everything is worked out ; and that imi- tation is all that belongs to the future ages of the world. Think rather, with the young men in Tacitus, that nothing is done while anything remains to do. Rely upon it, all that man has yet done is as nothing compared to what he is destined to achieve. " I do not know," said Newton in 1 Andrew Rutherfurd, Lord-Advocate. 70 Archibald Alison, 1845 the close of his immortal career, " what I may appear to the world ; but to myself I seem only a boy playing on the seashore, finding sometimes a brighter pebble or a smoother shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lies all undiscovered before me." These, recollect, were the words of the high-priest of Nature — himself the greatest discoverer of the beauty of its laws that ever appeared upon earth. Enter life, I beseech you, rather with the noble desire which Homer says inspired the youthful hero in the Iliad — That nation will ever be the greatest in which these high aspirations — " this longing after immortality " — is felt by the greatest number of young bosoms — that age the most illustrious in which it has influenced the greatest number of thoughts and actions. Every heroic period bears witness to its effects. What said Hector, when, drawing his sword in the last conflict with the heaven-defended Achilles, he was aware of death approaching from the presence of Minerva — " Not at least inglorious shall I perish ; but after having done some great thing, which shall be spoken of in ages to come." What said Collingwood, when he steered the Royal Sovereign far ahead of its comrades right into the centre of the enemy's fleet at Trafalgar — " Now, gentle- men, let us do something to-day that men may speak of hereafter." Banish from your minds with equal anxiety the not less delusive idea that genius is the gift of heaven ; that if it is given, all things are easy ; if withheld, nothing possible. Rely upon it, this difference in the original capacity of men's minds is not nearly so great as indolence or mediocrity is fain to represent. Genius is, doubtless, the gift of heaven ; but so also is the light of the sun ; and yet how prodigious the differences in the fruit which in different situations it brings to maturity, according as it falls in or not with the persevering efforts of human industry — between the rank forest and the fertile field, the stagnant marsh and the fruit- ful mead, the flowering orchard and the barren heath ! To what have the greatest men who ever appeared on earth ascribed their eminence and success ? " Nothing," says Sir 71 Rectorial Addresses Joshua Reynolds, "is denied to well-directed labour — nothing is to be done without it." " I was not superior," says Sir Isaac Newton, " to other men in genius, but only in appli- cation." " Original genius," says Johnson, " is nothing but strong natural parts perseveringly directed to one object." It is the want of the desire to excel which is the real obstacle to excellence. In every country, in every society, mental powers sufficient exist to raise it to distinction. In this very room there are men qualified, if their talents are sustained by labour and stimulated by a generous ambition, to bless their country, and gain immortality for themselves : — Th' applause of list'ning senates to command, The threats of pain and ruin to despise ; To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, And read their history in a nation's eyes. To contribute my humble efforts towards the develop- ment of such dispositions I shall, with the kind permission of the Principal and Professors, give two prizes, to be written for, next year, in English essays — one will be the late admir- able History of Rome by Dr. Arnold ; the other, The History of Europe during the French Revolution. I have selected both, albeit well aware how many works of superior excel- lence to the latter might be found, because there are, perhaps, none that recount so many instances of men raising them- selves by their unaided exertions to the highest eminence, or of the vast influence which their efforts have had upon the fortunes of their country and the fate of mankind. And I conclude, in the words of exalted genius : " I shall not look back on the past with regret, if I can indulge the hope that the facts which it has been my province to record, by dis- playing those fair rewards of extensive usefulness and of permanent fame which talent and industry, when worthily directed, cannot fail to secure, may contribute, in one single instance, to foster the proud and virtuous independence of genius; or amidst the gloom of poverty and solitude to gild the unfriended scholar, whose laurels are now slowly ripening in the unnoticed privacy of human life." 7a The Influence of Education upon Character 1 By Austen Henry Layard. 2 I KNOW no prouder position than that of a public man, engaged in an arduous struggle — uncertain of the sym- pathy and approval of even his friends — almost doubtful of his own judgment — who is called upon to receive such a mark of approbation and encouragement as you have been pleased to confer upon me this day. In almost every other country but this, men who take part in public affairs, or devote themselves to the pursuits of literature, look for their rewards in those titles and honourable distinctions which it is the privilege of a monarch to bestow, and the bestowal of which is amongst the most noble prerogatives of royalty. Of such rewards, Governments the most despotic and the most jealous are not niggard. Their value is too well known — their beneficial effects upon those who receive them, and those who aim at their attainment, is too well understood — that they should be withheld. In this country — almost alone — those who seek distinction in the service of the State, or in Literature, are taught to look for their most precious recompense, and for their best encourage- ment, in the approbation of their fellow-countrymen, and in its expression, as you have this day expressed your approbation of my own humble endeavours to perform my duty. And how do I stand before you to-day? Invested with the highest dignity which it is in your power to bestow — honoured with your confidence — welcomed with a hearty and generous sincerity which almost overpowers me. I am to all of you personally unknown. For the first time, I have visited your ancient and renowned city. I might almost say, for the first time I have crossed your borders. 1 Address delivered 5th April, 1855. 2 Afterwards Sir A. H. Layard. 73 Rectorial Addresses: To what, then, do I owe the proud position, in which you have placed me? It is, I would fain hope and believe, because you have faith in my honesty and integrity of pur- pose — because you would mark your approval of the course which, as a public man, I have pursued, and would encourage me to persevere in it — and, I trust I may add, because you are of opinion that my labours in another and scarcely less arduous field have not been unattended with success, but have produced useful results. How deeply gratifying to me, therefore, must be the honour which you have conferred upon me, and the reception which I have just experienced at your hands. I trust you will not deem me guilty of vanity in thus dwelling upon them. You little know, gentlemen, you little know how much a public man, situ- ated as I am, is in need of such proofs of approbation and encouragement — how grateful they are to him — for how many painful struggles and bitter hours they afford a more than entire compensation. Some of you may one day be in a position to feel the truth of what I say. As natives of a free country, you can even now all understand how infinitely dearer they are to one placed as I am — how infinitely more valuable — than those mere honorary titles and partial re- wards which a Crown could confer. There are yet other considerations which render, in my opinion, such honours as those you have bestowed upon me of the greatest value. It is no less to others, who are en- gaged in the performance of what they consider a public duty, than to myself, that they serve as an encouragement to persevere. They make many a man feel that, whatever his abilities may be, if he pursue with honesty and straight- forwardness the path of duty, without turning to the right or the left — neither intimidated by menace or seduced by bribes — his countrymen are ready to cheer him onwards in his arduous and too often painful task. These are no ordinary times in which you have done me the great honour of selecting me to fill the important, and, in some respects, responsible office of Lord Rector of this College. I cannot but look upon my election at such a crisis as that in which the country is now placed as more than commonly significant. I cannot otherwise reconcile 74 A. H. Layard, 1855 myself to the fact of my name having been brought forward in opposition to that of a gentleman of such high standing and such remarkable acquirements as your late Lord Rector, 1 to whose courtesy and kindly feeling to myself during the late contest I most cheerfully bear my testimony. Whilst, with regard to the peculiar interests of the College, I am led to believe that no common duties and responsibilities may devolve upon me, as your Lord Rector, so, as regards the great interests of the country, no ordinary duties and re- sponsibilities may devolve upon me during my term of office as a public man. This reflection renders my appearance before you to-day far more embarrassing than it would otherwise be — embarrassing as it would, under any circum- stances, have been to one situated like myself, to address such an audience. It would be presumptuous in me to offer, on this occasion, any opinion or observations as to the proposed Union of the two Universities. My connexion with your College has but just commenced. I have as yet had neither the time nor the opportunity of informing my- self upon, or investigating the subject, in the manner which its importance deserves. How, then, could I venture to pronounce an opinion upon it, when it involves, to so great an extent, the interests and the prosperity of this ancient Institution ? But this I may say, with perfect sincerity, that I shall strive not to betray the trust with which you have honoured me, and that if, during my term of office, it may be considered advisable to come to a decision upon this long-pending question, that I shall do my utmost, whether in my Rectorial capacity, or as a Member of Parlia- ment, to maintain those interests, rights and privileges which you have confided to my keeping. No exertions will be wanting on my part to carry out that which, after mature deliberation, shall be determined upon, as most conducive to the wellbeing of the College. Whatever that decision may be, I trust that the changes introduced will be carried out in that liberal spirit which has always character- ised this College — that a new era of usefulness will be opened to us, and that new names will be added to that list which Colonel W. H. Sykes, M.P. 75 Rectorial Addresses: has already rendered illustrious the Marischal College of Aberdeen. It is impossible to address an assembly of this kind, at such a time, without feeling that it would be out of place to dwell upon common topics, or to make any trite remarks upon subjects usually touched upon in such inaugural discourses. Even under ordinary circumstances it would be presumptuous in me to offer you counsel upon matters generally enlarged upon by your Lord Rectors, on the cere- mony of their installation, especially when I call to mind the names of those who have preceded me in this honourable office. Many of you may have listened to the eloquent words of my noble friend, now raised to one of the highest dignities which the Crown can confer — I mean Lord Carlisle, of whom I may say, without fear of contradiction, that there is no more highly educated gentleman, as there is no more amiable and true-hearted man, in the United Kingdom — when he dwelt upon those topics which he could so well feel, and so well by his own character illustrate — the delight and advantage afforded by the study of the immortal works of the great writers of antiquity. Nor can I forget that my immediate predecessor had earned for himself no mean renown by his knowledge of the Exact Sciences, and by the share he has taken in those investigations into the physical condition of the earth, which form, perhaps, the most remarkable feature in the intellectual history of the present age. It would, I repeat, be presumptuous in me to attempt to instruct or advise you upon subjects which have been treated in this Hall by such master-hands. Still I cannot avoid all allusion to them, but I would rather touch upon them incidentally, as forming a portion of a great scheme of education, as considered with reference to what should be its true aim and end. It is more the influence of education, comprising the various branches of human knowledge, upon the character of individuals, and, in its wider results, upon the character of the nation, to which I should wish in a few words to call your special attention. The subject I firmly believe to be one of the utmost im- portance at this moment — one well deserving the thoughtful and earnest consideration of every one truly anxious for 76 A. H. Layard, 1855 the welfare of his country, jealous of her renown, and trembling lest unhappily she should fall from her ancient greatness. It is only when great emergencies arise that nations, as well as individuals, know what is required of them, and what they are capable of effecting. Such an emergency — one almost unparalleled in the history of our country — has arisen. We are engaged in a great war, after a long peace. It is, perhaps, well for us that the emergency has occurred before it is too late to meet it. No impartial man would venture to assert that we have not been found wanting. The reputation of this great empire has, to a certain extent, been tarnished ; and its high estate amongst the nations of the earth has been shaken. In a moment of national difficulty and danger we have been found unequal to the duties which are imposed upon us. To account for so great a calamity — for calamity it undoubtedly is — we must seek for the evil at home. Whilst we have undoubtedly to deplore, as the cause of enormous evils, the reckless manner in which merit is overlooked in public employments, and is passed over to satisfy private and party interests and influences — a subject upon which I do not now wish to dwell — I believe that, amongst the most prominent and immediate causes of our misfortunes, will be found the defective condition of our system of national or State education. It may seem strange that I should venture to make such an assertion in the middle of the nineteenth century — when I may be reminded that at no period of our history has education been more general, or been brought more within the reach of all classes. But a vicious application of the very best principle may be the cause of as much evil, as its right application would be of good. After all, the test of national education must be its result upon the national character, and upon the condition of the people. Unless that result be to raise us as a nation — to make us more wise — more honest — more capable of filling that station which Providence assigns to a truly civilised and educated people, national education is of little comparative value. If our educational system should tend rather to enervate than to strengthen the mind — if we should find that the intellectual 77 Rectorial Addresses: powers with which God has endowed us are rather paralysed than brought into full vigour — if it should appear that it rather favours error than encourages truth, surely we may well infer that there is something essentially wrong in that system. I fear there is too much reason to suspect that the evils to which I have alluded have already, to a certain extent, ensued, and that they may extend still farther. I believe that our present system of education is rather directed to the overcharging of the memory than to the true cultivation of the intellect, and strengthening and discipline of the mind — that it is leading us to treat men as mere machines, rather than as reflecting responsible beings. At the same time, in hazarding this assertion, I would so far guard myself as to make some distinction be- tween the system of education pursued in Scotland and that followed in England. It must also be borne in mind that I refer especially to what may be termed State education. I am not sufficiently well acquainted with the Scotch system to pronounce a deliberate opinion upon it ; but my impression is, that it is far superior in most respects to that adopted on the other side of the border. However that may be, I still think the time not inopportune to warn even you against the evil results which may arise from the tendency to which I have alluded, and which certainly does exist amongst those who are in a position to direct and control the education of the masses in the United Kingdom — who have the selection of the greater number of those who seek for employment in the service of the State — and who are, consequently, exercising a much greater influence than many of you might, perhaps, suspect upon the national character. Never has there been a stronger desire than at present to extend the inestimable advantages of education. Of that desire no man living can complain. On the contrary, we can only wish that they should be extended still farther — that they should be within the reach of every man. There is yet much to be done. We are still far behind in that which is required of us as a civilised and Christian nation. But the question I wish to consider is this, whether we have adopted the true educational test, that is to say, whether 78 A. H. Layard, 1855 what we now require from those whose claims to any position in life consist in a competent education affords a sufficient evidence of their real capability to fill that position. The service of the State, whether civil or military, and in however humble a capacity, is to be the portion, we are told, of those who can prove before examiners that they are equal to the discharge of the duties required of them. The East India Company has thrown open its lucrative and honourable appointments to those who may pass through certain examinations. Throughout the length and breadth of the land " the schoolmaster is abroad." Training estab- lishments prepare with the utmost care those who are to teach the rising generation. There is scarcely a village which has not its school where children of every class may receive instruction. Still, only a few nights since, I listened to an able and conclusive statement, from one of the most distinguished members of the House of Commons, sup- ported by undoubted evidence, proving that, in the number of children receiving education, as compared with the entire population, we were far behind almost every country in Europe. But still, it is not the quantity, but the quality of our education, to which I should now wish to direct your special attention. As to the number and class of persons who ought to receive instruction, I have little doubt that the growing convictions of the country at large, and the consequent expression of public opinion, will, in the end, compel the application of a remedy. It is utterly impossible that aiming, as we do, at holding the first position amongst the civilised nations of the earth, we should remain second to others in that most essential element of civilisation — the education of our children. It becomes then the more im- portant to ascertain in good time whether our educational system be established on a right and solid basis — whether it be calculated to have a beneficial effect upon the national character — whether it may tend to strengthen, not to weaken the mind, and to render men best able to discharge the duties which, whether in a public or private capacity, are required of them. I fear that, if tried by these tests, our present system of State education will be found in many respects lamentably 79 Rectorial Addresses : defective. My chief objection to it is, as I have already stated, that it aims more at the cultivation of the memory than at the training of the mind. The mind may be as much cramped by too much knowledge — if knowledge is to consist of the mere acquisition of unconnected isolated facts — as by ignorance. For our village schools we are training teachers to be superficially acquainted with almost every department of human learning. The examination to which they are subjected, before being pronounced by Government fit to undertake the charge of children of the humblest classes of society, would have been considered, but half a century ago, almost too severe a test for the master of a public school. Their acquirements either render them dis- satisfied with the social position and emoluments which are assigned to them, and they seek elsewhere more honourable and profitable employment ; or, if deficient in energy and ambition, they remain teachers, and impart to their pupils, according to fixed rules, and in certain prescribed portions, instruction as multifarious and superficial as that which they have received. The memory of the child is charged with an endless variety of facts, which, although succeeding each other in regular rotation, have no logical connexion — excite in him no sympathy or interest — lead to no practical result — can be of no use to him in after life, and which, consequently, are, for the most part, speedily forgotten. I never lose an opportunity of visiting a village school, and I have rarely spoken to a teacher of good sense and honesty who has not confessed and complained to me that he had been taught too many things, and none sufficiently well. I have listened with surprise to the examination of children of tender years, destined to follow the calling of their parents in humble life, and have felt somewhat humiliated when their instructor, turning to me, has asked me whether I had any further questions to put to his pupils. They had long outstripped me. There really seemed nothing left within my knowledge that I could ask them. This remarkable proficiency led me to deep reflection and inquiry, and I soon found that this readiness and apparent knowledge, which had so much surprised me, were but feats of memory, or mere tricks enabling the children to answer difficult 80 A. H. Layard, 1855 questions, but which, unconnected with any logical process of the reason, when once forgotten left them in their original state of ignorance. Whilst these children could thus solve very difficult problems, they were unable to reply to the most simple questions, when thrown entirely upon the exercise of their own intelligence and reason. Their memory has been highly cultivated, but their reasoning powers had been totally neglected. The end, therefore, of education had not been attained. The same observations apply to examinations, as tests for public employment. The terrible results of undue in- fluences in the injuries inflicted upon the public interests and the public character have long impressed good and patriotic men with a conviction of the necessity of some test for the admission of candidates into the service of the State. Examinations have been proposed, and as you are aware, in many instances introduced. We must take care that the remedy do not give rise to as much mischief as those abuses which it is intended to remove. Already our public papers teem with advertisements of persons under- taking to prepare youths in a few days — almost hours — for such examinations. Already is the mere trickery of the memory to be substituted for the true cultivation of the mind. Unless great care be taken, and some better system be adopted, incompetency will not be detected, nor will real merit be secured. I am not speaking against examinations in general, especially when addressing an Institution whose examina- tions are notoriously well conducted and efficient. Far from it. No one is more sincerely anxious than I am that those who are admitted to the service of the State — to whom are to be open its great public employments — and they should be thrown open to every one without any distinction of class whatever — should be men, by character, education and acquirements capable of filling them with credit and efficiency. I only wish to warn you against insufficient examinations, which are not really the test of either a man's knowledge or his capabilities. To make myself perfectly understood I will put a case. Let us suppose that, as an examiner, I were to ask two youths the date of any par- f 81 Rectorial Addresses: ticular event. One of them, without any hesitation, replies accurately ; the other, after some reflection, gives me an approximate date only. It is not at all impossible that the one who was wrong was far better instructed, and far more competent to fill the post for which the examination was intended to be the test, than the one who had answered correctly, although in our modern examinations he would probably be summarily rejected. With the one it may have been a mere effort of the memory, with the other the result of a logical process of the reason, which may have led to an incorrect result, though to one sufficiently near to the truth for all useful purposes. There is no particular merit in remembering a date, unless the events connected with it have a certain significance, or a certain influence upon us. Persons may frequently be met with who, by a memory naturally retentive, or added by what is called a memoria tecknica, can repeat with the greatest readiness the dates of almost every occurrence, however insignificant, in ancient and modern history, but this facility alone does not render them either practical statesmen, useful members of society, or instructive companions. I do not mean to say that the defects to which I have alluded are not inherent, to a certain extent, in all written examinations. I do not so much wish to complain of examinations as to warn you most earnestly not to rest satisfied if you can manage to press through them by cramming the memory, and deceiving those who may be appointed to test your competency. You may always remedy the defects of examinations by remembering that they are only to be considered as the means of entering life. There are, doubtless, many whom I am addressing who will avail themselves of the way now open, or to be opened to all, of entering careers which lead to the most honourable employments and distinctions in the State. Let them bear in mind that, although by a little temporary exertion they may attain the vestibule of the building, yet that, if they desire to reach its upper chambers, they need something more than that superficial knowledge which the memory may be brought for a season to retain. The true test of your competency will be the struggle, in which all 82 A. H. Layard, 1855 earnest men engage, to attain eminence and success, what- ever path of life they may pursue. It is then that you will find the value of the right training of the mind, and of real knowledge. It is because of the results of intellectual exertion, and of the continued exercise of thought and of the reason, as opposed to the mere development of the retentive qualities, that even self-instruction is, on many accounts, preferable to a vicious education. We find that those who, as great writers, great inventors and great thinkers, have chiefly contributed to the happiness, the instruction and the civilisation of the human race, have, for the most part, been men who have struggled against overwhelming difficulties, who have had to rely entirely upon themselves, have had to form their own characters, and to educate their own minds — in fact, they have been what are called self-instructed men. I do not make this remark to undervalue the enor- mous advantages of education, but rather to encourage you to turn them to the best account. Let your continued endeavours be directed to uniting the acquisition of know- ledge with the training of the mind. One hour's earnest thought at night, to digest the study of the day, and to seek its application to the ordinary affairs of public and private life, is worth hours of patient reading. It is the want of this proper training of the mind, and of this earnest thought-breeding sincerity, truthfulness and self-reliance which we may have to deplore in modern State education, and in its effects upon the national character. This is so vital a question — one in which we are all equally bound to feel the deepest interest — that I trust you will permit me to dwell upon it a little longer, and to illustrate my meaning more fully by a reference to some of the principal branches of study in which you are engaged, and their application to the events of the day. History is written to furnish us with examples for our warning and our guidance. Biography, if properly under- stood, has the same object. The first teaches us to feel that responsibility which devolves upon us as citizens and members of a commonwealth ; the second should teach us the responsibility which devolves upon us as individual 83 Rectorial Addresses: members of a family and of society. One of the great ends of all education is the inculcation of a sense of this double responsibility. I fear that our modern system of education is too much calculated to lead men to forget it — certainly to overlook it, certainly to overlook it as statesmen and as citizens of a great and free state, in which the highest offices should be open to all. It tends rather to make men lose their self-reliance, to lead them to look upon them- selves as mere machines, and to depend upon forms and precedents, rather than upon their own reason, exertions and intelligence. I believe this to be one of the principal sources of the evils which we have at this time as a nation to deplore, and which, unless speedily removed, will in- evitably bring this great country very low. I entreat your attention to this subject. It is one of equal importance to us all — whether old or young — whether public men or private individuals. Whilst there is a very general feeling prevailing throughout the country against what is now commonly called " red tape " and " routine," there is, on the other hand, a strong and influential party who are endeavouring to maintain and enlarge the principles of that system. The objections to " red tape " and " routine " — that is to say, to a blind and unreasoning adherence to mere forms and rules — are these — that they make men mere parts of a machine, instead of calling forth and improving his faculties — prevent him using to its fullest extent the intelligence which is given to him as a reasoning being — check, if they do not entirely destroy, those nobler and more generous sentiments which nature has implanted in us, and blunt that higher feeling of responsibility which is the best incentive to the due discharge of our duty. If this system be carried out to the extent that some seem to desire, no despotism that the world ever saw could be so terrible in its consequences, upon the human mind, and upon the character of a nation. The best and most general system of education would be of no avail against it. A man might have the powers of a giant — he could not do the work of a dwarf. We have received a terrible warning. Let it not be thrown away upon us. Day after day have 1 of late listened, 8 4 A. H. Layard, 1855 as a member of the committee appointed to inquire into the condition of our army in the Crimea, to the most sickening and heart-rending tale that human suffering ever furnished — one too much calculated to lower us, not only in our own estimation, but in that of the world. I cannot allude to it without a glow of indignation and a blush of shame. To what are we to attribute the grievous misfortunes which it discloses ? Are Englishmen less honest, less humane, less generous, less intelligent, less fruitful in resources than they once were ? Surely not. We see no proof of it in private enterprise, or in the relations of private life. How then have we been plunged into this abyss of national disgrace ? Why, with our immense mercantile means and experience, have our stores miscarried ? why have our brave country- men been allowed to die untended and uncared for? why have our gallant soldiers been left to perish from want and by the sword, in default of common precaution ? why have the unparalleled resources of this great country been put forth almost in vain ? It is because men who engage in the service of the State are taught to look upon themselves as mere machines, or rather as forming part of a machine, and do not feel a true sense of individual responsibility — because a vicious system enables them to shelter themselves behind empty forms — because they can shift from their own consciences a burden which, it would appear to me, it would be intolerable to a sensitive and right feeling man to bear, unless he could persuade himself that his own free action and independence were completely controlled — because the right men are not chosen for the right places — because true merits are neither brought forward nor encouraged. If these be not the reasons, why have a few generous and noble- hearted men, and women too, who have faced dangers, dared disease, taken upon themselves responsibilities, relied upon their own exertions, not upon rules — how have they, I ask, with slender means, despite frequently of discourage- ment and opposition, and entirely without Government support, alleviated the sufferings and saved the lives of thousands of our unhappy countrymen ? I have said that the true object of history is to teach nations their responsibilities, and to be a warning to such 85 Rectorial Addresses: as would forget those great principles which must guide communities as well as individuals. This is equally the main object of all those studies and pursuits which are connected with history, otherwise they would be, to a great extent, idle and profitless. The antiquary who toils to trace the relics of a past civilisation, and to investigate ancient manners, or who digs into the bosom of the earth to seek the remains of long-lost empires, and the numismat who collects and deciphers the coins of extinct dynasties, are little better than the schoolboy who spends his summer holiday in robbing the bird's nest, or in picking up the many-coloured pebbles in the brook, unless their labours furnish a chapter to the history of man, and afford us some useful lesson, or some salutary warning. Had I been con- tent to uncover the crumbling monuments of buried Nineveh, to gratify an idle whim — had they afforded me no instruction — had they given rise to no earnest reflection — had they proved of no further usefulness to this country than to satisfy a vulgar curiosity — I should, indeed, have been ashamed to allude to their discovery in such an assembly as this. I trust that even in the discharge of public duty, and in en- deavouring to form my character as a public man, they will prove to me a continual warning that the fate which befel Nineveh and Babylon may befal the mightiest of nations, when public virtue is no longer held in honour, when great principles no longer guide its counsels, and when the public weal is sacrificed and made subservient to private interests. It is thus that archaeology, when studied in a proper spirit, blends with history, and offers even a more instructive and solemn lesson than the most eloquent of writers. I speak from experience as well as from deep conviction. Few men have had more occasion than I have had to reflect upon the fall of nations, to seek for the causes of their decay, and to muse over the worthlessness of riches, and the hollow- ness of worldly pomp. The plains of Babylonia, fretted with their numberless canals, now choked with sand, and no longer nourishing the thirsty soil — the vast monuments of Assyria, now buried deep in earth — the palaces of the kings of kings, now marked by a few solitary columns and the resting- places of wandering tribes — the graceful temples of the 86 A. H. Layard, 1855 Greeks, now hid by the rank grass — the colonial greatness of Imperial Rome, its forums and theatres still standing majestically, but now silent, in a desert — what has brought about these mighty changes — to what are we to attribute this havoc ? Surely these are no vain questions, at such a crisis as the present, in our country's history ! For what good end has Providence permitted these solemn relics of fallen greatness to struggle with decay — for what good pur- pose has He permitted us, in these days, to recover from their long-forgotten graves the skeletons of great empires ? Is it not that we should in time take warning by their fate, and that, having these solemn lessons before us, we should seek to avoid those vices and corruptions which led to their overthrow ? When I see, as I have of late seen, Ministers of State in Parliament seeking to justify disasters, and to extenuate fatal errors, disgraceful to us as a nation, and fraught with the greatest peril, by referring to calamities and events which occurred half a century ago, I naturally ask myself, Why is history written ? Is it to afford us a justification or a warning ? Are we to appeal to it after national dishonour and ruin, or before they overtake us, that we may be saved from them ? If to justify our national vices and misconduct is the only object of history, then I care not if every history that has ever been written be consigned to the flames. Of what use, then, the eloquent pages of Thucydides, the glowing episodes of Livy, the varied learning of Gibbon, the philo- sophic disquisitions of your own Robertson and Hume? If they be treasured but for the mere gratification of the fancy, or to excite the imagination, the romance and the Arabian tale would suit as well. No ! History has a higher and a nobler aim — she has recorded on her imperishable tablets the deeds of the great, the excellence of national virtue and the rewards of patriotism, that she might furnish the model and be an encouragement to great, virtuous and patriotic men. She has described in burning words successful struggles for liberty and the happiness and prosperity of free nations, that nations yet unborn might strive to be free. She has traced with unwilling pen the decay of public virtue, the dishonesty of statesmen and the loathsome details of corruption, hurry- 87 Rectorial Addresses: ing states to utter ruin, that nations yet to come might honour public virtue, be jealous of the character of those who guide their councils and abominate corruption. She has pointed with melancholy earnestness to the tomb of fallen greatness, as a warning for all time that the immutable laws of God, which govern both the moral and physical world, cannot be outraged with impunity. Such are the objects and ends of history. It is because they are such that her votaries have been ranked amongst the instructors and benefactors of mankind. As I have already remarked, these are not idle reflec- tions at such a moment as this. I fear that we have too evident proofs of the necessity of bearing them constantly in mind — of bringing them daily before us. On such an occasion as the present, it would be indecorous in me to touch upon subjects which are, by common consent, placed within the domain of politics. But still I cannot refrain from some allusion to events which have occurred within the last few months, and now belong to history — events which we have witnessed, and to which, therefore, we may not attach their full importance, although they will ever fill one of the most prominent places in the eventful history of this mighty empire. No man, however proud of his country, can deny that we have partly fallen from our high estate. We may gloss over failures. We may dwell upon heroic deeds — deeds unequalled in the records of the most heroic of nations, to make us forget for a moment national humilia- tion, but the broad and naked facts will remain, and no self-blindness of our own, no.specious reasoning, will remove them from history, or give them any other colour than that which they deserve. With the truthfulness of the sun-picture, they are already imprinted upon the scroll of time. And to what, then, are we not bound to ask, are to be attributed these results? Is it not to a violation of those great prin- ciples which can alone give true strength and prosperity to a State ? Is it not to a sacrifice of great public interests to unworthy influences ? There is no man bold enough to say that such is not the case. To you, therefore, most appro- priately may these remarks be addressed. I am speaking to young men who are about to engage in the battle of life. 88 A. H. Layard, 1855 It is almost enough to know that you are Scotchmen, to feel that there are few of you who will not, by patient in- dustry, perseverance and self-denial, secure success, and attain to eminence in the career on which you may enter. This is almost a characteristic of your nation, and you may well be proud of it. Whether it be in public life, in com- merce, in divinity, in medicine and in law, your character, your future position, and your usefulness, must be more or less influenced by the course of study you pursue, and the mental training you receive, within these walls. Your education will bear its fruits. If you aim at a public career, with an earnest desire to serve your country and to deserve her gratitude, apply to your own conduct those great lessons of ancient and modern wisdom which history teaches us. Learn, by her warning voice, to avoid those errors which have led to the downfall of communities, and to seek in public virtue, and in an adherence to great principles, the only true means of successfully governing men. If, on the other hand, you follow the liberal professions or engage in the pursuits of commerce, history will still teach you that, as citizens of a free State, some public duties are imposed upon you — that you are bound to keep a check upon those to whom you have confided the task of governing you — to encourage public rectitude, and to punish those who may dare to outrage it. What I have said of History applies equally, though perhaps in a less degree, to the study of the Classics in general. Whilst the correctness and elegance of diction of the great writers of antiquity have an influence upon your speech and upon your pen, let their lofty maxims, their ardent love of great deeds, and their exalted patriotism, have an equal effect upon your character and conduct. Unless you read them in this spirit, and with this end, they, too, are comparatively valueless. It is because they chasten and enlarge the mind, and incite to noble actions, that their study is still considered, by all enlightened men, as an essential part of the education of a gentleman. I have touched, in too general terms, upon the important subjects which I have brought to your notice, to enter into details with regard to many other branches of study, to a 8g Rectorial Addresses: certain extent depending upon them. Many which, a few years ago, were based but on hasty speculations and ill- digested theories, are now almost reduced to the certainty of a science. I may instance Philology, which, studied in an enlarged and philosophic spirit, illustrates the origin, history and migrations of nations, as well as the progress of the human mind ; and Political Economy, for the determina- tion of the true principles of which the world is so deeply indebted to your countrymen, and which, when studied in a similar spirit, teaches us to discern and supply the wants of mankind ; to govern a community with a just regard to the real interests and happiness of all its members, and to administer, with true economy, the affairs of a State ; but which, if not pursued in a broad and enlightened spirit, is too apt to cramp the mind, to harden the feelings and to check those lofty inspirations and generous sentiments which are the noblest attributes of a thinking and intelligent being. With regard to all such studies, I would again en- treat you to remember that the use they may prove to you, and the influence they may exercise upon your character, and your consequent success in life, will depend upon the spirit in which you engage in them, and that it rests with you how far they may render you good citizens, or orna- ments to your country should you enter her service. As the study of History and the Classics should form your character, and influence your conduct as members of the commonwealth, so the study of those sciences which have made such vast progress within this century, Astronomy, Geology, Chemistry and others, should purify and elevate the mind, and imbue it with true religion. Much of their value will be lost unless they teach us the inexhaustible good- ness of the Creator, and fill us with a deep and earnest rever- ence for His wisdom and power. Gentlemen, I fear that I have detained you at too great a length. The vast importance of the subjects to which I have ventured to call your attention must be my apology and excuse. The words which may be spoken here to-day, and the way in which you may have received them, may have more than an ordinary importance. More than usual weight will attach to the opinions of an assembly such as 90 A. H. Layard, 1855 this, representing the influence, intelligence and youth of Scotland to the north of the Tay. If you approve of the sentiments to which I have ventured to give utterance, let me entreat you to be serious and earnest in carrying them out. Of all nations the Scotch have been most distinguished for their deep earnestness and truth of purpose. The his- tory of your own city would furnish not a few illustrious examples. Oh ! that England had now a few of those earnest and true-hearted men, whose memories are dear to their country, to guide her councils — men who looked upon the duties of life as a great reality, and upon their faithful discharge as a solemn responsibility to God ! Let their ex- ample be your guide in life. Picture to yourselves how those brave, earnest ancestors of yours — whose noble and uncon- querable spirit led them to endure martyrdom and death, rather than to suffer dishonour or compromise solemn convictions — would have acted under the altered circum- stances of the day. Be true to yourself above all. You may have many bitter struggles to go through which might dishearten and defeat a weak and timid man ; but persevere, and you will be supported by the approval of your own conscience, and be rewarded by the ultimate approval of your country. And, above all, let that deep and all-per- vading sense of religion and religious responsibility, which has ever been a peculiar feature in your national character, accompany you through life — in it you will find a comfort and an encouragement that the applause of men can never bring. 91 A University Reform * By John Inglis 2 THROUGH your kindness I this day occupy a place of much dignity and honour. As the immediate successor of a nobleman 3 — distinguished not more by his exalted station than by his many virtues, whose elegant scholar- ship and rare and varied accomplishments gave him a title to academic distinction which few men could rival — I despair of ever being able to justify your choice. But I enter on the duties of my office, with an ardent desire and a firm resolution to discharge them to the best of my ability — for thus, and thus only, can I hope to convince you of the depth of my gratitude, which words are inadequate to express. I understand it to be in accordance with ancient usage, that, on this occasion, I should address you on some topic of interest to the University ; and in the performance of this my first duty, I prefer to use the form of a written discourse, rather than of an unpremeditated address, because I should not feel satisfied in presenting to so learned an audience, what did not bear the impress of mature thought, and because I may thus give some slight proof of the sincerity of my desire, to merit your approbation and secure your confidence. The Genius of the place, in which we are assembled, directs our thoughts to the past history of the University, and to the services she has rendered to the cause of Learn- ing and Religion. This is a retrospect of which you may well be proud ; for, while no other seat of learning in this country can boast of greater names in the catalogue of professors and of students, I repeat only what is notorious throughout Scotland, when I say, that King's College has 1 Address delivered in King's College, 14th October, 1857. 2 Afterwards Lord Glencorse. 5 The Earl of Ellesmere. 92 Rectorial Addresses nobly fulfilled the great end of its institution, by conveying to the youth of the northern provinces the blessings of civilisation, which the two elder universities had already to a great extent been the means of diffusing in the south. The foundation of this University may be said to be coeval with the revival of learning in Scotland, or rather to be a most important event in the progress and develop- ment of that revival ; for, while it was in those days but too true that " the inhabitants (of the north of Scotland) were ignorant of letters, and almost uncivilised," 1 it is yet cheering to reflect, that the same age produced such men as Gavin Douglas, William Dunbar, John Mair, Bishop Elphinstone, and Hector Boece ; and that the two last- named — one as the founder of this College, and the other as its first Principal — were foremost in the ranks of the learned and enlightened men, who, in the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth century, set themselves to the work of reclaiming and fertilising the great moral and intellectual waste. Although the erection of the University in 1494 was not immediately followed by any very apparent beneficial results, the institution of the College in 1505 was of much greater practical utility. The appointment of Hector Boece as Principal reflects the greatest credit on the discrimination of Bishop Elphin- stone. He was one of the most distinguished students of his time in the University of Paris, the early and constant friend of Erasmus, described by his contemporaries as a man of singular erudition and eloquence, and, if we may trust his own testimony, both zealous and successful in his academical office. Writing certainly not later than 1522, he speaks of himself and his faithful fellow-labourer, William Hay, the sub-Principal, and of the fruits of their early labours, with excusable and pleasing complacency. I give you the passage in his own not inelegant Latiny : " Aber- doniae itaque sedere ubi cceperam, ut commodius adoles- centes disciplinis formarem, Wilhelmum Hayum, quocum philosophise Parrisiis operam dederam, accivi in socium ^'Rudes, et literarum ignari, et fere indomiti." — Bull of Pope Alexander VI. 93 Rectorial Addresses: laboris. . . . Is magna in me charitate ductus, uti necessarius, mecum Aberdoniae consedit. Literarium laborem animo subiit constant!, in dies magis delectatus in adolescentibus erudiendis, comes fidissimus. Exacta inde et perseveranti diligentia effectum est, ut brevi tempore praestantes discip- lina viri ex Aberdonensi universali Academia prodirent, in divinis Uteris et utroque jure multi, permulti in philosophia." 1 King's College, like all other seminaries of learning, has had its periods of decline as well as of revival. But if we select any important epoch in the history of the country, and examine the existing condition of this College for the time, we shall still find its chairs for the most part occupied by men of distinction in the republic of letters, maintaining the high reputation which had been achieved for it during its very infancy. The stormy period of the Reformation was not favour- able to the cultivation of learning ; and yet the Reformation gave King's College Alexander Arbuthnot as Principal — a man who fills a distinguished place in the history of his time — who, to his professional attainments as a theologian and an ecclesiastic, superadded the accomplishments of a mathematician, a lawyer, a physician, and a poet — whose death drew from the pen of one of the most eminent and learned of his contemporaries such eulogistic strains as these : — Deliciae humani generis, dulcissime rerum : Quem musae et charites blando aluere sinu, Cujus in ore lepos, sapiens in pectore virtus, Et suadae et sophiae vis bene juncta simul ; Cui pietas, cui prisca fides, constantia, candor Et pudor et probitas non habuere parem. 2 Nor, in connection with the era of the Reformation, can I omit the name of so famous an alumnus of King's College as John Lesley, Bishop of Ross, the faithful and unflinching partisan of a falling cause, but also a profound scholar, an elegant writer, and an able diplomatist. In the following century the civil wars, and the long and fierce strife of Presbytery and Prelacy, were disturbing elements quite as obstructive to the advancement of learn- 1 Boethii Episcoporum Murthlacensium et Aberdonensium Vitas. 2 Per Andream Melvinum. — Delitiae Poetarum Scotorum. 94 John Inglis, 1857 ing. And yet, on one side of the conflict at least, the most eminent and learned controversialists were supplied by King's College : " When the troubles in that Church broke out," writes Bishop Burnett, " the Doctors there were the only persons that could maintain the cause of the Church, as appears by the papers that passed between them and the Covenanters. And though they began first to manage that argument in print, there has nothing appeared since more perfect than what they writ. They were an honour to the Church, both by their lives and by their learning ; and with that excellent temper they seasoned that whole diocese, both clergy and laity, that it continues to this day very much distinguished from all the rest of Scotland, both for learning, loyalty, and peaceable- ness." 1 And the Presbyterian historian candidly admits, that their arguments, " though then branded as trifling or fallacious," yet, " when coolly examined, are seen to reflect much credit upon the judgment and the moderation of those with whom they originated." 2 We may differ from the " Aberdeen Doctors " of 1639 on questions of church government and discipline, and our sympathies, and even our judgment, may be enlisted on the side of Henderson and Cant ; but no member of this University can rise from the study of that controversy, without feeling proud, that the names of Principal William Leslie, and Professor John Forbes, stand in the roll of King's College worthies. Time would fail me, should I attempt even a bare catalogue of those who, during three centuries and more, have shed lustre on this University, and carried the fame of her learning to the bounds of the civilised world. But what need have I, in this presence, to speak of the eminent lawyers whom she has sent forth, to adorn the Bar and the Bench — of Whitehill, and Westhall, and Kemnay — of Sir George Mackenzie, the profound jurist, the accomplished orator, the able statesman — and of the ancestor of our noble Chancellor, 3 who held in succession the great offices of President of the Session, and Lord Chancellor of Scotland ? 1 Burnett's Life of Bedell, Fref., pp. 16, 17. 2 Cook's History of the Church, vol. ii., p. 419. 3 The Earl of Aberdeen. 95 Rectorial Addresses: In Medicine, it is sufficient to mention the name of Gregory, and in Philosophy, that of Reid ; while the great fame of the school of Divinity in the seventeenth century, under such professors as Forbes, and Strachan, and Douglas, and Scougal, has been amply sustained in modern days, by the profound learning, the sound and careful teaching, and the instructive writings of the two Gerards, father and son, and of their immediate successor, whose name I cannot pro- nounce in these halls without emotion. Whoever has been so highly privileged, as to have enjoyed the friendship of the late Dr. Duncan Mearns, will cherish his memory with affection and reverence, as of one who combined the highest intellect with the purest heart, whose learning was only equalled by his goodness, whose unaffected piety and earnest zeal were the characteristic graces that marked his long and useful academic career. Such and so great is this University — venerable from antiquity, adorned by illustrious names, famed for its achievements in the work of civilisation. Be it our care, each of us in his station, so to administer its concerns, so to promote its material prosperity and to extend its usefulness, that it may ever remain, as of old, Alma Mater — a bounte- ous mother, to nurture and train our children's children in polite learning, good morals, and true religion. But shall we rest content with preservation only, or shall we aspire to renovate, to extend, to improve? This is a momentous question, and one which, at the present time, demands, if not an immediate answer, yet anxious and candid consideration. While the subject of education generally engages so much of public attention, it is neither to be expected nor desired, that the condition of the Scottish Universities should escape criticism. But it is a strong proof of the confidence which the people of Scotland repose in these venerable institutions, that the suggestion of change and improvement is made in no spirit of disparage- ment, but points rather to the extension and reinvigoration of the Universities on the existing system. This is not the time or place to discuss any particular scheme of University Reform. But I may be permitted to say, that I cannot suppose any patriotic Scotsman would 96 John Inglis, 1857 object to a proposal, to strengthen the hands of the Universities, and enable them more efficiently to discharge their great trust as national seminaries of learning, provided the proposal did not carry with it conditions, subversive of the fundamental principles of our University system, or inconsistent with their maintenance and efficiency for the peculiar work, which they have hitherto successfully accom- plished. But the introduction of such changes can be safely intrusted only to the hands of those who know the Scottish Universities experimentally, and who are fully alive to both the existence and the value of the peculiarities which distinguish them from those of other countries. Any at- tempt, on the one hand, to restore or create in our academic halls a University formed on a perfect model or idea, or, on the other hand, to assimilate our Universities to those of England, or any other country, would either be a mere failure or a great calamity. Reform or improvement may be directed, either to the mode of administering the government of the University, or to the regulation of the course of study. Of the former I shall only say, that, in my opinion, no new settlement or reconstruction of the administrative body will be satisfactory or beneficial, which does not give to the graduates at large some influence and weight. But I am persuaded, that great good might be effected by attaching the graduates to the University by closer ties, — by teaching them to feel, that the completion of their education is not the termination, either of their duty to the University, or of their privileges as its members. Thus the great body of non-resident graduates, while they are removed from the influence of academic prejudices and conventionalities, would still retain all their reverence and affection for the University, and would be ready, in a spirit of love, and yet with a habit of discrimination, to detect faults where they exist, to recognise and foster excellences, to be the medium of communication between the University and the world without; and thus at once to bring the power of enlightened public opinion to bear directly on the government of the University, and to secure to the q 97 Rectorial Addresses: University a firmer hold on the confidence and affection of the people. I need hardly point out, as necessarily coincident with such a change, a great enhancement of the value of Uni- versity degrees. At present, these distinctions carry with them nothing but honour ; but if the honour were accom- panied by privileges, degrees would be more sought after, and the graduates would become a more numerous, a more united, and a more self-reliant body. Whatever contributes to add lustre and influence to academical honours, will also justify the University in raising the standard of qualification, for the attainment of such distinction, — the result of which would be, not merely an elevation of the average amount of scholarship among graduates, but a great increase in the aggregate of scholarship in the University at large. By these concurrent causes, I am satisfied, that the ultimate consequence of this change would be in the highest degree beneficial — enabling the University to promote, and at the same time to keep pace with, the march of intellectual progress, to increase its reputation, and extend its just influence and authority. Alterations on the curriculum of study in the Faculty of Arts, I confess, I should contemplate with much greater jealousy. In speaking of the present course of general, as contradistinguished from mere professional education, I do not say it is unsusceptible of improvement. I would only remind you, that the subject is one of vital importance, to be handled with caution as well as with candour. What is, or ought to be, the great end and aim of this part of education ? Certainly not the mere acquisition of knowledge. That is more particularly the business of pro- fessional education, and, indeed, of the whole after life. But one great end of education, properly and strictly so called — of what I may here denominate primary education — is the culture, development, and purification of the moral nature, the training, strengthening, and energising of the intellectual powers ; or, in other words, the formation of the character and the culture of the mind. Such is the full meaning and truth of these lines of Horace's noblest ode (often quoted, but not always well understood) : — John Inglis, 1857 Doctrina sed vim promovet insitam, Rectique cultus pectora roborant : Utcunque defecere mores, Indecorant bene nata culpae. What I have now advanced seems so plainly and de- monstrably true, that it would be quite unnecessary to insist on it farther, were it not, that ignorance or forgetful- ness of this truth is the efficient cause of all those vain and pernicious theories of university education, which would, to a greater or less extent, substitute what is called " useful knowledge " for literature and philosophy. The acquisition of knowledge cannot, of course, be separated from the exercise and training of the mental powers, even if it were desirable. But in the work of primary education, I should almost be disposed to say, that the acquisition of knowledge is an incident, while mental culture is the essence and the end. Still the success of the mental training will necessarily depend, in a great measure, on the selection of subject of study ; and those subjects will best subserve the end in view, which are best fitted to exercise the mind, without exclusive reference to the ultimate utility of the knowledge, which is in the meantime acquired. In this view, it is plainly desirable, that the minds of our academic youth should be engaged on subject of study, which they are, to a certain and defined extent, able to master, and to feel that they have mastered. For the constant encountering and overcoming of difficulties en- genders a modest confidence and generous enthusiasm, which give the student, what has been happily called " a habit of victory." But if the attention be distracted by too great a variety of subjects, nothing will be completely mastered, and the mental training will be in a proportionate degree imperfect or useless. Again, the study of any subject ought to be minute, and the knowledge acquired accurate. And without minuteness there is no accuracy. It sometimes becomes matter of necessity, in the business of life, that one should be content to acquire a mere smattering of knowledge on some particular subject ; but this is a hurtful mental dissipation, which nothing but necessity can excuse, and 99 Rectorial Addresses: which is therefore, of all things, to be avoided, in the early- training of the mind. Let the young student, then, never think that he can be too minute, or blush when an ignorant and presumptuous utilitarian sneers at his familiarity with the doctrine of the Greek particles, or with the technical rules of the Aristotelian Logic. For I do verily believe, that the student who has thoroughly mastered the Latin Grammar, has been better employed, than if he had read half the Corpus Poetarum Latinorum, with only an im- perfect acquaintance with the structure and genius of the language ; and that any man, no matter what his age or calling, who reads one Book of the Nicomachean Ethics, or any work of similar weight and value, with such scrupu- lously honest diligence, as not merely to be able to analyse its reasoning and appreciate its dogmatic teaching, but perfectly to comprehend every sentence and word of it, has done more to advance himself in the study of philo- sophy, than if he had skimmed through a hundred treatises on metaphysics and morals. What Quinctilian has elegantly said of grammar, is substantially true of all the subjects of rudimentary teaching : " Quo minus sunt ferendi, qui hanc artem, ut tenuem ac jejunam, cavillantur ; quae nisi oratori futuro fundamenta fldeliter jecerit, quicquid superstruxeris, corruet : necessaria pueris, jucunda senibus : dulcis secre- torum comes : et qua; vel sola omni studiorum genere plus habet opens, quam ostentationis. Ne quis igitur tanquam parva, fastidiat Grammatices Elementa ; non quia magnae sit operae, consonantes a vocalibus discernere, ipsasque eas in semivocalium numerum mutarumque partiri ; sed quia, interiora velut sacri hujus adeuntibus, apparebit multa rerum subtilitas, quae non modo acuere ingenia puerilia, sed exercere altissimam quoque erudi- tionem ac scientiam possit." Minute accuracy of study, no matter what the subject be, so far from being obnoxious to ridicule or censure, possesses a certain dignity and elevation — for whatever is worth learning at all, is worth learning well ; and it is as unjust to blame the student for precise and close acquaint- ance with the nicest and most intricate details of grammar and logic, as it would be to chide the naturalist for too John Inglis, 1857 minute a knowledge of the physical conformation and habits of the creatures of God's hand, or to object to the landscape-painter, that he has made himself too painfully familiar with the constituent parts of that glorious face of nature, which he aspires to represent on his canvas. It has been beautifully said, by one of the most original thinkers and eloquent writers of the present day, that " to handle the brush freely, and to paint grass and weeds, with accuracy enough to satisfy the eye, are accomplish- ments which a year or two's practice will give any man ; but to trace among the grass and weeds, those mysteries of invention and combination, by which Nature appeals to the intellect — to render the delicate fissure, and descending curve, and undulating shadow of the mouldering soil, with gentle and fine finger, like the touch of the rain itself — to find, even in all that appears most trifling and contemptible, fresh evidence of the constant working of the Divine power ' for glory and for beauty,' and to teach it and proclaim it to the unthinking and the regardless, — this, as it is the peculiar province and faculty of the master mind, so it is the peculiar duty which is demanded of it by the Deity." ' If, then, as I have said, the study of many subjects at a time be inconsistent with due attention to the training and cultivation of the mind, which is the end of primary or non-professional education, it becomes a most interesting inquiry, What course of study best conduces to the desired result ? For an answer to this question, I would confidently appeal to all past experience, for confirmation of the opinion which I most firmly hold, that classical studies are, of all others, the best foundation of what is commonly called a liberal education — by which I mean, an education for the learned professions, and for public or political life. In so speaking, I must not be suspected of seeking to place the defence of classical learning on too low a ground, for I am not at present concerned directly with the defence of classical learning at all. Were I engaged in a general argument on the utility of such studies, I should not forget to urge, that these are inseparable from the successful cultivation and progress of sacred literature, and that the 1 Modern Painters, vol. i., p. 312. Rectorial Addresses: advances, which have been made since the Reformation, in biblical criticism, and other departments of theological study, are to be ascribed in a great measure to the general and more diligent prosecution of classical learning. I should contend, farther, that if the noblest study of man, apart from religion, is his own nature, and the history of his species, he will be casting aside the most instructive chapter in that history, if he neglect to familiarise himself with those people, who, in the ancient world, attained the highest pitch of civilisation, and whose sages, through the mists of popular superstition, and in spite of the misleading influences of their own hearts, approached the nearest, that unaided reason can do, to an adequate conception of the Deity. And I should counsel the student, that if he attempt to study the character and history of the people of ancient Greece, without a competent knowledge of their wonderful language — the most copious, the most musical, the most susceptible of adaptation to every species of literary com- position — or if he seek to trace the history of Rome, from its first beginnings till it becomes the history of the civilised world, and then merges in, and gives place to the history of modern Europe, — and yet fail to bring to the study a thorough acquaintance with that language, which is to so great an extent the foundation of the modern languages of Europe, and was for so many ages the sole vehicle of thought for learned men — he is only wasting his time, and may at once and for ever abandon the ambition of solid learning. I should insist, farther, on the liberalising in- fluence of classical studies, on the benefit to be derived, especially to the youthful mind, from the noble tone of sentiment, which pervades the great orators, historians, and poets of antiquity, and on the enlargement of mind, and extended knowledge of human nature, consequent on in- telligent contemplation of the temper and spirit of men living under circumstances so different from our own, — the combination of pagan superstition with republican institu- tions, affording a striking and most instructive contrast to Christian habits and styles of thought, for which no study of modern history or literature could compensate, or find a parallel. The effect of such studies in liberalising the John Inglis, 1857 mind, refining the taste, and purifying the heart, arises very much from what is called their " uselessness," — that is, their inapplicability to any direct object of pecuniary or mercenary advantage. Their " uselessness " is indeed one of their excellences, because it is inseparable from their ennobling and elevating influence. These topics, and such as these, might be appropriately and usefully employed, in defence of classical learning, in another place, and on a different occasion. But within these walls they can hardly be urged without impertinence, for this University has recorded its constant opinion of what is essential to the education of a gentleman, by inserting classical studies in its curriculum, under the name of " Humanity." Here, therefore, instead of doing battle with the enemies of learn- ing, I am disposed to dismiss them with the caustic remark of that great scholar Graevius : " Nulli sunt hostes erudi- tionis nisi ineruditi, qui fumos suos, licet videantur aepofiareiv, non, nisi suae sortis hominibus, possunt vendi- tare." * I have been led into what may seem a misplaced episode, by a desire to express my conviction, that any interference with, or curtailment of, the time and attention now given to the study of Greek and Latin in the curriculum of arts, would be most unwise and inexpedient. I do not believe that any course of study could be substituted, so beneficial in that discipline and training of the mind, on the import- ance of which I have insisted, I fear, at tedious length. It may be, however, that without interfering with the cultivation of classical learning, other subjects of instruction might be added to the University course. I am far from saying that this is impracticable, or even inexpedient. But, in considering such a proposal, much caution is required. In the very outset, we meet with a practical difficulty of a very formidable kind ; for we must, of all things, beware of rendering a University education more costly, than it has hitherto been in this country. A large proportion of those, who now enjoy that advantage, are barely able to afford it, and therefore the slightest addition to the actual expense 1 Graevii Praefatio in Bern. Ferrarii de Ritu Sacrarum Ecclesiae Veteris Concionum, p. iii. : Ultraj. 1692. 103 Rectorial Addresses: might exclude many of a class, who, in times past, have conferred honour on the University, corresponding to the benefits which they have derived. And it must not be for- gotten, that a prolongation of the time required to pass through the curriculum necessarily aggravates the expense ; so that, if any addition is to be made to the course, it must not be accomplished, by making the ordinary and indispen- sable period of residence and study longer than it is. As may be anticipated from what I have already said, I entertain equally strong objections to any attempt, to intro- duce greater diversity of studies, within the present pre- scribed period ; and therefore I think, that as little facility for introducing new subjects of instruction is to be gained from mere economising of time. But it seems to me that, without departing in any degree from the fundamental principles of our academical system, and without at all aggravating the difficulties which beset the poor student, the Universities might undertake, either within the period now assigned for the curriculum in arts, to afford to those who come to College so well advanced in their studies, as to be able to dispense with much of the elementary instruction required by others, — or, after the lapse of the ordinary period, to provide for those, whose pecuniary means are more ample, the opportunity of pro- secuting their University career, so as to attain to a much higher position of excellence as general scholars, before they betake themselves to one special line of professional study. To such students the Universities at present hold out too little encouragement. The amount of classical learning to be acquired, in the ordinary course, is limited not merely by time, but by the necessity of occupying a large portion of the time actually devoted to this branch of study, in such elementary teaching, as is suited to the condition of the least advanced student who enters the University. But among the general body of students, there must be many to whom that elementary instruction is unnecessary, and who might therefore occupy the time which is thus lost, by making great advances in classical scholarship, or betaking them- selves to some other department of learning. 104 John Inglis, 1857 It is also much to be regretted, that there are so few temptations held out to prolong the period of University residence, even to those who are well able to afford it. For I imagine it will not be disputed, that, in the present day, most men enter on the business of life at an age, when they might be much better employed in preparing themselves for its duties ; and though this be in many, perhaps in most cases, matter of necessity, there is no reason why, for the favoured few, though they may be but a few, who can afford to dispense with, or postpone, the earning of their livelihood by their own exertions, the University should not be able, by its own resources and attractions, at once to excite and gratify the ambition of earning the name of great scholarship and erudition. It is at least well worthy of consideration, whether the Scottish Universities, in their tenderness for the poor student, and their scrupulous per- formance of duty towards him, have not too much forgotten to do justice to the comparatively rich. I am well aware, that, to accomplish such objects as I have been suggesting, considerable additions must be made to the working power of the Universities. It is hardly to be expected, that the same professor who teaches the younger and less advanced students the rudiments of Greek and Latin, should be able, without any assistance, also to conduct and guide the more advanced in the higher walks of classical learning ; and still less is it possible, to introduce new branches of study, without founding new professorial chairs. But I cannot regard these as by any means insurmountable difficulties ; nor can I believe, that institutions so thoroughly national in their character as the Scottish Universities, and which have been instrumental in conferring inestimable blessings on the country, will ask in vain for such aid and support as the exigencies of the time may demand, in order to insure their continued prosperity and efficiency. I anticipate a bright future for our old schools of learn- ing, and trust that, in our own day, much may be done in way of improvement and extension. But in all schemes of reform, in every attempt to beautify and adorn the ancient fabric, may we never forget, that the foundation on which it was built at the first, and on which alone it 105 Rectorial Addresses can ever safely stand, is the teaching of religion, without which no education in a Christian country deserves the name. " The end of learning," says Milton, " is to repair the ruins of our first parents, by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love Him, to imitate Him, to be like Him, as we may the nearest, by possessing our souls of true virtue, which, being united to the heavenly- grace of faith, makes up the highest perfection." Let no one think, that, in touching on this topic, I am seeking to enter the field of controversy, or that I would risk the exciting of discord, where all should be harmony and peace. On the contrary, I believe that there is no enterprise, in which men of different churches and religious persuasions may so happily labour together, as the exten- sion and improvement of our Universities, with an especial view to the religious character of their teaching, if they will but observe the rule, enjoined by Lord Bacon, of avoiding both extremes — latitudinarian indifference on the one hand, and sectarian bigotry on the other — " which will be done," he says, " if the league of Christians, penned by our Saviour Himself were, in the two cross clauses thereof, soundly and plainly expounded : He that is not with us is against us ; and again, He that is not against us is with us, — that is, if the points fundamental and of substance in religion were truly discerned, and distinguished from points not merely of faith, but of opinion, order, or good intention." Among those who hear me, I am persuaded there is none, who does not sincerely and heartily desire the ad- vancement of learning and religion, or who does not believe that our Universities are, as they have ever been, the most efficient instruments in the accomplishment of the great work. Above all, I cannot permit myself to doubt, that the graduates and alumni of King's College regard their University with affectionate reverence, and will at all times be prepared to maintain her rights, to extend her reputation, to enlarge her resources, and, if need be, to devote their talents and their energies to her service. 106 The True Aim of Study 1 By Earl Stanhope In appearing before you this day, and in offering you my cordial thanks for the high honour you have conferred on me, I cannot but feel how much that honour is en- hanced by the entire absence, on my part, of any local connexion with the county or city in which you dwell. I have, indeed, some Scottish ties — I may. boast of some Scottish blood in my veins — but all my Scottish ties are south of Forth, and as an ancient proverb declares that "Forth bridles the Highlander," so it must also limit the local connexions of the men of Aberdeen. Since, therefore, the honour I have thus received is heightened by the want of local connexion, it should also receive from me, and it does receive from me, a more earnest expression of thanks. But having said thus much, I feel that I shall best show my sense of the favour you have .bestowed on me, by passing at once from all topics personal to myself, and addressing myself rather to those questions upon which my age and experience of life, as well as the dignity amongst you to which you have raised me, entitle me to address you in words of counsel and guidance. Gentlemen, I say, then, that it behoves all those whose education is in progress to consider with themselves care- fully what is really the aim and object of that education. Do not suppose that it is merely the acquisition of know- ledge. Knowledge is, indeed, important — nay, indispen- sable — but we must remember that, in many cases, the acquisition of knowledge is to be regarded as the means, rather than as the end. The object should be to make the mind strong rather than full — to make the mind an instrument of power to work with in after years — not a 1 Address delivered 25th March, 1858. 107 Rectorial Addresses: mere receptacle for facts, like some vessel into which water may be poured. It is important that you should not merely master the acquisition of facts, but learn how to apply them. I would invite you to consider how strong qn this point are the expressions of no less an authority than Milton. Milton says — " Language is but the instrument conveying to us things useful to be known. And though a linguist should pride himself to have all the tongues that Babel cleft the world into, yet, if he have not studied the solid things in them, as well as the words and Lexicons, he were nothing so much to be esteemed a learned man as any yeoman or tradesman competently wise in his mother dialect only." Now, observe from whom these words proceed — not from any man imperfectly acquainted with ancient and modern languages, and who might therefore have an interest in undervaluing these studies ; but from one whose accomplishments in Italian, for instance, are well known ; who knew Latin as well as he did English, and who acted as Latin Secretary to the Lord Protector, Cromwell. Any advice from such a quarter, as to the true end of the acquisition of words, must be held to come with peculiar weight and force. If, then, I am asked in what way, after acquiring words for the study of languages — after acquiring facts for the study of history and science — how these are to be turned to the best account, I should say it is by order and combi- nation. Two facts taken separately may be of little value — combine them, and some discovery of importance may be the result. So long as facts remain unapplied — so long as you take no account of the connexion between them, or the progress from one to another, you cannot expect the benefit to which I have adverted. I should wish to give you an instance to make my meaning clearer, and I find this in a popular work of only the last age. Miss Edgeworth in one of those admirable tales which have made, in our youthful days especially, her name as a household word to us, has portrayed a young lady — Miss Isabella Harcourt — whose main employment, under an ill-regulated education, was to learn dates by heart — whose great pride was to see from time to time some visitor bow to her and declare he 1 08 Earl Stanhope, 1858 would give the world for such a memory ! Thus, on one occasion, she was parrot-like reciting that the first printing press was established in Westminster Abbey in 1494, and the first white paper made in England in 1587. "It is well worth remarking," said a truly accomplished lady who was present, " that literature in England must have at that time made but a very slow progress, since one hundred years had elapsed between the establishment of your print- ing press and the making of your white paper." " That never struck me before," the younger lady replied, " I only learnt these things by heart to repeat in conversation." Here, then, is a familiar instance ; yet I know not how from any work of more elaborate pretensions I could have derived a clearer and more striking one to show the difference between mere facts and the use that may be made of them, or in other words between the faculties of memory and reason. The knowledge of words and facts, then, is indis- pensable as a foundation, but you are not to allow them to remain dormant in your minds — they must be applied and combined ; and, thus, the intelligent mind is able, as it were, to draw them into life. In this way only, can you make your first study of words and of facts conducive to the improvement and maturity of your minds. I cannot but think, gentlemen, that one branch of study illustrates that progress in a remarkable manner. Look to Mathematics — look at that branch especially comprised under the term Geometry. See from how few points it proceeds — a few definitions — a few axioms are all it has to build upon, yet by applying one proof to another, while constantly building on the former foundation, you find at length all the properties of figures and bodies, not merely as they are in fact, but as reason is able to discover and evolve them. And thus it is that from these few simple points — these few definitions and axioms — you arrive at length at such admirable samples of mental deduction as you find in the forty-seventh proposition of the first book of Euclid, or the eighth proposition of the third book. You can need no stronger proof, I think, of the benefit of not merely acquiring words and facts, but of applying them to each other, and seeing what consequence follows. I think 109 Rectorial Addresses: it may be said, with regard to mathematics, and the pro- gress thus made in teaching the sequence of ideas, that Locke has scarcely exaggerated, when he says that he should deem the studying of mathematics an advantage even on the hard, or, if you will, impossible condition, that at the close of his studies the student should have forgotten all the facts which he had learnt, because the habits of patient thought and investigation acquired, would be worth all the labour they had cost him. You may also observe how clearly the want of order and combination is shown in the history of a nation with which we have been lately engaged in some not very friendly transactions — I mean the Chinese. Some of the rudiments of knowledge were familiar to the Chinese at a period when our ancestors were mere untaught and wandering savages. At a very early period printing, and type-founding, and gunpowder, and the first steps of several other important arts and branches of knowledge had been discovered by the Chinese, but, as they never applied themselves to connect one fact with another, and try to see where they would lead, they remained mere barren branches of speculation — they were not in fact reduced to practice ; and thus you see the Chinese have continued, notwithstanding these early rudi- ments of knowledge, liable to be bearded by any handful of Europeans that may land upon their shores. Gentlemen, there is one other consideration which I feel anxious to impress upon you. It is usual sometimes, especially among the young, to conceive that success in life — that eminence, either in literature or some profession — may be gained by a sudden bound — that genius in fact may supply the place of study. Now, gentlemen, so far as my experience of life has gone, I should say, on the contrary, that study is the condition of success. Depend upon it, there is the greatest truth in these words of the Latin poet : — Nil nisi magno Vita labore dedit mortalibus. The more closely you look at this question, the more certainly will you find that the exceptions to this rule are very few, and the closer they are examined the fewer they become. I think you will find that in almost all pursuits Earl Stanhope, 1858 it is study — it is patient labour — which alone enables the man who will take these pains to achieve that brilliant success which some of you may look upon as the mere effort of unpremeditated genius. What is called the inspira- tion of poets is very often, I believe, nothing more than an assiduous practice of the rules of poetry. Now I should like to point this out in a little more detail. None of you would deny that study is essential in the case of great philo- sophers or men of science — that study was all in all to Sir Isaac Newton, when he discovered those laws by which the universe is moved ; none of you would deny that study was all in all to your own Adam Smith, when he not only founded, but brought to perfection, a new science — that of Political Economy. But even in the case of poets, and writers of works of fiction, you would find on inquiry that their genius is by no means of that unpremeditated kind which is independent of study. You might, at first sight, suppose that Rousseau was indebted only to genius for those bursts of eloquence that characterise his writings, and that these were not the result of study and care ; but in the account which he has given us of his own mental condition he wholly disclaims such ease and readiness of style. On the contrary he states that his composition cost him the greatest toil and labour — that his manuscripts were blotted and blurred, and copied again and again, and that some sentences had to be turned over in his mind for night after night before he brought them to the perfection he desired. I can give you another instance of a man whom many sup- posed to have been a careless man of genius, but who, in reality, was by no means independent of careful study — I allude to one who was in his early years connected with this town, and whose early dwelling was pointed out to me as I walked just now to this College — I mean Lord Byron. Now, it so happens, that within the last fortnight, I think, there has been published a book by an associate and friend of Lord Byron — Mr. Trelawney — who gives, among other things, an account of his mode of composition, showing with how much care and labour it was attended. The work, which has come out within the period I have mentioned, relates that, as Lord Byron, accompanied by Mr. Trelawney, Rectorial Addresses: was sailing past the shores of Italy, on his way to Greece, he expressed some sentiments regarding the conduct of affairs in Italy, and the state of parties at Rome, which Mr. Trelawney was eager to see transferred to the glowing lines so familiar to the muse of Byron. He entreated him to turn them into poetry. Byron sat down, and Mr. Trelawney left him for one or two hours busily employed on the decks, but the verses did not come at the bidding of the bard. Lord Byron did not, however, give up the task, and sat pondering over the paper for nearly an hour ; then, gnashing his teeth, he tore up what he had written, and threw the fragments overboard ; and he said — " To extemporise verse, is nonsense. Poetry is a distinct faculty ; it will not come when called — you might as well whistle for a wind. I must chew the cud before I can write." And he added that he had revolved some of his compositions for whole years in his mind before he had attempted to write them down. Perhaps there may be some exaggeration in this last statement, but from the preceding ones you can scarcely doubt that Lord Byron did devote most serious study to his powers of composition. Why do I give you these instances? Because as to men of science, statesmen, and philosophers, you would not doubt that study — patient study — was essential, but you might be disposed to dispute what I have said with regard to men who, in their lifetime, passed as mere sons of extemporaneous genius. The in- stances I have given you from the lives of Rousseau and Byron, prove the assertion even in this limited sense untrue. Mastery of style, such as was theirs in verse and prose, is only to be acquired by patient study, which, once again, I venture to recommend to you as the single and sole con- dition of success. I know not, however, gentlemen, why I should have urged especially upon you this theme, for I believe that in no country is perseverance in study less wanting or less necessary to be enforced than in Scotland. Of this I can assure you we are well aware in England ; and I may as proof read to you a few words from a publication, which has appeared within the last few days, containing a report of the Annual Meeting, on the 20th of January last, of the Earl Stanhope, 1858 Institute of Liverpool. I was reading the report of that In- stitute for another object, and I find that one of the speeches bears a feeling tribute to the industry of this part of the island. Mr. Richard Johnson, one of the principal gentle- men in the place, says he had given some facts which he hoped "would stimulate the youth around them to press onward, and strive for academical honours. A friend of his, when a student in a Scotch College, was much pleased to meet two shepherd lads, who had saved as much in the summer, by tending their flocks, as enabled them to attend the College lectures in the winter." Now, gentlemen, how highly are these shepherd youths to be admired ! And how does it bring shame to many in England, and to some, I have no doubt, in Scotland, who with every facility brought home to them, neglect or undervalue those opportunities, which others, having to toil with their hands, are so nobly striving after ! I think, gentlemen, you will be convinced, from the few words I have ventured to quote, that these efforts, so much to be admired, are not forgotten nor under- valued in the southern portion of this island. Gentlemen, I have not yet done with this point, of the importance of study in all the walks of life, for that, in reality, is the keystone of all the efforts which in your education you are called upon to make. Now there is one scene of success to which you may think my remarks will not apply* I mean speeches, such as you hear in public assemblies — in the Houses of Lords and Commons, for example — where you find an extemporaneous and immediate reply delivered with great force and effect, to some speech which has only just been uttered. You will find, if you consider this more closely, that the power of making such quick replies is only to be gained by great study and by slow degrees. And I will give you on this subject the opinion of one of the most judicious, perhaps the most judicious, writer who ever wrote upon the subject. I will give you a sentence from the great work of Quintilian. Does Quintilian think that the mere extemporaneous faculty or power of speaking is derived from genius alone ? He says, " Sine hac quidem conscientia (multum in scribendo laborem insumpsisse) ilia ipsa ex- tempore dicendi facultas inanem modo loquacitatem dabit h 113 Rectorial Addresses: et verba in labris nascentia." Observe that happy expres- sion — "verba in labris nascentia." Now I ask you, may not these words remind you of that sort of rant which we sometimes hear on some hustings, and is not this empty babble wholly distinct from that measured, well-considered wisdom which we find to proceed from the leaders of opposite parties in the House? Does it not show in the clearest manner that, in the language of Quintilian, study makes the difference between the mere flow of words, and the real power of addressing argument, and wit, and eloquence, in immediate reply? To make this still clearer to you, I would venture to illustrate my meaning by a story derived from a different career of success. It is related in Italy of a great painter, that, having produced a most powerful, though perhaps unfinished, picture, in three days, he asked as its price a hundred sequins. It is said that the churlish patron demurred at the price, saying that the sum seemed to him excessive for the work of three days. " But what," cried the indignant artist, " do you forget that I have been thirty years in learning how to make this picture in three days?" When, therefore, you see an immediate reply proceed from some of the great leaders of public opinion, do not deceive yourselves by the idea that this was a mere burst of extemporaneous genius, but be assured that there has been study, persevering study, to give the power and faculty of this outburst, which seemed to spring up at the moment, and that there is a deeper source than that moment could supply. Gentlemen, I feel tempted at this place to state to you, from the highest authority, some of the means by which that important gift of readiness of speech can be most easily and completely acquired. And you will observe that the power of extemporaneous speaking is not confined merely, so far as utility goes, to men engaged in public life, but may in many circumstances in private life be found of great advantage. Perhaps you may like to hear some practical advice which came from a man of highest reputation on this point. No man possessed that power of using in his oratory the right word in the right place — no man carried that gift to a higher degree of perfection, as all parties have owned, «4 Earl Stanhope, 1858 than Mr. Pitt. Now, my father had the honour to be connected in relationship with that great man — and, as such, he had the privilege of being in the house with him some- times for many weeks together. Presuming on that familiar intercourse, he told me, he ventured on one occasion to ask Mr. Pitt by what means — by what course of study — he had acquired that admirable readiness of speech — that aptness of finding the right word without pause or hesitation. Mr. Pitt replied that whatever readiness he might be thought to possess in that respect, he believed that he derived it very much from a practice his father — the great Lord Chatham — had recommended to him. Lord Chatham had bid him take up any book in some foreign language with which he was well acquainted, in Latin, Greek, or French, for example. Lord Chatham then enjoined him to read out of this work a passage in English, stopping where he was not sure of the word to be used in English, until the right word came to his mind, and then proceed. Mr. Pitt states that he had assiduously followed this practice. At first he had often to stop for a while before he could recollect the proper word, but he found the difficulties gradually disappear, until what was a toil to him at first became at last an easy and familiar task. Of course I do not mean to say, that with men in general, the same success as in the case of Mr. Pitt, or anything like it, would be found to follow this same course of practice ; although I am able to assure you from other cases I have known, that an experiment of this kind is of great use in removing the difficulties of extemporaneous speaking ; and it not only gives its aid in public speaking, but also in written composition. Moreover, you will find this course has the further advantage of confirming and extending your knowledge of some valuable author who had already been made the subject of study ; and on these grounds it is, as I conceive, by no means unworthy of your adoption. Gentlemen, I have hitherto spoken of study as the condition of success in active life, but I should do great injustice to study, and to those literary attainments which are the result of study, if I did not point out other objects to which they may be made conducive. And first, I would point out to you how great a resource and refuge are litera- Rectorial Addresses: ture and study in a period of sorrow. I ventured just now to quote to you the words of Quintilian on another point, but I dare say many of you are familiar with the touching and beautiful passage where he laments the untimely loss of his beloved son. He goes on to say — " Sed vivimus et aliqua vivendi ratio quaerenda est, credendumque doctissimis viris qui unicum adversorum solatium literas putaverunt." You will observe that he speaks of ' Unicum adversorum solatium,' We know from many passages of the writings of that time, as from several lines in Juvenal, the contemporary of Quintilian — take for example his " Stygio ranas in gurgite nigras " — to what contempt the old Heathen superstitions had already fallen, while the rays of a purer faith had not yet begun to shine. At the period when Quintilian lived, the world — the society at least in which he dwelt — was wholly unacquainted and unembued with the Christian truth. I need not point out to you, for that task devolves upon men who can speak with far greater weight and authority — I need not refer to the fact that you in sorrow have a source of consolation which Quintilian never knew — that you, in the hour of bereavement, may look forward to a happy re-union with those whom you have lost here below — a re-union which the blessed truths ©f Revelation have pointed out to you. Still, while holding fast by this, by far the most important aid in sorrow, do not, at the same time, in a lower sphere, despise that aid which study and literature can supply. What I have said of periods of sorrow may also be applied with equal truth to periods of sickness. The difference in this case may be observed in all ranks and conditions of society. We often see' a labourer debarred by sickness from his usual labour. How great the difference between man and man in this case ! The illiterate labourer will turn aside if you offer him a book, and will tell you he is no scholar ; and he will sit day by day, till his strength return, gazing listlessly into the fire, or wondering at the state of the weather outside his cottage ; while the intelligent mechanic or labourer to whom you may have the pleasure of lending some agreeable book, will find in it a source of consol- ation, and it will while away the time till health and strength are restored. And in those of higher education, how often do 116 Earl Stanhope, 1858 we find their sentiments expressed in vivid terms of the inestimable advantage thus supplied by subjects of study when health admits, and by lighter literature when the mind is incapacitated for active toil. I feel tempted on this subject to read some sentences to you from an American author of the highest reputation — Washington Irving — who says this in praise of one whose fame has become I may say a portion of your birthright — a share of the inheritance of Scotland — I mean Sir Walter Scott. See how Washington Irving sums up his visit to Abbotsford : — " For my own part, in periods of dejection, when everything round me was joyless, I have hailed the announcement of a new work from his pen as an earnest of certain pleasure in store for me, and have looked forward to it as a traveller on a waste looks to a green spot at a distance, where he feels assured of solace and refreshment. When I consider how much he has thus contributed to the better hours of my past existence, and how independent his works still make me, at times, of all the world for my enjoyment, I bless my stars that cast my lot in his days, to be thus cheered and gladdened by the outpourings of his genius." That, gentlemen, is a tribute that any American may be pleased to offer, and that any Scotchman should be proud to hear. Gentlemen, in the scenes of active life that are opening before you, the choice of study is, in a great measure, in- dicated by the nature of the profession you may choose. It is clear you need no admonition to show that your first efforts must be directed to those studies upon which your pro- fessional skill and success depend. That, of course, must be your first aim ; but I think that you will find it no unprofitable counsel if I advise you, so far as leisure admits, to take some subject of study subordinate to your professional studies — some other subject to which your own taste may incline you, and to devote to the acquisition of facts on that favourite subject whatever hours of leisure you can command. I am inclined to think that you will find this in the long-run more interesting than general reading — that is, reading which passes in succession from one subject to another. Those who pursue such a course will be apt to find themselves In wandering mazes lost, 117 Rectorial Addresses: I am inclined to think, I say, that you will find more real pleasure and improvement if — subordinate to your pro- fessional studies, as I stated before — you select some point of further study to which your fancy leads, and then read upon that subject, so that everything that comes forth upon it will be an addition to your own knowledge, and you will know precisely how much is known upon it, and how much remains unknown. I am inclined to think, by a more vagrant style of reading — if I may so call it — reading so many subjects you will feel interest in none. By concen- trating your attention upon one, you will secure, in that, greater interest and pleasure to your system of reading than you can attain by any other means. In fact, gentlemen, when we look around us, and see the multiplicity of subjects to which attention may be drawn, you will feel that, even as I have now put the question, the choice before you is vast indeed. See how the field of human knowledge has extended. Within the last fifty years, there is scarce a branch of knowledge, even in those which have been explored for hundreds of years — classical learning, for example — which has not received some new and important additions. But not only this ; it may be said that new sciences have been discovered. Who, seventy or eighty years ago, thought or heard of the name Geology ? or of men like Cuvier, who by their genius have brought back to us the forms of long extinct animals, and the state of the earth as it must have existed thousands of years ago ? Who could have imagined that in art such vast resources should have been opened up to us, as, for instance, the now familiar science of Photography supplies ? Who would have imagined that Railways which have en- abled us at so quick a rate to have communication with all parts of the country, would become a study of well-regulated curiosity ; or that the instantaneous power of transmission which we possess in the Electric Telegraph should be im- parted to the whole of the people who now crowd these busy shores? Therefore, gentlemen, you have reason to congratulate yourselves upon the advance of human know- ledge in the present age. Yet let me advise you not to look back to the age which preceded this with feelings of 118 Earl Stanhope, 1858 scorn. That age contained men who — though many of their opinions were erroneous — had that zeal and energy, and that faith in their own opinions which entitle them to your lasting veneration. When, therefore, you think in your own day of the eminent philosophers who have done so much to raise the scientific character, and extend the scientific powers of England and Scotland, remember that in the last age — much as we may differ from them on questions of allegiance, we are not to speak without respect of the gallantry and devotion which glowed in the hearts of a Glengarry and a Lochiel. Depend upon it, many of your own countrymen in the last century deserve respect for their ardour and preseverance in carrying out these opinions, even though erroneous, — in suffering exile, im- prisonment, and death, rather than relinquish them. And, in saying this, I cannot but remember that the name of the College in which I have the honour to address you suggests that of the last Earl Marischal. That accomplished man, the kinsman of your founder, rather than renounce his tenets, or be unfaithful to them, endured forty years' exile, and the confiscation of his property ; cheered however by the friend- ship of the King of Prussia, and by the returning favour of his own countrymen at a later time. Therefore, in admitting how much scientific progress has been made, I yet warn you against undervaluing that spirit of your countrymen, which, even when it flowed in a wrong direction, was yet directed to a high, and noble, and chivalrous object, such as Scotch- men, though they may differ from it, must acknowledge to be worthy of esteem and regard. And I have often thought that, in referring to those times, it is not merely the great chieftain that deserves especial recollection ; but that a greater need of pity still is due to those followers who found no favour and no friendship abroad to cheer them, but only a lingering and destitute exile. As was said in the name of one of them — Now all is done that man can do, And all is done in vain. With that melancholy feeling many of them left these shores. How happy are we in these days when no such causes of difference exist — when all join in one cordial 119 Rectorial Addresses feeling of respect, reverence, and allegiance towards the illustrious Lady who now fills the throne of these realms. Gentlemen, you are now, or soon, going forth into active life. There is always something thoughtful — something that disposes to earnest reflection — in the communion of mind, as now, between those who are entering the verge of manhood, and one who has already past its meridian prime. It is natural that, at my age, many things should be looked at more seriously — I might almost say more sadly — than at yours. Yet I confess, that, in estimating your future prospects, I am disposed to view them as hopefully and as confidently as you can do when I see around me so many stalwart frames and ardent spirits — so many young men trained with so much care for the common weal — for the service in after years of their Sovereign and country. May, in these future endeavours, all success attend you ! May the name of Scotchman, in your keeping, continue to be held in high honour amidst all the nations of the world, as up to this time it has been ! And if, in the days of your matured success, your thoughts ever wander back to this day, and to him who, through your favour, fills the principal place in it, think of him — by that time, perhaps, passed away from this mortal scene — as of one who, while he lived, never ceased to entertain a warm sense of your kindness, and a lively interest in your prosperity and welfare. Scottish University Life ; its Objects, its Pleasures and its Duties 1 By Edward Francis Maitland 2 The high honour of being called to a distinguished place in this ancient seat of learning, demands my sincere and earnest thanks. Such a mark of distinction is not the less, it is indeed all the more grateful, that it has come unlooked for. As a stranger, having no connexion with this part of Scotland, I could have no local or personal claim ; and to the higher claims of literary or scientific eminence I need not say that I make no pretension. If I have been chosen upon humbler grounds than those which have justified you in calling to the Rectorship many eminent men who have preceded me here, I have the satisfaction to know that you can have been influenced only by public considerations. All that you can have known of me is that I have already given some proof of an earnest regard for the welfare of the Scottish Universities, and for the advance- ment of learning among the liberally educated youth of Scotland. Educated exclusively in a Scottish University, and having spent my whole life at the seat of that University, I have never been without the influences, the associations, and, best of all, the recollections of Scottish University life. May I be allowed to address to you a few words regarding this University life, its objects, its pleasures, and its duties ? I have always felt that there is something in the aca- demical system of Scotland that is identified with our national character, and with the distinctive elements of that genius, at once fervid and manly — some might say perfervid and almost premature — which it is the office of our Univer- 1 Address delivered 16th March, 1861. 8 Afterwards Lord Barcaple. Rectorial Addresses: sities to cultivate. Therefore it is that I have been prepared to take my stand as the humble advocate of our own system, and that I have been beyond measure surprised to find myself mistaken for an aggressive innovator in the field of University Reform, against whose foreign and destructive tendencies it has been thought necessary to raise more than one warning voice. But it is elsewhere that I must seek a more suitable occasion to allay these apprehensions, which are certainly not warranted by any views which I have had the opportunity of publicly expressing in regard to the Universities. Your part in the business of the University — the work of learning — is a fitter, a larger, and a more exalted theme, than any disquisition upon the methods of teaching. It is to this noble work of learning that you have come here, detaching yourselves for a time — as all men, even at your age and among those to whom a large measure of knowledge is a necessity, have not the means of doing — from the business or interests of life, in order to enter upon a discipline and training which are to fit you for its highest duties and its most exalted enjoyments. This it is which appears to me to constitute the distinctive quality of academical education ; causing it to be the invaluable intellectual gymnasium of a free and civilized country, whose training and diffusive influences are necessary, far more than we can readily conceive, for the preservation as well as for the progress of civilisation and freedom. Whole classes of men, in a country such as ours, require knowledge and will attain it, whose objects in life, and it may be their tastes, do not bring them to a University. With them, knowledge, and the taste for it, have for the most part reference to a direct and practical use, we may almost say to a material object. To them the progress of invention, and of the arts of life are mainly due. But the mutual relation of different departments of knowledge, the primary and higher truths to which we cannot attach a practical, or at least a material value, and all that re- trospective knowledge which in the largest sense we call history, are apt to be undervalued among men of mere practical information, by whom their study can never be E. F. Maitland, 1861 largely cultivated and promoted. If we could conceive of a community where, with a large amount of this material knowledge, and of the power and energy which it creates? there should be an utter or nearly utter absence of the diffusive influences of a higher education and more perfect mental training ; and still more if we could suppose this higher cultivation to be altogether or almost non-existent, we should picture to ourselves a state of society in which knowledge and letters existing for the purposes only of use or of amusement, it would merely require some sudden emergency to show how great is the peril of a civilized people among whom there is not to be found the enlarged knowledge, and philosophical thinking, and wider and more refined sympathies and tastes, which are due only to a high standard of education. It is not from depreciating practical life, and that know- ledge which may be got without leaving its ranks, that we rejoice to think that we have in Scotland Universities with doors as open as in any country in Europe, and which invite to studies as exalted and as varied as are anywhere pursued. It is true that it is only a portion of even the educated classes who can be expected to come here. But it is that select portion who are to make a complete education the business of some years of their lives. For their own sake, and still more for the sake of that influence which they are to exert upon the common mind of the country, upon its institutions, its thinking, its tastes, and its morals, they are invited to enter upon a course of intellectual training, and upon the pursuit of the highest departments of knowledge. The system of education to which they are called is justified only by the belief that the University students of the present time will in a few years constitute the most intellectual class of the community, influencing its character and its progress, some directly and visibly, with the power of commanding minds, the larger number invisibly, but not the less power- fully, and as if with the unconscious force of a natural law. Considerations such as these may suggest to your minds, as they have always done to mine, the high responsibilities to which each succeeding race of University students is called. It is not merely your own education as individuals 123 Rectorial Addresses: which is being here pursued ; it is, in a sense, the higher education of society at large. Those gifts of learning which are made accessible to you in this place, you are to receive not for yourselves alone ; nor are you only called upon to use them for the good of others and of your country. You are to pass them, at least in their influences, to all around you. It is the noble quality of that knowledge which you are here to acquire, that no man can hide it within his own breast and possess it for himself alone. The acquisitions which you are called upon to make in these years of Uni- versity life, are not for yourselves merely. They are of such a kind, that you must render an account of them ; and you must render a like account of your opportunites of gaining them. Wasted opportunities now, or unemployed gifts of knowledge in after life, are equally matter for self-accusation. But remember that, where the moral nature is not wholly perverted, knowledge once acquired can never be altogether useless ; while it only requires indifference or neglect to make these most precious years entirely fruitless. Thus it is, that at no period of life are industry and energy and per- severance so much matters of imperative duty as now. But this is a theme which I need not pursue. I am well assured that it is with high aspirations, and purposes of a noble self-denial, that you are taking your part in the pursuits of this school of learning — of great traditional and of great present excellence. Your calling as students of an ancient University, the genius of the place, and its recollec- tions, your association in the work of learning with one another, and with your teachers, all prompt to an honourable ambition to excel, and to those sacrifices which are necessary to the attainment of excellence in any walk or at any period of life. It is of vast importance that the energies which are thus gathered and concentrated within the walls of a University, shall not run to waste through any misunderstanding as to the work to which its students are called. The true idea of student life can be reached only through a just conception of the purposes which it is intended to serve. If you would know aright what you are called upon to do here, you must bear in mind the duties for which it is to prepare you here- 124 E. F. Maitland, 1861 after. Above all, you must ever remember that this and every University is intended to secure continually a race of men for the community, who in its various departments shall possess something more than mere knowledge, even though it be extensive and practically useful ; whose learn- ing shall be the link to connect their age with past ages ; whose cultivation shall tend to civilize and exalt the spirit of their times. You must feel that for enabling each individual to take his share of the duty which belongs to the more highly educated classes, it is not necessary that he shall have great talent, or high place, or singular oppor- tunities, but only that he shall diligently seek the gifts of enlarged and liberal education here, and use them faithfully in whatever may be his position in after life. You are called upon for a time to separate yourselves, more or les§ entirely, from the stirring and practical outer world, that you may the better prepare yourselves for your part in it. You, are not, indeed, to pass the years of your sojourn here In a deep vision's intellectual scene. These years must be a time of earnest and energetic labour. But be assured that you will neither fully reap the advantages of University life, nor partake of its highest enjoyments, if you do not withdraw yourselves in a fair measure, not merely from the more distracting engagements of society, but from active participation in its exciting interests. The work in this place to which you have pledged yourselves will sufficiently task your energies, and will, if rightly pursued, afford sufficient objects of mental interest and excitement. An over-earnest attention to other interests, foreign to your proper work here, can only distract and weaken those forces whose best and most concentrated efforts are necessary to achieve the excellence to which you aspire. It is by relaxation and not by excitement, by the vigorous though moderate indulgence in manly exercises, that you will best restore and husband your mental and bodily powers. A well-regulated system of life, devoted faithfully to the studies of the place, relieved by due relaxation, and, above all, sustained by a reliance 125 Rectorial Addresses: upon higher guidance and strength from above — such a course of life has, in the experience of many an earnest student, enabled him to accomplish a task which at his entrance upon it appeared altogether beyond his powers. I would ask you not only to form a true judgment of the nature of your work, but also to measure its amount, and consider how it may be mastered within the time which can be spared for the business of education. I need hardly say that I speak only of the work of general education, which is the sphere of the Faculty of Arts. It would be presumptuous in me to offer suggestions in regard to those Faculties in which more advanced students are pursuing professional studies. But apart from these, the work of literary and scientific learning is apt to present itself to the eye of a student at once ambitious and diffident, in such large proportions as almost to discourage himi Doubtful of his own powers, he may be painfully conscious that he has few advantages. The very justness of his perception of the magnitude and importance of each separate depart- ment, and his desire that if he is to enter upon such a career he shall excel in it, almost deter him from the encounter. Without asking such a student to take a diminished view of the great superstructure of knowledge, I would remind him that it is in the very completeness of a University course that its different parts will assume their due proportions. Let him not encourage despondency or indolence, by idly or too anxiously contemplating the greatness of the work that is before him. It is by entering with energy upon that portion of it which is his present work, that he will find the whole scene before him arranging itself in its just pro- portions ; its true perspective restored, and its magnificent vistas and remotest summits visibly forming parts of that ample domain through which he is already advancing with no insecure step. No doubt it is well for the youthful student now and again to pause, as it were, upon the threshold of the great temple of science, and looking inwards to stimulate his imagination by gazing upon its vast and to him dim and mysterious recesses. Some minds are so constituted that, even when masters of the highest know- ledge of the place, and received as hierophants in its inner 126 E. F. Maitland, 1861 courts, they are still prone to return to this attitude of contemplation from without. To the teacher it is often the position in which he finds himself most happily in sympathy with his pupils, both looking at the same objects from the same point of view. It has often been in this attitude of contemplation and vague wonder that the youthful student has been conscious of the first promptings of that enthu- siasm which has afterwards guided him to the highest places of learning or science. No one who knows anything of the rationale of study, and of its difficulties, will ever, by even a single word, discourage such contemplations and such enthusiasm, by which the imagination, that mistress of the soul, becomes the ally of the intellect even in its most intellectual tasks. You will not suppose me guilty of so great an error, if I warn you against an indolent enthusiasm, which just sufficiently fills the mind to make it rest satisfied with a fancied love of knowledge, but does not impel, to the laborious course by which alone it can be attained. It is, I believe, a vain and foolish effort, to encourage the student to enter upon these labours by attempting to speak lightly of the difficulties of his task. These diffi- culties do exist, and are sufficiently formidable. They are not to be escaped from by an untrue and cowardly denial of their existence. You must encounter them, in accordance with that great law of an All- wise Providence, by which every noble course of action, throughout the whole sphere of human life, is beset with difficulties. This lesson is presented to our eyes on every side, in the world around us. We read it in the page of history, as in the page of inspira- tion. The labours of the hero of mythology, the mysterious trials which terrified the candidate for initiation, and the tasks of superhuman daring imposed upon the aspirant of chivalry, are so many imperfect utterances of the great truth, that the path of virtue, or greatness, or knowledge, is beset with difficulties, which can be overcome only by endurance and self-denial. It is true, that these difficulties are not the same to all ; but in some form, and in some degree, they are common to all. In some, and these often the noblest natures, it may be the sense, real or imaginary, of weakness for their task, 127 Rectorial Addresses: or the hard pressure of external circumstances ; in others, the solicitations of a too exuberant youth, or distracting associations with the world. But in all, it is the appointed trial, which must be overcome if success is to be gained, and which may certainly be overcome by virtuous effort. There are distracting influences, both from within and from without, which the student may not be able to put away from him ; but if he would not prepare for himself disappointment and self-reproach, he must, by a manly recognition of his trials, and of his duties, make himself master of himself and of his position. He must realize the truth, that excellence, or even reasonable success, is not to be achieved, unless he shall habitually decline natural ex- citements to distraction, until they shall gradually cease to present themselves. Entering upon such a course, he will find each effort of self-denial more easy than those which preceded it, and rewarded by greater advances in knowledge, and in the attainment of a higher nature. But this is a theme which I will not pursue. Let me only urge those especially who are nearer to the entrance on their academical career, to avoid, with instinctive dread, that lurking and deadly danger which besets every course of life, and none more than yours, — the tendency to put off for a time the struggle with its difficulties. None of you have any time to lose. The years which can be given to an academical course are never more than sufficient for the work. And it is not time alone that is lost by such delay. Strength and inclination for the contest will have failed, while the enemy, be it indolence, or more active idleness, or some more malignant form of evil, shall have laid upon you the hand of a master. The bare possibility that an aca- demical career, entered upon with virtuous purposes and just hopes, may thus become a downward progress, is far more than sufficient to enforce the importance of early entering upon a right course of University life. Apart from these moral considerations, and the religious sense of duty to which none of us, in any part of our career, can ever safely cease to appeal, it is to be constantly re- membered that the intellectual work of these years can neither be compressed into a portion of them, nor postponed 128 E. F. Maitland, 1861 to after-life. None of us can safely indulge the delusion, that in this matter the time past, or the time passing which is lost can be afterwards redeemed. There are things in regard to which even wasted time may be precariously recovered. This is not one of them. Few of us can find in later life the time for systematic study ; none of us, it is to be feared, shall have the aptitude for it, — And gather husks of learning up at last, When the rich harvest time of life is past. But I know that, in this place, I address those who will not willingly let the time pass. I believe that there exists a strong sentiment, prompting not merely to individual exertion for its own sake, but to the effort to maintain and advance the reputation of this eminent seat of learning. The accomplishment of this does, indeed, lie very mainly with you. It is upon your exertions, upon the maintenance of a high tone of feeling, and of an honourable ambition among you, that the usefulness and the honour of the Uni- versity must depend. These are ends to be accomplished through the machinery for teaching, and for learning, which the University supplies ; but they are to be accomplished in yourselves. It is by patient exertion and self-denial, by honourable ambition in the competitions of this place, and by a resolute determination to avail yourselves fully of its advantages, that you will discharge your share of its responsibilities. Above all, never let the student be ungenerous to him- self in his estimate of his own powers. Believe me, that every one of us possesses powers far beyond what we have ever faithfully exerted. The exigencies of life disclose this secret to every man who is much engaged in its active duties ; and who finds himself daily employing faculties which he has unconsciously allowed to lie latent, until some imperious necessity forces him almost as unconsciously to call them into exercise. If this is true of mature life, it is much more true of youth, with its greater elasticity, and its untried and expanding powers. We may rest assured that in all ordinary minds there are powers capable of ac- complishing something greatly in advance of their present attainments. In contemplating an institution such as this, 1 129 Rectorial Addresses: which has for its object to evolve these latent faculties, it is an animating thought that, for all practical purposes, they are truly inexhaustible. It is in the invigorating contests of this place, and in the patient and enduring preparation for them, that one after another of its students, faithful to his calling, discloses to himself, and to those around him, the possession of gifts hitherto unsuspected. And if all are not alike fitted to be foremost in the race, none need fail to obtain the reward of the good and faithful, in the accomplish- ment of the true ends of his student life, by carrying away from hence a mind trained and cultivated, and a large measure of knowledge — the very gifts and habits of mind which often most powerfully subserve the highest interests of society. It is mainly in order that the country may have an ample proportion of minds thus trained and enabled for thoughtful action — minds calmed and moderated, as well as enlightened, by extensive knowledge — that it fosters and encourages its national Universities. In order to secure for himself the advantages of this place, and carry back from it into society the influences which it is intended to dissemin- ate, no brilliant talents or adventitious aids are required ; it only needs that the student shall be faithful to his vocation. Let us remember what your work here is. You are not here to acquire the knowledge of common things. That is a knowledge which all ought to learn as well as you. Every one of you who has enrolled himself as a student of this University, has, by doing so, professed that he has come here to seek the knowledge of things which are, or at least seem to be, remote from the world around you. We may well say " seem " to be remote ; for, as you well know, some of the highest and most recondite truths which the philo- sophy of these schools can teach you, are the hidden laws by which the material mechanism of the outer world is held together, and upon which its most familiar processes depend. But in these, as in other instances, the higher knowledge is far enough removed from the ordinary ex- periences upon which it can be brought to bear. Take, for instance, that great department of academical study, classical learning. How readily may it be set aside 130 E. F. Maitland, 1861 in the argument of the utilitarian as foreign to all the pur- poses and interests of modern life. We may be told that if the knowledge of these languages, as well as the languages themselves, were to become dead, some few thousand relics — temples and monuments and statues and gems — of matchless grace, would remain the unintelligible vestiges of a bygone world, with no key to decipher their meaning ; but that no truths, effective for the purposes of our age, would have passed away along with the knowledge of that old world. Your presence here is evidence that you entertain a far different notion of the value and the power of classical learning. You will not willingly let die that great life, which, in the providence of God, was, for no short time, the noblest life of the world. You feel the study to be not the less captivating, because it carries you far away from the track of every-day life, and brings you face to face with the great men of a time when it was left to their one nation, under their guidance, to carry on the world's history. You gladly listen to the music of that old forgotten language, sounding as it were the strings of a harp long mute, or ponder the thoughts of those philosophers — lights on a starless sea — who were permitted to infuse even a divine element into their age of heathenism. Surely it is well for those who are being trained to the more thoughtful duties of life, that the overweening and often selfish excitements of our age should be thus for a time " lulled to sleep amid the music of nobler thoughts." But it is not merely that you may catch the sentiment, and appreciate the beauty, and imbibe the truths of Grecian and Roman poetry, and art and philosophy, that you are invited to enter upon the study of ancient learning. Rightly and fully pursued, it will confer an amount of knowledge available for the highest purposes of life, not otherwise to be gained, of which the citizen of a free state may be ignorant, its statesman hardly can. It is not in the classic graces which have adorned the eloquence of the most accomplished English statesmen, that we discover the true value of their consummate classical knowledge. It is in the clearness and firmness of their political conceptions, and their habitual *3* Rectorial Addresses: reference to historical experience and national character, that we recognise the students of the great masters of ancient history and philosophy. But it is not merely to afford a wider field for political induction, or to cultivate a higher taste in literature, that this study is intended. The Universities of this country are eminently Christian institutions ; and the uses of clas- sical learning would be greatly misunderstood, if we should exclude those services which it may be made to render to Christianity. I do not speak here of the necessary and invaluable aid which Theology must take from classical knowledge, philological and antiquarian. This direct and professional use of the study can never be dispensed with, or too highly prized. But apart from this, the thoughtful study of that antique form of human existence, so beautiful and yet so lifeless, can never fail to suggest the idea of that higher life which had not yet been brought to light. We see material and intellectual life in its highest perfection. But we feel that the inner soul of humanity is not there, and that the consummate being upon which we gaze is but a beautiful phantom. We listen for the lovely melodies of the charmed land of song, and we hear instead the disconsolate wailing of the perturbed spirit of heathendom, mourning for the death of all things, and refusing to be comforted : — Cum conjux oculis imposuit manum, Supremusque dies solibus obstitit, Et tristis cineres urna coercuit : Non prodest animam tradere funeri, Sed restat miseris vivere longius ? 1 Did the kind friend who closed our eyes, Speak peace to us in vain ? Is there no peace ? and have we died, To live and weep again ? 2 This is the mighty lesson which the study of antiquity teaches ; that all that glorious existence, all those consum- mate powers, that perfection of beauty, were not only dead, but unable to conceive of life. It was not until the Word came, not first to them, bringing life and immortality to light, that they were enabled to look with an eye of hope beyond the grave, and to receive as glad tidings the promise 1 Troades of Seneca. I Translation by Richard Cumberland. 132 E. F. Maitland, 1861 of a future state. Let us ever remember, if any one would proscribe this study as unsuited to us and to our times, that it was amidst these ancient peoples, distracted between their knowledge and their darkness, that the truths and reasonings of our Christian faith were first fully dis- seminated ; and that living among them, and as one of themselves, the great apostle to the Gentiles, and to modern civilisation, looked upon their life with no uninformed eye, and no unsympathizing heart. There is another aspect of this branch of study, not less important, but upon which I must not enlarge. I mean the strictly grammatical and philological study of the languages, and of language in general. Let me, in this the most northern of our Universities, express the hope that Scotland shall never abandon the reputation, which I believe she has hitherto deserved, of training a race of sturdy grammarians, masters of the metaphysical science of language. In pursuing this study, so suited to the genius of our country, you will find yourselves familiarly handling and examining the very instruments of thought ; and thus unconsciously becoming acquainted with the modes of thought which these instruments, so delicate and varied, have been invented to serve. Entering, from this side, upon the field of philosophy, you will discover one of those bonds by which the whole knowledge of a sound aca- demical system is indissolubly united. In the great departments of philosophy, natural and mental, you are called upon to tread, on both sides, the intricate confines which connect the world of matter and the world of thought. You are there to become acquainted with matter as it is understood by the highest human in- telligence, and to become acquainted with the observant mind itself, as it can be comprehended only by its own inward contemplations and most abstract reasonings. The wonders of experimental philosophy, the less palpable, but profound and invigorating speculations of the philosophy of mind, the immutable and perfect laws which the mathe- matician discloses as universally imposed upon nature and recognised by the mind, these all may well entice you to enter upon fields of intellectual exertion, from which minds 133 Rectorial Addresses: untrained and less cultivated may be excused from recoiling, as proper not to a common but only to an academical education. If you do justice to yourselves and to your career here, your object will be to acquire knowledge, not piecemeal and unconnectedly, but systematically and with complete- ness. You will not be satisfied until you have accumulated, and arranged, and connected it, so that you shall possess it not as mere knowledge, but, in so far as you are enabled to carry out your studies, shall have mastered it as literature, and learning, and philosophy. For this great end you will find no aid so effective as that which you may derive from the due observance of the systematic course of study which every rightly-constituted University prescribes. The want of such a system, fully promulgated and adhered to — an evil, I believe, more felt elsewhere than here — has been among the most disabling of the imperfections which for some time impeded the right working of our Universities in Scotland. The failure to recognise its true value, and fully to avail of it, would now tend more than anything else to disappoint the expectations of still higher usefulness in these ancient institutions. It is by accepting the curriculum, and holding the degree to which it leads as an essential part of your course — matters in regard to which this University has always been honour- ably distinguished — that the advantages of a University education can alone be fully and generally received. In accepting this guidance for the right ordering of their studies, I am confident that it will never be the willing tendency of the students of this University to adhere to the minimum of what the University requires by its curriculum. They will always remember that no part of the knowledge which is here tendered to them is foreign to that knowledge which they are already acquiring, and their earnest desire will be to complete its full complement as far as possible. They will also recognise the fact, that there are branches of knowledge for which it has not been thought necessary, hitherto at least, to make provision in the mechanism of the University, but which the real student will never neglect. I may only allude to the acquisition of a competent know- 134 R F. Maitland, 1861 ledge of Modern Languages, now of daily increasing import- ance, from a thousand changes both in the world and in letters. Not less, but far more important even than these, is the study of our own noble and ever abounding language — that great heritage which we have received from our fathers, the true exponent of their mind and genius ; and which it is our duty to cultivate and preserve, so that we shall transmit it pure and unadulterated to our sons. May I be permitted to urge all of you, as time and advancing opportunities allow, more and more to study it in the earlier writers, and in its structure, so as to imbibe a growing taste for the purity of our native tongue ; ever acknowledging the rightful supremacy of its Saxon basis, while recognising and discriminating the contributions which it has received from the other languages of Europe. If the student is hereafter to influence his times, it will most frequently be by the effective use of this our common tongue ; and surely it is no ignoble, no useless study, by which he shall prepare himself for informing the reason, for convincing the judg- ment, or for controlling the passions of his fellow-men. One other branch of study may be mentioned, in regard to which the student is left in a great measure to his own resources. I mean Modern History and the Philosophy of History. To some extent this great study may be post- poned. But its basis must be laid in the student's earlier years ; and if he would enter upon the world, the trained and cultivated man which a University life is intended to make him, he must, in some part of his career here, acquire an ample store, not only of the facts, but of the lessons of history. But I have detained you too long, by even this imper- fect sketch of your work here. This, at least, must be admitted, that it affords sufficient occupation and excite- ment for the time which can be spared for it. May I be allowed to conclude with one warning, which I venture to offer, if you will kindly permit me to say so, in affectionate earnestness. It is against a not infrequent and not un- natural, though, I believe, most hurtful error of student life. I mean the anticipation of the duties, or the excitements of the career, for which an academical education is intended to 135 Rectorial Addresses : prepare. The student is being supplied with the elements for judging, and is being trained to judge, in regard to all those great interests which are to form the subject of the activities of his future life. But it is not his proper work to form judgments, which must, to a great extent, be premature, and precede their premises. Far more seriously, however, will he violate the true spirit of student life, and endanger its usefulness, if he shall not only anticipate the judgments, but precipitate himself prematurely upon the activities and excitements of the career on which he intends hereafter to enter. Debarred from the possibility of taking a real part in its duties, and thus free from its responsi- bilities, he will find himself exposed, without a safeguard, to the distracting and blinding influences of mere empty partisanship. It is not thus that Universities are intended to train successive generations for the great duties or great contests of life. The enlightened citizen, the physician, the lawyer, the theologian, these are all here laying the solid foundation for that course of action upon which they are hereafter to enter. To take one instance for all, the states- man is not trained for his future career by taking a pre- cocious part in political controversy. With a mind stored with ample knowledge, and those human sympathies which the knowledge and love of literature evoke, full of the lessons of history, thoroughly acquainted with constitutional law, trained patiently to acquire knowledge, and to sift it, trained to habits of thought and of logical reasoning, he is ready, and no more than ready, to evolve those principles and to form those mature judgments, in virtue of which, even in early manhood, the thoroughly-trained and accom- plished statesman has been admitted to his place as a leader of his times. But I must conclude. I have not ventured to address myself to the learned persons by whom I am more immedi- ately surrounded. It would be presumptuous in me to do so. I can only express my sense of the very great honour which I feel it to be, that I am thus in some measure associated in a joint care for the interests of the University with a body of professors so eminent and so successful. I am painfully conscious how little I can do to promote those interests. 136 E. F. Maitland, 1861 But however imperfect may be my discharge of the honour- able office with which you have invested me, I can, at least, sincerely pledge myself, that my shortcomings shall not arise from a want of regard for the honour and prosperity of this University. 137 The General Aspect of the World : Does it Teach us to Hope or to Despond ? 1 By Earl Russell My first duty is one of gratitude to you for the honour which you have done me in electing me Rector. I feel indebted to you for this honour on account of the fame and reputation of this University — on account of its ancient distinction — a distinction which has been enhanced of late years by Mathematical honours — gained in an English University — causing the names of your sons to be recorded in its honoured annals. 2 In addressing you to-day, it has occurred to me, thinking of this matter, that I should ill detain you by attempting to enlarge upon the beauties of literature or acquisitions of science, which are brought before you in a way far more exact, far more ample, far more intelligently than I could do, by such learned Professors as those who are engaged in the teaching of this University. But, gentlemen, it seems to me that there are questions not so far out of the usual scope of my labours, in which I am not so incompetent to advise — upon which, at all events, I can examine with you problems of the utmost interest to the human race, and, by examining which, we may attain, in future days, and by future speculations, truths which are of the utmost value to the welfare of the human race. Those upon which I propose to speak to you are the two questions — First, is there any law or general rule by which the decline of States is governed ? and, secondly, what is the general aspect of the world at present, and does it teach us to hope or to despond ? 1 Address delivered nth November, 1864. 2 The Senior Wranglers of 1858, i860, and 1862 were graduates of King's College. 138 Rectorial Addresses It has been too often assumed, without much inquiry, that there is a sort of destiny — a kind of fate, which rules the fall of States — which causes some to rise and others to fall, and without any valid reasons, such as, in the moral as well as in the physical world, usually determine events. But I think, however little we examine, we shall find that there are causes sufficient — causes that are known to us, and which operate in our case, and which determine equally the final condition and the fall of States. I will not stop to consider those questions which relate to nations so small in size, so insignificant in arms that, although they have, by the exertion of great talent and virtue, suddenly risen to great prosperity — and, indeed, may have kept that prosperity for a long time — yet have in the end been overpowered by States more considerable, more potent in arms than them- selves. This is, in some degree, applicable to Holland, which was a great and flourishing state, but could hardly maintain, against the force of the Republic of France, its former condition. Such was the case with the State of Venice, which lasted for a number of centuries, and was governed with great wisdom, but was not able to contend, when Austria and France appeared to be determined to crush the republic. But I am about to speak to you of the great states of the world ; and, first, of that great State of Rome, which rose by so much wisdom, by so much valour in arms, by government, by such power in carrying its conquest of other countries, to the very height of power which you all know, and on which I need not dwell. How came it, then, that that great power, so extensive hitherto and so wise, declined, and at length fell to the ground ? I think you will find that defects regarding the state of government, defects regarding the state of morals, defects relating partly to literature and arts, but more than that to the state of religion, caused the fall of that great Empire. To speak, in the first place, of the Government of Rome, there was a time in the course of the second Punic war, when it might have been possible to have had a re- presentative government for the whole of Italy ; and that representative government might have been a government capable of conducting for many centuries in Italy itself a 139 Rectorial Addresses: free and happy government. But that was not the case. The mode did not approve itself to the Romans. It was not so ; and the State of Rome became, in point of govern- ment, the sink of the greatest vice — of the most notorious corruption with regard to all its offices, which were openly sold to the highest bidders — with regard to its judicial func- tions, and with regard to every part of the state. There is a story told which I will not repeat to you literally or correctly, but as it so happens, it has a pleasantry equally good in English and in Latin. I may refer to it. Cicero had pleaded most eloquently on behalf of a client. The opposite party, who then succeeded, told him the next day, "Well, it appears after all that the majority did not pay any credit to your fine words, Cicero," and he said, " Yes, not the majority, but the minority at all events paid credit to my words, but the majority paid no credit to you, for they made you pay ready money." That which was in fact, on the part of Cicero, a source of ridicule, pervaded Rome so generally, that it was impossible a government so corrupt should continue in a course of success. With regard to morals, they were almost in a still worse condition. There was no relation of life that was respected. The sons, when the days of the proscription came, betrayed their fathers for the sake of the plunder of their titles. In every relation of life there was the greatest perfidy, the most shameless vice. Now, with regard to literature, I might be told, as it has often been said, that the age of Augustus was the most flourishing age of Roman literature ; but if you come to examine this and some other instances, you will find that it was the previous struggle, it was the previous liberty, which for a time, in the midst of security, enabled those great Arts to flourish, which made Roman literature famous through all times. It is somewhat as if any one could suppose that the ripe juice of the grape is entirely owing to the fall of autumn, without recollecting that the spring and summer have prepared those juices, have strengthened those fruits which we find so rich and strong at the close of the summer; and that autumn, during which those fruits are produced — in which we find the grape 140 Earl Russell, 1864 so luxuriant, and the olive so abundant — has preceded the winter during which all these fruits wither and disappear. Such, I believe, to have been the case in Rome ; that from the time when the government was destroyed, and the des- potism was established, there was a commencement of decline, and those great talents which had astonished the world became fewer and fewer, and in time ceased to appear. In the commencement of the Histories of Tacitus, there is an allusion to the historians, most of them now lost, who were known during the time of the Republic. " Many of us," he says, " have related the events of 820 years, from the building of the city of Rome ; and while the Roman Republic endured, these events were related with equal talent and freedom. After the battle of Actium, when it became necessary, for the sake of peace, that power should be placed in one person, these great talents disappeared." Here, then, we have two or three of the causes of the decline of Rome — namely, that the Government had become utterly corrupt — that morals were entirely vicious — that literature, which had flourished for a time, could no longer show the same vigour, or flourish with the same power, when despotism had completely overwhelmed it. But the Romans had, according to Polybius, a great attachment to their religion, and considering that this was so far under the power and superintendence of the gods, they did not venture to break their faith, or to swerve from the rule of right, while they had entire belief in that religion. It was a part of that ignorance which God winked at, when there were certain signs in the moral world, as well as certain phenomena in the physical world, which clearly showed the being of a God. Indeed, Sallust, a rhetorical historian certainly, but one who would not depart far from what he believed to be the case, represents, that in the Senate of Rome, when it came to be a question of the punishment of Catiline, Caesar and the greater part of the senators proposed that he should be put to death. Sallust describes Caesar as talking very smoothly of the punishment of death, and saying, that in fact, instead of giving a continuance of care, you give rest, which is one of the greatest boons. In answer to this opinion, he represents Cato as saying : — 141 Rectorial Addresses: Bene et composite Caius Caesar paulo ante in hoc ordine de vita et morte disseruit ; credo falsa existimans ea quae de inferis narrantur diverso itinere malos a bonis loca tetra, inculta, foeda, atque formidolosa habere. This shows that in that time, when the Government had become corrupt, and when all the bonds and ties of society were becoming loosed, in that same time, the fears that men had on account of their religious belief, were likewise vanish- ing and disappearing. In the same spirit we find Virgil enjoying the bold impiety of Lucretius : — Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas, Atque metus omnes et inexorabile fatum Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari. In the same spirit we find Lucan describes Cato as speaking when he was brought to the Temple of Jupiter, and advised to consult the oracle. He said, there is no need of deity speaking in the temple ; and he says you may come to others, but do not come to me asking me to consult the oracle : — Sortilegis egeant dubii semperque futuris Casibus ancipites ; me non oracula certum Sed mors certa facit, pavido fortique cadendum est, Hoc satis est dixisse Jovem. What then, in that state of Rome, with everything dis- appearing which could sway men and prevent them giving entire rein to their passions, when the power which could restrain their evil courses was taken away, what remained but that a dictator by means of arms, by means of the abilities with which he directed those arms, should supplant the whole powers of the Government, and erect a tyranny on the basis of the free State of Rome — that State of Rome which had flourished, and which had risen, which had subsisted entirely on account of its freedom, and which, having lost that freedom, though it might endure, as it did endure for centuries in its outward shape, had no longer that life and spirit which would lead it to fresh victories and glory ? It was supposed by some men that the whole evil of this state of things consisted in the usurpation of Caesar, whereas Caesar was but the arm, the instrument to carry into effect the punishment — the punishment justly due to those who had forgotten all their virtues, and sunk into the abyss. In this state of the world, Brutus and 143 Earl Russell, 1864 Cassius, with some thirty other persons, guided by Roman traditions, thought to deliver the Republic, to vindicate liberty, and to ease the world by the murder of Caesar. They accomplished so much of their design as successfully to kill Caesar, but they served neither the Republic, nor liberty, nor the world. For the evil was not in the person of Caesar, but in the mastery of a licentious soldiery and a corrupt people, so that more cruelty, more ferocity, servitude more abandoned, and despotism more fixed, were the natural and certain consequences of the murder of Caesar — a murder which was not less perfidious, nor less bloody than any other murder. I have said this, because the assassination of Caesar was perpetrated by the dagger of Brutus the patriot, and has been approved by the pen of the poet ; but it is not in this way that freedom can be restored. When the spirit of liberty has been overpowered by a lawless soldiery, and sunk in the vices of a corrupt people, it cannot be restored by the dagger. Octavius and Anthony, by their proscriptions, effaced the clemency of Caesar, but maintained the tyrannical power he had usurped. What was required was not the death of a man, but the regeneration of a people. This Brutus and Cassius could not effect, but they gave the authority, of which the murderers of William the Silent, and Henry IV. of France, afterwards took advantage. This authority, be it observed, was assumed by Brutus, and who shall refuse it to Ravaillac ? By the sentence of an unknown and secret tribunal, deciding without open trial, and executing their sentence by treachery, fell Julius Caesar ; but by such a tribunal and by such an execution also fell William of Orange and Henry IV. of France. So that nothing can be more unsafe for mankind than to leave it to any fanatical assassin to commit a murder upon him whom he thinks a tyrant, because that tyrant may be, as William of Orange, seeking to deliver a people from the chains of tyranny, or like Henry IV. of France, opening the ways of peace and prosperity to a great people. And now having thus spoken to you — I hope not too much at length — of the causes of the fall of Rome, I proceed at once to another and far distant period of history. But H3 Rectorial Addresses: before I do this, let me say that it has been observed — and I am inclined to think observed with truth — that the long decline, the painful decay of the empire of Rome, gave occasion, gave the opportunity for Christian converts to spread the Christian religion — to spread that religion, not only among the Roman subjects, but among the barbarians who were to succeed in overpowering them, and thus laid the foundations at once of better states of society, and of a pure instead of a corrupt religion. I will now then come at once to a far different time, to a time at the beginning of the sixteenth century, when the Reformation was about to break out. The Christian religion had been then es- tablished in Rome, but it had been established in a corrupt shape, and those who were the men of letters in Italy, who were the chief ornaments of Italy, had studied rather Pla- tonic philosophy than the Christian religion — a time of what Machiavelli calls " a noble idleness," without regard to any religion or any government. It was at this time that a German monk, truly in earnest, sought to find out what was really the meaning of the religion that had been delivered by God to mankind ; and in so doing he rescued the nations of Europe from the contaminating and low observances which, under the name of the Christian religion, some had indulged in. But, be it observed, I am speaking not of the Roman Catholic religion as it was maintained ; I am speaking of the state of things in the dark ages, and I hold that the revival of letters in the sixteenth century was a revival of letters, not only for Protestants, but for Catholics. Men then began to study the meaning of their religion, and if they did not arrive at the same conclusions, if they arrived, indeed, at very different conclusions, they had at least in their hearts and minds a true wish to follow the doctrines of Christ. But the result of the revolution in religion was, as you all know, not only great dissensions, but civil wars of the utmost atrocity spreading through Europe. It is not for us to say what are the intentions of the Almighty Being in permitting those civil wars to exist, but this we know, that, in His eyes, a thousand years are but as a day, and we may think that it was for the purpose of purifying religion, that it was for the purpose of the 144 Earl Russell, 1864 discussion — of the criticism — of the reading of the Scriptures —that these civil wars were permitted, and that at length light was to come out of the darkness of the time. I may now speak to you of the government of that time ; and here again you will see that the Reformation of religion was the source not only of right, but of vigour and of a flourishing state of opinion in many countries of Europe where some things were done with regard to govern- ment, which had a tendency in the opposite direction. Philip de Comines, a most excellent and valuable historian, tells us that Charles the Eighth of France loaded his soul very heavily, because he put an end to the States-General in France, and destroyed liberty in that country. The effects were not immediate. France grew and flourished to a great height of prosperity — to a great height of power among the nations of Europe — but at length the time came when the destruction of liberty which Charles the Eighth had caused fell upon his successors. A terrible vengeance ensued, and the horrible scenes of the French Revolution — that great volcano which tore up and desolated the ground of France, which caused so much bloodshed, which caused so many wars — were, in fact, the effect of those causes, which instead of continuing the ancient free government of France, established a despotic government ; and opinion and liberty of every kind rose against that despotism ; and in the attempts to improve and reform the government of France such horrible crimes were committed. At the same time — not a very distant time from Charles the Eighth of France — another sovereign — Charles the Fifth — had likewise destroyed all the traces of free government which he could find. In Italy he destroyed that wonderful and admirable Republic of Florence, which had produced so many men of genius, which had produced Dante and Petrarch, and Michael Angelo, men in science and in art of the greatest genius. That republic, that species of free government, was destroyed ; and although they had, during that time, to boast of the genius and the discoveries of Galileo, yet literature no longer flourished as it had done, and that beautiful and famous republic fell into a state of apathy and disgrace. There was another country in which k 145 Rectorial Addresses: Charles the Fifth and his preceptors destroyed an ancient free constitution, a constitution greatly resembling our own — I mean the constitution of Spain. You have all heard of the free spirit that reigned in Aragon when the repre- sentatives of the Commons told the king, " We will obey you if you observe the laws ; and, if not, not." You have all heard of the way in which the towns of Castile received the orders of the king when they considered them illegal, when they said that they should be obeyed, but not fulfilled — when they said that when those orders were illegal, although they would pay them respect as the orders of the sovereign, yet they never would put them into effect — they would never fulfil those orders which were against their rights and privileges. This free constitution Charles the Fifth destroyed, and never again did that Assembly of the Cortes meet, till near our own day, nor was any voice of freedom heard among that people. And what was the consequence? The Spaniards had been rising, rising rapidly, to a great height of fame ; the renown of their arms in the old world, even when they were fighting in a bad cause, their courage and their discipline, were the most remarkable in Europe ; and you have all heard of the conquests they had made in the new world ; but from the time the Spanish people were given up to political despot- ism and religious inquisition, from that time the spirit of the people drooped — from that time Spain began to decline ; and you have all heard Spain spoken of as being at the beginning of this century a country that was in the utmost state of fall and degradation. Thus with regard to the causes which influence the rise and fall of nations, it is no matter of indifference that a people should enjoy a free constitution — that a people should have free liberty of expression — what in our modern days is called liberty of the press, but was then called liberty of thought and of expression ; it is no matter of indifference that a people should enjoy religious liberty and freedom to search the truth, for it is by these things that a state becomes great and flourishing — it is by these things that it can keep that greatness. It is not to be doubted that it may be proved, if you look through 146 Earl Russell, 1864 centuries, that a sovereign, by getting hold of the supreme power of the state, by quenching all liberty, by forbidding all expression of opinion, may for a time conduct a flourish- ing state ; but we have seen the catastrophes which follow the assumption of such power. We have seen the catas- trophe of France in her great and memorable and dreadful Revolution — we have seen the catastrophe of Spain in that state of utter apathy, that utter nullity into which she fell owing to the deprivation of her liberty, and of all freedom of thought and expression. Now, having spoken of these historic examples, I will pro- ceed to somewhat more perilous ground, because hitherto, at all events, we had the footsteps of history to follow, and we knew of the events which had befallen, although we might not interpret them aright. But let us now consider what is the present state of Europe and of the world — and regard those great problems of government, of the main- tenance and fall of states, of literature, and even of religion. I will keep you but a short time upon these matters, because, as I have said, it is perilous ground to walk upon, and there are ashes but a short way beneath the surface, which I might find to be burning under my foot. In the first place, however, I think we may say pretty surely that that calamity which overwhelmed the Roman Empire — an irruption of barbarous races putting an end to the smooth and polished and civilised state of society — is not a catastrophe to be dreaded at the present time. I think you will find, if you look over the history of the world for some two or three centuries back, and especially at the present time, that barbarian races are constantly giving way before the civilised races, or becoming portions of the same people, though generally in an inferior capacity, as the Indians of Mexico now are ; or else what is frequent, and, at the same time, lamentable, these barbarian races sink and disappear and perish altogether before the inroad of civilised men. We may see something of events like these going on in several places ; one a colony of our own, others in parts of foreign empires. But, at all events, you may see that where there is a struggle between the civilised and the savage man, the savage man always yields, And, J 47 Rectorial Addresses: therefore, we may expect, unless something totally unusual occur, something totally out of the course of what we have seen happen before, that civilised man will bear the sway over the globe. So far, at least, we may dispose of the question of another irruption of barbarians. But there is another thing, I think, which all recent events for a century have shown, namely, that civilised men of the European races — of the races of Europe, or of those which have been transferred to America — are superior even to highly civil- ised men of the Asiatic race. I think we cannot doubt that, whether we speak of India or China, the superiority of the European race is uncontested and incontestable. Let us proceed to inquire whether, with regard to Europe, any improvements have been made in the govern- ment. I need not speak of our own country, because our own country has now for many years enjoyed in its perfec- tion, or nearly in its perfection, that which I believe to be the best of the imperfect forms of government which man can attain to. I do not believe it is possible for men to invent a better form of government than free representative government. And I do not believe any nation in the world has so perfected that form of government as we have our- selves. But I beg you to observe that in no very long time a representative government, more or less imperfect, has sprung up in various parts of Europe. And when I say more or less imperfect, I think we are apt to be too critical in our observations on foreign countries ; and although we have, as I have just stated, arrived at a very perfect form of this government, yet recollect that, from the accession of James I. to the accession of George I., there was a perpetual struggle going on between the powers of the sovereign authority on the one hand — I will not call it despotism, for that was not the attempt — and popular privilege on the other. It was not till that century of struggle was over, that we could have said that we were safe in the harbour of con- stitutional representative monarchy. While making these observations, therefore, as to struggles that may be still going on in foreign countries, as they formerly went on in ours, I beg you to observe that in France, in Austria, in Spain, in Portugal, and in some other countries, we have i 4 8 Earl Russell, 1864 forms of representative monarchy. But what I confess I rejoice in especially is, that Italy, which was so long dead — that Italy, which for so many centuries lay in the torpor to which she had been condemned by these arms of Charles the Fifth, of which I have spoken — has roused herself, and has risen again ; and as she flourished once as the republic of a single city, spreading its arts and arms everywhere ; as she flourished again as a number of disunited republics, each distinguished by its arts, by its vigour in carrying on war and contest against the others ; so I hope now there may be a third shape of freedom and happiness to Italy, and that as a constitutional monarchy she will shine again among the Powers and States of Europe. Nor can I without emotion contemplate the efforts that are making by the single State of Greece, when I see that State struggling to get through its factions and its difficulties of every kind, when I recollect that from that country appeared poets, historians, mathematicians, and philosophers, men of every kind of genius, who, in a very short period of the existence of the ancient State of Greece, and within that small com- pass of land, produced more genius, did more for the arts and civilisation of mankind, did more for the example of letters, did more to teach you in this University of Aberdeen the first beginnings and the knowledge of civilisation, than the thousands of millions who in China and in India, and in the vast regions of the East and West, have followed their generations through the world. There is a quarter of the world, to but a small part of which any light of civilisation has penetrated, and which is still in a state of barbarism, where the most horrible atrocities are practised. I am now alluding to the con- tinent of Africa — I am alluding to the state of a great portion of the globe, which, however, has not been stagnant, because that portion of the globe has in many of its coasts got rid of that detestable crime, the slave trade, and where the knowledge of Christianity, the knowledge of civilisation, the knowledge of agriculture is beginning to make some way. With regard to this continent, Dr. Livingstone told not long ago, that when he was making his praiseworthy exploration, the art and policy of substituting civilisation 149 Rectorial Addresses: and Christianity for the evils of the slave trade were known by the name of the Palmerston policy. But many persons have said that the case is hopeless — they have said that the people of Africa are utterly barbarous. It is something that there are those with another belief, who believe that the people may yet be civilised, and that all our pains will not be thrown away, that all those lives which we have unfortunately lost in the task of civilising Africa will not be a useless sacrifice, but that light is still to shine in that quarter of the world. Of that faith was a man who was never named in society but with honour — Captain Speke, the traveller of Africa. I asked him if he thought Africa, at some future time, was to play a great part among the civilised nations of the world, and he told me that he firmly believed that that would be the case. No doubt it would appear desperate, but I remember learning that a person who always mingled something striking with the lesson of his wisdom, I mean Mr. Sydney Smith, happened to be in the Political Economy Club when a gentleman, a distinguished man of science, a member of that Club, said, in the course of a speech, that he believed the Africans would never be capable of being civilised. "Well," Sydney Smith said afterwards, "well, you made an excellent speech, but it was just such a speech as a senator of Rome would have made in the Senate of Rome, to prove that it was quite hopeless to civilise the Britons." Such, then, are my views. Progress is very slow ; but on questions such as I am treating to-day, we must per- petually recollect that which I have mentioned before, that in the eyes of the Almighty a thousand years are but as one day, and if in a thousand years a great change has been made on Africa, no doubt the gain to the civilisation of the human race must be great. There is another portion of the globe, where we still have to lament the scenes of bloodshed which are to be witnessed — where we still have to lament that the bloody arbitrament of war has not been brought to a close ; and, if there is any bright spot in that dark scene, it is for the African race. But I cannot but believe that the civil war in America, whichever way it 150 Earl Russell, 1864 may end — whether the states may again unite, or whether there is to be a final separation — I cannot but believe that out of these events, the African race are to receive their freedom. I am sure I need not speak to you of abhorrence of slavery, because we must all have that abhorrence as strong as we have had, but there is one thing which makes it quite impossible that the master and the slave should ever live in harmony together. With regard to other kinds of property — to which the slave masters assimilate them — with regard to horses, dogs, and other animals, it is the interest of the master to keep them well fed, happy and contented. He is quite sure that these animals have no plot and conspiracy against him. But with regard to slaves — to the human being — every slave-master knows that the Almighty has planted a spark of freedom in the breast of every man, and he always suspects and always fears that the day may come when the slaves may conspire together against their master. For this reason, then, among many others, we may all wish that among future benefits that are to be conferred upon mankind, African slavery at all events will reach its termination. But now, with regard to what I have said as to the progress of religion, I may cite to you the opinion of a man of great moderation and of great learning — I mean Dr. Milman, Dean of St. Paul's. I have a long quotation, but as it enters upon controversial matters I shall only give a few words : " Christianity may yet have to exercise a far holier, even if more silent and untraceable, influence through its primary, all-penetrating, all-pervading influences on the civilisation of mankind." That I believe to be true — that whatever we may do as to government, as to manners, as to religion, it will be accompanied and guided by a greater influence, by a wider influence than has ever been known — that of Christianity on the civilisation of the world. But we must beware, lest in the discussions that are going on, although we may rejoice in seeing the utmost earnestness, we must take care that we do not part with any portion of our charity. We have seen of late years men embrace the most different forms of Christianity, but all with the greatest earnestness, and with the greatest 151 Rectorial Addresses sincerity. It seems to me that it would be strange indeed that we should impute to such men — men who have laboured honestly and earnestly to arrive at the truth — that we should impute to them, as a crime, that they have erred. It is said that men have done wrong, because they have wished to give an indulgence to their passions, and because they have wished to indulge their vanity in some new form. That may be the case, but we should be very slow to indulge the suspicion ; we ought, in charity, rather to suppose that men intent upon so great a problem — intent upon inquiries so interesting to their own lives, and to their own happiness — will endeavour, at all events, to be right. It seems to me there is some likeness in the case to an event that might happen on your sea shore on the signs of the beginning of a storm that may scatter vessels far and wide. Some vessels seek to get into a narrow harbour ; when in the port itself they would be safe, when others might be carried far out to sea, and lost amid the sands and shoals of some far distant shore. We might rejoice in our safety if we were not lost like these men ; but, at all events, although we might congratulate ourselves on that safety, we should never hold language so barbarous as to impute to any fault of theirs the efforts of the men who have still sought safety, although they have taken an erroneous way of reaching it. It appears to me, therefore, that as you in the world — as we all in the world — shall have to encounter many opinions ; as there is likely to be even still more a struggle of various opinions than there has been ; we should still be mindful of the great precept of the apostle, "Faith, Hope, and Charity, but the greatest of these is Charity." You will forgive me, I hope, for saying these words on behalf of fallible men, to whom their brethren ought to show every forbearance and kindness. I trust that the world will make its progress in freedom, in fair discussion of opinion, and in true religion, but I am sure that on all these subjects we ought to forbear with one another. I thank you for listening to these opinions, which have not been all well matured, but, at all events, I have given them to you such as they are, and I heartily thank you for your attention. 15a The Changes most Wanted in Aberdeen University ■ By Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff* Since the constitution of the Scotch Universities was remodelled in 1858, no Rector, except my unworthy- self, has had the good fortune to be re-elected. I had accordingly to consider, without any precedent to guide me, whether I ought or ought not to deliver an inaugural Address on commencing my second term of office. I came to the conclusion that it was my duty to do so. Circum- stances having prevented my coming down in the spring, I appear before you to-day to thank you for the honour which you have done me, as well as to make some observa- tions upon matters connected with the well-being of this ancient seat of learning. Many of you are aware that in the autumn of 1868 I thought it right to propose some changes in the examination for the Bursaries, of which this University possesses so large a number. It was inevitable that my proposal should give rise to much controversy. I knew it would do so. I wished it might do so, for " Et quid volo nisi ut ardeat " must be the motto of every man who attempts to change the old order in the Churches or the Schools. After a very pretty quarrel, which showed that the perfervidum ingenium of these northern lands still boils and bubbles in some of the successors of Dempster, all has ended pretty much as I hoped and desired, and the youth of this district will have a far greater chance of competing successfully with their contemporaries from other parts of the country, in the battle of life, than if they had gone on giving a nearly exclusive worship to the poor old " version " fetish for a 1 Address delivered 18th November, 1870. 8 Now the Right Hon. Sir M. E. Grant Duff, G.C.S.I. 153 Rectorial Addresses: few decades longer. I am quite content to leave the new arrangement to work for the present without any attempt at further improvements. " Le meilleur tue le bien " is a saying which reformers would frequently do well to remember. I hope, however, that many rectorial periods will not pass away before one of my successors shall feel it incumbent on him to propose a modification of the Bursary competition, for the purpose of giving encouragement to the two sciences for the study of which facilities would most readily be found in the country schools connected with this University. I mean, of course, Botany and Geology. It seems to me that, after the three R's have been acquired, with perhaps some general notions of geography, the sciences of observation are the very first branches of knowledge to which attention should be directed. In most children the observing faculties are very acute — far more acute than in more advanced life ; but instead of recognising this fact, what is done by nearly all our systems of education ? They set unhappy boys to grind at grammar, a most difficult science, as far as possible from being meat for babes ; and if they give any place to the sciences of observation at all, they bring them in almost at the end of the educational course, when the observing faculties have been more or less blunted by long disuse. I have known boys with a very strong taste for botany, for example, turn away from that study and never touch it until they left the University, simply because it was treated by their seniors as mere trifling, calculated to distract their minds from the rules of Syntax and the Latin Delectus. The time is not far distant, when the teaching of every elementary school in the country will have to be revised in the light of the fact that the powers of observation are developed much earlier than the reasoning powers, or even than the sense of literary beauty. Those, however, who were startled by my heresies of two years ago, need not be too much alarmed. I say the time is not far distant, not that it is come. They may have leave to bow down before Ruddiman's Rudiments, or any other grammatical idols, for which they have a fancy, a little longer, so far as I am concerned. In keeping before the mind of the University the idea 154 M. R Grant Duff, 1870 that sooner or later, and sooner rather than later, it must take a long and decisive step upon this road, I am not asking it to do any new thing. I am asking it merely to remember its own history — to remember that the Marischal College and University of Aberdeen was one of the very first of the British Universities to give any position at all in its regular obligatory Arts curriculum to the Natural Sciences. The secret of success for Universities, as for all things else, is to know the wants of the time, and to accommodate themselves to them. The secret of striking success is to know these wants just a little before other people have the wit to discover them. Our predecessors knew the wants of their time, and the little insight which many of our students obtained into the Natural Sciences, stood Aberdeen men in good stead in many countries, and not least in India, for several generations. I trust that we may not be behind them in recognising the wants of our time. Till we have a reform of our elementary school teaching in this respect, I do not see that this University can do very much more directly to encourage the Natural Sciences amongst the students, though I should like to see, as I said in 1867, the far too multifarious duties now de- volving on our Professors of Natural History, divided between at least two chairs. Are there any improvements, then, which could be in- troduced without waiting for the slowly-making tide of public opinion, which will before very long put the Natural Sciences in their proper place in our University course ? I explained my views in 1867, at some length, as to the new chairs or lectures we require, and will now only notice the most important. First, then, I think it is high time that we should recognise English literature as worthy of having a chair or lectureship to itself. Under present arrangements it is, as you know, connected with the Professorship of Logic, a subject quite large enough by itself to reign with- out a rival, and we must not be misled by the accident that the double chair is at present filled by a man of European reputation, into forgetting that one day we may have to put up with a very bad Professor of English Literature, in order to secure a good logician or vice versd. In fact, the 155 Rectorial Addresses: chances are rather against than for the same person being competent to discharge with perfect efficiency the duties of the two offices. Immediately after the claims of the English Language and Literature, those of French and German require con- sideration. The appointment, indeed, of teachers of those languages ought, I am inclined to think, to take precedence even of the dividing of the duties which are now discharged by the Professor of Logic and English Literature. For the appointment of Professors of French and German Literature we can afford perhaps to wait a little, but teachers of the French and German languages we ought to have forthwith. Nor could the University do better than use a portion of its rewards for the purpose of diverting the attention of our youths to studies, which are becoming every day more important to all men who work with their brains. For without being able to read easily French and German, no professional man has now a chance of keeping himself up to the best knowledge of the day. And passing by the consideration of their obvious utility as keys to knowledge, it is more than doubtful whether the educative power of those two literatures is not quite as great, at least for us in Scotland as that of the Classics. The struggle between the ancients and the moderns is an unequal one. Time is with " us youth," and every generation adds heavily to the arguments on the side which was not the winning one, when the question was first raised. There is still, and will ever be, as I tried to point out in addressing your pre- decessors in 1867, a circle of classical ideas for the purpose of penetrating into which it is worth while, for all who can afford the time, to undergo much labour ; but no reasonable man will deny that any one might now have an admirable — I do not say a quite perfect — literary education without knowing how to construe a single sentence of Latin or Greek. The next chair which is wanted is a chair of Modern History. The Professors of Humanity and Greek can make shift to give such little instruction in Ancient History as we can profess to give — can at least find time to guide the reading of their students in Ancient History ; but the 156 M. E. Grant Duff, 1870 utter neglect of Modern History in the curriculum of this University is simply a scandal. Next, we ought to have a Lectureship of Political Economy. Hardly are the heresies of protection dead in their old form than we find them springing up anew, and attaining very formidable propor- tions, in the very class which, actuated to a great extent, it would seem, not by sound views, but by self-interest, was most instrumental in pulling down the anti-social edifice of which the corn laws formed the foundation. No institution professedly devoted to the higher education is doing its duty, in these days, unless it teaches those who come to it at least the elementary truths of the science of Adam Smith. It is a thousand pities that they are not taught even in our secondary schools. Well, but how is the money to be obtained for all this? First, there is the State. The State may, perhaps, do something for us, but I do not think that it will do a great deal. The set of the current of men's ideas just now is decidedly against the State doing much for the higher education. What I should like to see would be a serious and united effort made immediately to put our endowments all through the island on a proper footing ; the State coming in to supplement the efforts of our great schools and Universities. That, however, is a mere dream, excel- lent for Utopia, absurd for Great Britain ; and looking at the actual state of facts, I am not sanguine, less sanguine than I was, about State assistance. If the State extends over all the land a network of primary schools, reinvigorates our secondary schools, and gives us a commission to revise the last University settlement by the light of ten years' experience, it will have done a great work for us. Then there is public subscription. I do not think that will help us very largely either. The higher education cannot, I fear, compete, except in wealthy communities like Manchester and Glasgow, with objects of charity which touch the feelings, or with objects which connect themselves in any way with the propagation of widely cherished opinions. You will find ten people willing to pay for the diffusion of coloured light for one who is willing to pay for the diffusion of light pure and simple. Is it quite clear, however, that 157 Rectorial Addresses: we can do nothing for ourselves? Is it quite clear that our endowments are used as wisely as they might be? Have we not, for example, more bursaries than we know what to do with ? Is it not certain that to give a boy, who has not abilities above the average, a University education at small expense is really a cruel kindness and a waste of public money? The boy would probably be far happier and more useful in some line of life which did not ask for a semblance of learning, and the money might be doing useful work. What if we were to suppress a few bursaries, and divert the resources thus obtained to paying teachers of French and German, who should, in addition, receive a small fee from each student ; have a good many prizes to give away by competition, and receive a status from the University which would guarantee them a good deal of work in the town outside our walls. I think this would be a wise step, and I take this opportunity of proposing it for general consideration in the north. Many persons who may be inclined to think the suppression of bursaries undesirable, would, I am sure, agree that to give any more money for the foundation of bursaries is to do simple and unalloyed evil, and I sincerely hope that every benevolent person who is thinking of leav- ing money to the University of Aberdeen will now leave it, if not for our general purposes, at least for almost any specific purpose rather than the multiplication of bursaries. And here I should like to recall some observations which I made in 1867, for I do not wish it to fall out of mind that a single bequest, like that of Mr. Dick, left to this University, might put us, if wisely used, into an altogether new position — might at once double our efficiency. " A single such bequest," I said, " left to each of the Universities of Scotland, would give us all the material resources that we need desire. That such bequests, for objects comparatively unimportant are not unknown amongst us, is familiar to all who have driven around the grey metropolis of the north. In a country where the wealth of the mercantile classes is so rapidly increasing — where millions are sometimes made before middle life is much passed, nothing of this kind is to be despaired of. Once, I say, let the conviction take 158 M. E. Grant Duff, 1870 hold of our people, and the result will not be long waited for. From the State we should ask what is really necessary for anything which can be called efficiency. To private munificence we must look for what is necessary to raise us above that humble level which Parliament even in its most generous humour will consider to represent efficiency. Mr. Bagehot, in his interesting and remarkable book on the Constitution, quotes a true saying, that there is no country where a ' poor devil of a millionaire is so ill off as in Eng- land.' The mere fact of being known to possess wealth, however colossal, does little for its owner in this wealthy country. There are men, who, with no very signal success, attempt to use their wealth as a social lever, who, by simply coming forward to confer a great public benefit, such as the reinvigoration of one of our Scotch Universities — to them but a small matter — would attain a great social position — the applause of their fellow-citizens and of all Europe, together with the strongest possible claim to those honours, which are an anachronism in our times, if they are not given with an ungrudging hand to those who advance the happiness and real glory of nations." But how should such a bequest be used ? "I am convinced," I went on to say, " that the only way to put this, or any other Scotch Univer- sity in a position to place itself within a generation in the foremost files of learned institutions, would be to create a certain number of fellowships in each Faculty, to be gained by competitive examination, and to be tenable for five years. The successful candidates in the Faculty of Medicine and of Law, and in the Natural Science department of the Faculty of Arts, should be obliged to proceed either to France or Germany at the discretion of the Senatus, while all other successful candidates should be obliged to proceed to Germany, the period of foreign residence being in all cases two years. At the beginning of the third year the Fellow should be bound to return to Aberdeen, and to deliver, in two successive sessions, a course of lectures in the particular branch to which he had devoted himself. In his fifth, and last year, he should be free to live where he pleased, and to apply himself exclusively to whatever was to be his future calling. In this way, a perpetual stream, 159 Rectorial Addresses: so to speak, of the best science would be kept flowing through the Universities, and the whole tone of Scottish society would, so to speak, be enriched and improved." I gave reasons in 1867 for wishing our Scotch students, if aided by these much-to-be-desired fellowships, to go rather to Germany than to England. These reasons still subsist, and are likely to subsist for some time longer, and if these fellowships are ever founded, it would be imprudent to fence them round by any very stern or rigorous rules. As to the countries where the studies begun in Aberdeen should be carried further, the time may come when it will be better for our students to go to England than to Germany, and better to go to France than either of them. These con- siderations of expediency vary from decade to decade, almost from five years to five years. The whole spirit of Oxford, for example, has changed since I first knew it, not yet quite a quarter of a century ago. Then, most scholarships, and nearly all fellowships, were reserved for persons born in particular dioceses or counties. Now they are, with inconsiderable exceptions, as open to Cork or Caithness as to even that once highly- favoured spot, the old diocese of Lincoln. Then the University recognised only two kinds of studies as worthy to engage the serious attention of young men — Classics and Mathematics. All else was treated as mere dilettantism. Now, honours may be taken either in Law and Modern History, or in the Natural Sciences, just as much as in Classics and Mathematics. Then the Natural Sciences had for their temple a miserable little den in Broad Street. Now, they have one of the finest palaces in Europe, in which, if my recollection serves me right, the Professor of Physiology has got something like seventeen rooms to himself, and the Professor of Physics has just had a new wing built, fitted with every appliance, at a cost of ,£10,000. Then all students were obliged to belong to some College or Hall. Now they may become members of the University without any such obligation being laid upon them — a great boon to those whose means are small. Then every one who matriculated was obliged to sign the Thirty-nine Articles. Now that ceremony is postponed to the Master's 160 M. E. Grant Duff, 1870 Degree, and there cannot be the slightest doubt that within a period to be counted only by months, the Bill which the Government brought forward last year, and passed by immense majorities through the House of Commons, will become law, with the warm approval of all reasonable men at the University, and nearly all the emoluments and honours of Oxford be open, wholly irrespective of the differences of religious opinions. These are great changes, but there are more behind, and the greatest of all is that the whole ethos of the place is altered, and when Parliament has cut the last remaining knots which Parliament has tied, and helped the University and Colleges to do a few things that can only be done by the collective authority of the nation, such, for instance, as abolishing some of the preposterous powers of Convocation, we may well leave the teaching body to itself, sure, that before very long, it will be in advance of, not behind, public opinion. That is the way in which it is natural that Uni- versities should err. They should perplex statesmen by wishing to go too fast in obedience to the claims of theory, rather than by lagging behind, and perpetually whining non possumus. Yet non possumus has been the answer made by the Convocation of Oxford and the Senate of Cambridge to every good measure that has been proposed by every Government for many a long day. Why does no member of Parliament move for the prayers of all the petitions to which the seal of either University has been affixed for the last fifty years ? It would be a record of human imbecility hardly to be equalled out of the Vatican. The Universities of England, more especially that of Oxford, being now, then, fairly caught in the current of modern progress, it is our true policy, in every possible way, to connect ourselves with them, and to make their great resources supplement our humbler means. We should allow no stupid little local patriotisms to prevent us keeping before us as our single object the doing the very best we can, directly and indirectly, for the advancement of the highest studies amongst the youth of this part of the island, sending them on, away from ourselves, wherever we have reason to suppose that it is for their advantage to go L 161 Rectorial Addresses: elsewhere. A University which acts in this liberal and cosmopolitan spirit will be richly rewarded in a hundred ways. One of the things which we shall discover, when we institute this rigid self-examination, is, that our present teaching of the classics is, through no fault of the gentlemen who occupy the Chairs of Humanity and Greek, but from quite other causes, on a wholly unsatisfactory footing. Our teaching of the classics in Aberdeen, except in so far as it is directed in training young men to pursue their classical studies elsewhere, is a mistake from beginning to end, for even if we succeeded in giving to our students as much knowledge of the classics as they ever obtain here, the result is wholly valueless, unless, as I have said, they go on somewhere else, and become professional students of the classics. We have no place in Aberdeen for professional students of the classics. We have no sufficient rewards to tempt young men of ability to become professional students of the classics ; whereas in other places they have these rewards in abundance. I should like to see the University address young men who come to us wishing to penetrate into the circle of classical ideas, in this way : " Gentlemen, you will have the goodness to submit yourselves to an examination which may enable me to say for what kind of classical study you are fit. I shall divide you after this examination is over into three classes. To the lowest of these three classes I shall say, ' You have shown by your examination that you have not already mastered the ele- mentary difficulties of the classics. You cannot read an easy Greek and an easy Latin book with tolerable facility. This being so, I recommend you to follow the course of reading which will be prescribed to you by the Professors of Humanity and Greek, and to attend their lectures sedu- lously. The object of that course of reading, and of those lectures, will be to initiate you as much into the circle of classical ideas as can be done in two years through the English language alone, and I can promise you that if you are diligent and attentive, you will have drunk much more deeply of classical foundations than many and many a man who has gone through the regular old routine of Latin 162 M. E. Grant Duff, 1870 Grammar and Latin Verses, and all the rest of it.' " To the gentlemen who show that they have mastered the elementary difficulties of the classics, and no more, the University might say : " Gentlemen, if you will follow diligently the course of reading which will be laid before you, and will attend the lectures which you will be asked to attend, I will put you in the way of becoming very good classical scholars, by which I mean that I will put you in the way of reading in the original whatever is supremely good in classical literature, and of obtaining all the know- ledge necessary thereto ; but you must not be satisfied with a two years' course, you must go on with your classical studies all the time you are here, and when you have left Aberdeen you had better go to Oxford, and continue your work there. There you will find great facilities for improving your knowledge, and a market for that knowledge into the bargain." To the third class, and it will be a very small one — in many years, I am afraid, non-existent — I should wish the University to say : "Gentle- men, you have shown considerable acquired knowledge of the classics, and philological powers of a high order. You are likely to do me great credit, you are likely to do really valuable work as professional classical scholars. Your cases must be treated individually, and I recommend you to the very best attention of the Professors of Humanity and Greek. When four years have passed away it will be time to say where you had better go to continue your studies, but I suppose it will be to Germany." You see my drift, gentlemen, I wish no one to be obliged to study the classics, but those who do wish to study them, I propose to treat in three different ways, according as they seem capable of obtaining a general acquaintance with classical ideas, of becoming good classical scholars, fit to teach others ; or great classical scholars fit to extend our knowledge of that still unexhausted mine, classical antiquity. I do not think it would be very difficult to devise a two years' course of classical study for the lowest of our three proposed classes. It is my intention before my period of office closes, to submit the programme of such a course to my colleagues in the University Court, and every year it 163 Rectorial Addresses: will be possible to have a better and a better course, for I observe that many most excellent scholars are now recog- nising the necessity of making a royal road which may lead within the circle of classical ideas. Look, for instance, at Mr. Worsley's beautiful translation of the Odyssey. Look at Professor Conington's translations from Virgil. Look at that excellent series of little books, Ancient Classics for English Readers, now being published by Messrs. Blackwood. Look at Mr. Edwin Arnold's Greek Classic Poets, published by Cassells. Look to the open secret that Mr. Matthew Arnold is about to publish a volume of translations from the Greek Poets ; look to the equally open secret that the Professor of Greek at Oxford is about to publish a trans- lation of the whole of Plato; and you will not, I think, require further proof that there is a very steady movement in this direction. To devise a proper course for the second class of whom I have spoken will be a more difficult matter, but I am sure that it is high time that a committee of scholars should meet together, and recognising the fact that the question will soon be, not how to squeeze some general education into a pseudo-classical training, but how to squeeze some real classical training into a general education, should draw out a programme which might be generally accepted by all our leading schools and Uni- versities, and which should contain whatever is supremely best in Greek and Latin literature. Of course such a programme would have to omit numberless things which it would be most desirable to read ; but then it would contain some things that ought to be read, and which nobody reads now, portions of Dion Chrysostom and Marcus Aurelius, for example, and it would form a thoroughly good index map to the whole of classical literature ; nor must it be forgotten that, as the time-destroying practice of Latin and Greek composition would be wholly left out of this course, the persons who went through it would obtain a far greater power of reading Greek and Latin easily than is now at all common, and could easily continue their classical reading as an amuse- ment in later life if they desire so to do. As to the course of training for the third class, I do not feel confident to 164 M. E. Grant Duff, 1870 offer many suggestions, but I am under the impression that there is not much room left for the professional classical scholar of the old type. I speak under correction, but I should think that a man of the Gaisford order would find most room for his peculiar talents in the wide field of Oriental literature, and that the kind of professional scholars who are most wanted at present, are either men who can skilfully interpret between the esoteric circle of the learned and outer world. I have spoken already of translation. There is also a great deal to be done in the way of making the remains of ancient art illustrate the remains of ancient literature. The edition of Horace, lately published by Mr. King, the well-known writer on gems, and Mr. Munro, is an excellent illustration of the kind of co-operation at which I am pointing. Of course I am not going to advocate the establishment here of a Professorship of Classical Arch- aeology, of a lectureship on Greek Numismatics. All we can be asked to do is to remember that a classical educa- tion which takes no account of ancient art is very one- sided, and that it is our duty to give our classical students at least some hint of the beautiful world of myth and history which has come down to us in sculpturd, in scalpturd, and, to a smaller extent, in picturd also. If they show any taste for these things, we ought, at least, to be able to tell them how they may gratify their taste most easily. We, I say, with our limited resources, cannot have professorships and lectureships devoted to the accessory departments of classical study, but it is a sin and a shame that they should not have them in some Universities I could name, where there is no want of resources, and it is surely more than doubtful whether the vast artistic and antiquarian treasures of the British Museum might not be made much more extensively useful if a staff of student lectures were con- nected, as has been proposed by a most competent au- thority, with that great Institution. If our professional classical scholars aspire to be more than vulgarisateurs — and be it remembered that the calling of vulgarisateur, the interpreter between the learned and the mass of the edu- cated, is a very high one — if they aspire to be masters of 165 Rectorial Addresses: those who know in classical literature, they must, I suppose, now extend their linguistic studies far, far into the past, and must become as proficient in Sanscrit as, what shall I say, as, judging from some recent announcements in the newspapers, a German subaltern in the trenches before Paris ! Speaking seriously, I am given to understand that classical study in Germany is taking very much this direc- tion. I do not recollect precisely what was the proportion of students recently following the lectures of Professor Ritschl, at Leipsic, who were, I was told, also following the lectures of the Professor of Sanscrit there, but it was very large. The munificence of Dr. John Muir has given a Professor of Sanscrit to the University of Edinburgh, but I am afraid we may wait a long time for a similar piece of good fortune. However that may be, any young man who is conscious of possessing great linguistic powers, and is not conscious of possessing the kind of talent which one finds chiefly in the French scholars, in such men as M. Martha or M. Nisard, for example, a talent of lucid and elegant exposition, should think twice about turning his attention to the study of the classics as a profession unless he is prepared to spend long years amidst the dim shadows of Aryan antiquity. There are some other very important points with regard to which a rigid self-examination would, I am afraid, show that we have much need of improvement, but, for the present, I will rest content with only bringing before you the necessity of altering, root and branch, our present classical course, alike in its scope and in its methods. I shall be sufficiently attacked for this ; but I should like, in conclusion, to impress upon you all the immense importance of making our Universities as good as we can possibly make them. He must be indeed blind who does not see that mighty as are the political changes going on around us, there are far deeper and more wide-reaching questions in agitation than any which were decided before Metz or Sedan, or even on the breach at the Porta Pia. Even, I say, at the breach by the Porta Pia, for, depend upon it, the biggest questions that have been decided this year 166 M. E. Grant Duff, 1870 have not been those about which we have heard the most. The biggest questions have been those two which have received such grotesquely opposite answers in the Vatican Council and on the walls of Rome, and these questions, big as they are, are merely two amongst many which are being loudly asked, and will have ere long to be answered. It is an anxious, dissatisfied, inquisitive age in which we are living ; everything is being brought to the test of reason and utility and fact — venerable theologies, ancient political institutions, time-honoured social arrangements, a thousand things which a generation ago looked as fixed as the granite rocks along our coast, begin to look as if ere very long they might be as much in a state of flux as those granite rocks once were. Whence then is guidance to come ? Is it from statesmen ? Those who know the tremendous " grind," to use a familiar expression, of an English Cabinet Minister's life — those who know the real working of our Parliamentary system — will not expect much guidance from statesmen except so far as the mere exigencies of the passing hour are concerned. Is it from journalists? Well, there are some thirty men in London and the provinces who do more to make public opinion than most people are aware of, but they too are a very hard-worked class. I knew one man, for example, who was certainly one of the most in- fluential of the body to which I am alluding, who used to write his daily, or almost daily, article before breakfast, before the real work of his day began at all ; and even when they are not so busy as this, the demands of their calling are such as to keep them very much within the circle of passing events, and to prevent them looking far ahead. It would be well for statesmen and journalists and individual writers who do not fall into either of those two categories, if the Universities of England and Scotland were really in a position to bear their fair share in forming the opinion of the country. In Germany this is so. Everyone who knows anything about that country, knows that the pro- fessors are now having their innings with a vengeance, but here we see no symptoms of anything of the kind. Some individual professors have much influence which they exert, sometimes well, sometimes ill, but we have not an influential 167 Rectorial Addresses: body of learned opinion. For half a generation, from '33 to '48, the influence of the greatest of British Universities was exerted in trying to turn back the course of events, and although a formidable current set in with that year in the opposite direction, the whole period up to the present time has been occupied by a struggle which has hardly yet ended, and has almost neutralised the influence of that ancient and magnificent corporation. What has happened at Oxford on the great scale, has happened elsewhere on the small. I know very well that the causes of this are to a great extent out of the reach of any mere reform in our Universities. I know that they are largely dependent upon accidents of history, upon chains fastened long ago round the necks of themselves and their successors by well-meaning, but half-informed men, who thought it necessary to combat one definite and coherent system of thought by another as coherent and definite. It is not for us who come from the outside, least of all, per- haps, for those of us who live most of our lives amidst the hurried advance and retreat, the cut and thrust of politics, to do more than hint the direction in which we should like to see the learned men of our Universities coming forward ; but so much it is permitted to us to say, that we see all around us a generation as anxious for light as any that has ever lived upon this planet, and we hear all around us the cry, " Who will show us any good ? " If there are any within the sound of my voice who know more truth than they are given to say, who know full well that a great change is coming, but who are satisfied to repeat the words, "After us the deluge," let us ask them whether reserve may not be carried too far. There is a time for eironeia, but there is a time also for speaking out. If, for example, there are any remaining tests, in this or any other British University, which are felt to trammel thought, to prevent our getting for each chair, as it falls vacant, the very best man who can possibly be got for the chair; come forward and tell us plainly, and loudly. In a Constitutional Government like this ; above all, in a Government whose motto is like that of Britain, " Vestigia nulla retrorsum," public men cannot act unless they are supported by the opinion of the country, 168 M. E. Grant Duff, 1870 and the opinion of the country in such matters will be hesitating and mute, till you, the learned, speak. I have been addressing you throughout as citizens of the University, deeply interested in her fortunes, and in the future of education in this part of the country. In your capacity of students, of persons in statu pupillari, I have nothing that I care to add to what I addressed to the last generation of students in the spring of 1867. I have heard on all sides that most of you are quite as diligent as young men of your age can fairly be expected to be. I wish you all success in your studies, and that happiness which, though not the keenest, or most intoxicating, is probably the most enduring — that which arises from a constant sense of gradual progress towards worthy ends. And lastly, I thank you for once more placing me in an office which gives me no incon- siderable opportunity of advancing what I very earnestly believe to be the true interests of the University of Aberdeen and of North- Eastern Scotland. 169 Universities: Actual and Ideal 1 By Thomas Henry Huxley ELECTED by the suffrages of your four Nations Rector of the ancient University of which you are scholars, I take the earliest opportunity which has presented itself since my restoration to health, of delivering the Address which, by long custom, is expected of the holder of my office. My first duty in opening that Address, is to offer you my most hearty thanks for the signal honour you have conferred upon me — an honour of which, as a man uncon- nected with you by personal or by national ties, devoid of political distinction, and a plebeian who stands by his order, I could not have dreamed. And it was the more surprising to me, as the five-and-twenty years which have passed over my head since I reached intellectual manhood, have been largely spent in no half-hearted advocacy of doctrines which have not yet found favour in the eyes of Academic respectability ; so that, when the proposal to nominate me for your Rector came, I was almost as much astonished as was Hal o' the Wynd, " who fought for his own hand," by the Black Douglas's proffer of knighthood. And I fear that my acceptance must be taken as evidence that, less wise than the Armourer of Perth, I have not yet done with soldiering. In fact, if, for a moment, I imagined that your intention was simply, in the kindness of your hearts, to do me honour ; and that the Rector of your University, like that of some other Universities, was one of those happy beings who sit in glory for three years, with nothing to do for it save the making of a speech, a conversation with my dis- tinguished predecessor soon dispelled the dream. I found that, by the constitution of the University of Aberdeen, 1 Address delivered 27th February, 1874. 170 Rectorial Addresses : the incumbent of the Rectorate is, if not a power, at any rate a potential energy ; and that, whatever may be his chances of success or failure, it is his duty to convert that potential energy into a living force, directed towards such ends as may seem to him conducive to the welfare of the corporation of which he is the theoretical head. I need not tell you that your late Lord Rector took this view of his position, and acted upon it with the com- prehensive, far-seeing insight into the actual condition and tendencies, not merely of his own, but of other countries, which is his honourable characteristic among statesmen. I have already done my best, and, as long as I hold my office, I shall continue my endeavours, to follow in the path which he trod ; to do what in me lies, to bring this University nearer to the ideal — alas, that I should be obliged to say ideal — of all Universities ; which, as I conceive, should be places in which thought is free from all fetters ; and in which all sources of knowledge, and all aids to learning, should be accessible to all comers, without distinction of creed or country, riches or poverty. Do not suppose, however, that I am sanguine enough to expect much to come of any poor efforts of mine. If your annals take any notice of my incumbency, I shall probably go down to posterity as the Rector who was always beaten. But if they add, as I think they will, that my defeats became victories in the hands of my successors, I shall be well content. The scenes are shifting in the great theatre of the world. The act which commenced with the Protestant Reformation is nearly played out, and a wider and deeper change than that effected three centuries ago — a reformation, or rather a revolution of thought, the extremes of which are repre- sented by the intellectual heirs of John of Leyden and of Ignatius Loyola, rather than by those of Luther and of Leo — is waiting to come on, nay, visible behind the scenes to those who have good eyes. Men are beginning, once more, to awake to the fact that matters of belief and of speculation are of absolutely infinite practical importance ; and are drawing off from that sunny country " where it is 171 / Rectorial Addresses: always afternoon " — the sleepy hollow of broad indifferent- ism — to range themselves under their natural banners. Change is in the air. It is whirling feather-heads into all sorts of eccentric orbits, and filling the steadiest with a sense of insecurity. It insists on reopening all questions and asking all institutions, however venerable, by what right they exist, and whether they are, or are not, in harmony with the real or supposed wants of mankind. And it is remarkable that these searching inquiries are not so much forced on institutions from without, as developed from within. Consummate scholars question the value of learning ; priests contemn dogma ; and women turn their backs upon man's ideal of perfect womanhood, and seek satisfaction in apocalyptic visions of some, as yet, unrealised epicene reality. If there be a type of stability in this world, one would be inclined to look for it in the old Universities of England. But it has been my business of late to hear a good deal about what is going on in these famous corporations ; and I have been filled with astonishment by the evidences of internal fermentation which they exhibit. If Gibbon could revisit the ancient seat of learning of which he has written so cavalierly, assuredly he would no longer speak of " the monks of Oxford sunk in prejudice and port." There, as elsewhere, port has gone out of fashion, and so has prejudice — at least that particular, fine, old, crusted sort of prejudice to which the great historian alludes. Indeed, things are moving so fast in Oxford and Cambridge, that, for my part, I rejoiced when the Royal Commission, of which I am a member, had finished and presented the Report which related to these Universities ; for we should have looked like mere plagiarists, if, in consequence of a little longer delay in issuing it, all the measures of reform we proposed had been anticipated by the spontaneous action of the Universities themselves. A month ago I should have gone on to say that one might speedily expect changes of another kind in Oxford and Cambridge. A Commission has been inquiring into the revenues of the many wealthy societies, in more or less direct connection with the Universities, resident in those 172 T. H. Huxley, 1874 towns. It is said that the Commission has reported, and that, for the first time in recorded history, the nation, and perhaps the Colleges themselves, will know what they are worth. And it was announced that a statesman, who, whatever his other merits or defects, has aims above the level of mere party fighting, and a clear vision into the most complex practical problems, meant to deal with these revenues. But, Bos locutus est. That mysterious independent variable of political calculation, Public Opinion — which some whisper is, in the present case, very much the same thing as publican's opinion — has willed otherwise. The Heads may return to their wonted slumbers — at any rate for a space. Is the spirit of change, which is working thus vigorously in the South, likely to affect the Northern Universities, and if so, to what extent? The violence of fermentation depends, not so much on the quantity of the yeast, as on the composition of the wort, and its richness in fermentable material ; and, as a preliminary to the discussion of this question, I venture to call to your minds the essential and fundamental differences between the Scottish and the English type of University. Do not charge me with anything worse than official egotism, if I say that these differences appear to be largely symbolised by my own existence. There is no Rector in an English University. Now, the organisation of the members of a University into Nations, with their elective Rector, is the last relic of the primitive constitution of Universities. The Rectorate was the most important of all offices in that University of Paris, upon the model of which the University of Aberdeen was fashioned ; and which was certainly a great and flourishing institution in the twelfth century. Enthusiasts for the antiquity of one of the two ac- knowledged parents of all Universities, indeed, do not hesitate to trace the origin of the " Studium Parisiense " up to that wonderful king of the Franks and Lombards, Karl, surnamed the Great, whom we all called Charlemagne, and believed to be a Frenchman, until a learned historian, by beneficent 173 Rectorial Addresses: iteration, taught us better. Karl is said not to have been much of a scholar himself, but he had the wisdom of which knowledge is only the servitor. And that wisdom enabled him to see that ignorance is one of the roots of all evil. In the Capitulary which enjoins the foundation of monasterial and cathedral schools, he says : " Right action is better than knowledge ; but in order to do what is right, we must know what is right." 1 An irrefragible truth, I fancy. Acting upon it, the king took pretty full compulsory powers, and carried into effect a really considerable and effectual scheme of elementary education through the length and breadth of his dominions. No doubt the idolaters out by the Elbe, in what is now part of Prussia, objected to the Frankish king's measures ; no doubt the priests, who had never hesitated about sacri- ficing all unbelievers in their fantastic deities and futile conjurations, were the loudest in chanting the virtues of toleration ; no doubt they denounced as a cruel persecutor the man who would not allow them, however sincere they might be, to go on spreading delusions which debased the intellect, as much as they deadened the moral sense, and undermined the bonds of civil allegiance ; no doubt, if they had lived in these times, they would have been able to show, with ease, that the king's proceedings were totally contrary to the best liberal principles. But it may be said, in justifi- cation of the Teutonic ruler, first, that he was born before those principles, and did not suspect that the best way of getting disorder into order was to let it alone ; and, secondly, that his rough and questionable proceedings did, more or less, bring about the end he had in view. For, in a couple of centuries, the schools he sowed broadcast produced their crop of men, thirsting for knowledge and craving for culture. Such men gravitating towards Paris, as a light amidst the darkness of evil days, from Germany, from Spain, from Britain, and from Scandinavia, came together by natural affinity. By degrees they banded themselves into a society, 1 " Quamvis enim melius sit bene facere quam nosse, prius tamen est nosse quam facere." — " Karoli Magni Regis Constitutio de Scholis per singula Episcopia et Monasteria instituendis," addressed to the Abbot of Fulda. Baluzius, Capitularia Regum Francorutn, T. i., p, 202. 174 T. H. Huxley, 1874 which, as its end was the knowledge of all things knowable, called itself a " Studium Generate ; " and when it had grown into a recognised corporation, acquired the name of " Uni- versitas Studii Generalis" which, mark you, means not a " Useful Knowledge Society," but a " Knowledge-of-things- in-general Society." And thus the first " University," at any rate on this side of the Alps, came into being. Originally it had but one Faculty, that of Arts. Its aim was to be a centre of knowledge and culture ; not to be, in any sense, a technical school. The scholars seem to have studied Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric ; Arithmetic and Geometry, Astronomy, Theology, and Music. Thus, their work, however imper- fect and faulty, judged by modern lights, it may have been, brought them face to face with all the leading aspects of the many-sided mind of man. For these studies did really contain, at any rate in embryo — sometimes, it may be, in caricature — what we now call Philosophy, Mathematical and Physical Science, and Art. And I doubt if the curriculum of any modern University shows so clear and generous a comprehension of what is meant by culture, as this old Trivium and Quadrivium did. The students who had passed through the University course, and had proved themselves competent to teach, became masters and teachers of their younger brethren. Whence the distinction of Masters and Regents on the one hand, and Scholars on the other. Rapid growth necessitated organisation. The Masters and Scholars of various tongues and countries grouped themselves into four Nations ; and the Nations, by their own votes at first, and subsequently by those of their Procurators, or representatives, elected their supreme head and governor, the Rector — at that time the sole representa- tive of the University, and a very real power, who could defy Provosts interfering from without; or could inflict even corporal punishment on disobedient members within the University. Such was the primitive constitution of the University of Paris. It is in reference to this original state of things 175 Rectorial Addresses: that I have spoken of the Rectorate, and all that appertains to it, as the sole relic of that constitution. But this original organisation did not last long. Society was not then, any more than it is now, patient of culture, as such. It says to everything, " Be useful to me, or away with you." And to the learned, the unlearned man said then, as he does now, " What is the use of all your learning, unless you can tell me what I want to know ? I am here blindly groping about, and constantly damaging myself by collision with three mighty powers, the power of the invisible God, the power of my fellow Man, and the power of brute Nature. Let your learning be turned to the study of these powers, that I may know how I am to comport myself with regard to them." In answer to this demand, some of the Masters of the Faculty of Arts devoted them- selves to the study of Theology, some to that of Law, and some to that of Medicine ; and they became Doctors — men learned in those technical, or, as we now call them, pro- fessional, branches of knowledge. Like cleaving to like, the Doctors formed schools, or Faculties, of Theology, Law, and Medicine, which sometimes assumed airs of superiority over their parent, the Faculty of Arts, though the latter always asserted and maintained its fundamental supremacy. The Faculties arose by process of natural differentiation out of the primitive University. Other constituents, foreign to its nature, were speedily grafted upon it. One of these extraneous elements was forced into it by the Roman Church, which in those days asserted with effect, that which it now asserts, happily without any effect in these realms, its right of censorship and control over all teaching. The local habitation of the University lay partly in the lands attached to the monastery of S. Genevieve, partly in the diocese of the Bishop of Paris ; and he who would teach must have the licence of the Abbot, or of the Bishop, as the nearest representative of the Pope, so to do, which licence was granted by the Chancellors of these Ecclesiastics. Thus, if I am what archaeologists call a " survival " of the primitive head and ruler of the University, your Chancellor stands in the same relation to the Papacy ; and. T. H. Huxley, 1874 with all respect for his Grace, I think I may say that we both look terribly shrunken when compared with our great originals. Not so is it with a second foreign element, which silently dropped into the soil of Universities, like the grain of mustard-seed in the parable ; and, like that grain, grew into a tree, in whose branches a whole aviary of fowls took shelter. That element is the element of Endowment. It differed from the preceding, in its original design to serve as a prop to the young plant, not to be a parasite upon it. The charitable and the humane, blessed with wealth, were very early penetrated by the misery of the poor student. And the wise saw that intellectual ability is not so common or so unimportant a gift that it should be allowed to run to waste upon mere handicrafts and chares. The man who was a blessing to his contemporaries, but who so often has been converted into a curse, by the blind adherence of his posterity to the letter, rather than to the spirit, of his wishes — I mean the " pious founder " — gave money and lands, that the student, who was rich in brain and poor in all else, might be taken from the plough or from the stithy, and enabled to devote himself to the higher service of mankind ; and built colleges and halls in which he might be not only housed and fed, but taught The Colleges were very generally placed in strict sub- ordination to the University by their founders ; but, in many cases, their endowment, consisting of land, has undergone an " unearned increment," which has given these societies a continually increasing weight and importance as against the unendowed, or fixedly endowed, University. In Pharaoh's dream, the seven lean kine eat up the seven fat ones. In the reality of historical fact, the fat Colleges have eaten up the lean Universities. Even here in Aberdeen, though the causes at work may have been somewhat different, the effects have been similar ; and you see how much more substantial an entity is the Very Reverend the Principal, analogue, if not homologue, of the Principals of King's College, than the Rector, lineal representative of the ancient monarchs of the University, though now little more than a " king of shreds and patches." m 177 Rectorial Addresses: Do not suppose that, in thus briefly tracing the process of University metamorphosis, I have had any intention of quarrelling with its results. Practically, it seems to me that the broad changes effected in 1858 have given the Scottish Universities a very liberal constitution, with as much real approximation to the primitive state of things as is at all desirable. If your fat kine have eaten the lean, they have not lain down to chew the cud ever since. The Scottish Universities, like the English, have diverged widely enough from their primitive model ; but I cannot help thinking that the northern form has remained more faithful to its original, not only in constitution, but, what is more to the purpose, in view of the cry for change, in the practical application of the endowments connected with it. In Aberdeen, these endowments are numerous, but so small that, taken altogether, they are not equal to the revenue of a single third-rate English college. They are scholarships, not fellowships ; aids to do work — not rewards for such work as it lies within the reach of an ordinary, or even an extraordinary, young man to do. You do not think that passing a respectable examination is a fair equivalent for an income, such as many a grey-headed veteran, or clergyman would envy ; and which is larger than the endowment of many Regius chairs. You do not care to make your University a school of manners for the rich ; of sports for the athletic ; or a hot-bed of high-fed, hypercritical refinement, more destructive to vigour and originality than are starvation and oppression. No ; your little Bursaries of ten and twenty (I believe even fifty) pounds a year, enable any boy who has shown ability in the course of his education in those remarkable primary schools, which have made Scotland the power she is, to obtain the highest culture the country can give him ; and when he is armed and equipped, his Spartan Alma Mater tells him that, so far, he has had his wages for his work, and that he may go and earn the rest. When I think of the host of pleasant, moneyed, well-bred young gentlemen, who do a little learning and much boating by Cam and Isis, the vision is a pleasant one ; and, as a patriot, I rejoice that the youth of the upper and richer 178 T. H. Huxley, 1874 classes of the nation receive a wholesome and a manly training, however small may be the modicum of knowledge they gather, in the intervals of this, their serious business. I admit, to the full, the social and political value of that training. But, when I proceed to consider that these young men may be said to represent the great bulk of what the Colleges have to show for their enormous wealth, plus, at least, a hundred and fifty pounds a year apiece which each undergraduate costs his parents or guardians, I feel inclined to ask, whether the rate-in -aid of the education of the wealthy and professional classes, thus levied on the resources of the community, is not, after all, a little heavy? And, still further, I am tempted to inquire what has become of the indigent scholars, the sons of the masses of the people whose daily labour just suflfices to meet their daily wants, for whose benefit these rich foundations were largely, if not mainly, instituted ? It seems as if Pharaoh's dream had been rigorously carried out, and that even the fat scholar has eaten the lean one. And when I turn from this picture to the no less real vision of many a brave and frugal Scotch boy, spending his summer in hard manual labour, that he may have the privilege of wending his way in autumn to this University, with a bag of oatmeal, ten pounds in his pocket, and his own stout heart to depend upon through the northern winter ; not bent on seeking The bubble reputation at the cannon's mouth, but determined to wring knowledge from the hard hands of penury ; when I see him win through all such outward obstacles to positions of wide usefulness and well-earned fame ; I cannot but think that, in essence, Aberdeen has departed but little from the primitive intention of the founders of Universities, and that the spirit of reform has so much to do on the other side of the Border, that it may be long before he has leisure to look this way. As compared with other actual Universities, then, Aberdeen may, perhaps, be well satisfied with itself But do not think me an impracticable dreamer, if I ask you not to rest and be thankful in this state of satisfaction ; if I ask you to consider awhile, how this actual good stands related 179 Rectorial Addresses: to that ideal better, towards which both men and institutions must progress, if they would not retrograde. In an ideal University, as I conceive it, a man should be able to obtain instruction in all forms of knowledge, and discipline in the use of all the methods by which knowledge is obtained. In such a University, the force of living example should fire the student with a noble ambition to emulate the learning of learned men, and to follow in the footsteps of the explorers of new fields of knowledge. And the very air he breathes should be charged with that enthusiasm for truth, that fanaticism of veracity, which is a greater possession than much learning ; a nobler gift than the power of increasing knowledge ; by so much greater and nobler than these, as the moral nature of man is greater than the intellectual ; for veracity is the heart of morality. But the man who is all morality and intellect, although he may be good and even great, is, after all, only half a man. There is beauty in the moral world and in the intellectual world ; but there is also a beauty which is neither moral nor intellectual — the beauty of the world of Art. There are men who are devoid of the power of seeing it, as there are men who are born deaf and blind, and the loss of those, as of these, is simply infinite. There are others in whom it is an overpowering passion ; happy men, born with the productive, or at lowest, the appreciative, genius of the Artist. But, in the mass of mankind, the aesthetic faculty, like the reasoning power and the moral sense, needs to be roused, directed, and cultivated ; and I know not why the development of that side of his nature, through which man has access to a perennial spring of ennobling pleasure, should be omitted from any compre- hensive scheme of University education. All Universities recognise Literature in the sense of the old Rhetoric, which is Art incarnate in words. Some, to their credit, recognise Art in its narrower sense, to a certain extent, and confer degrees for proficiency in some of its branches. If there are Doctors of Music, why should there be no Masters of Painting, of Sculpture, of Architecture ? I should like to see Professors of the Fine Arts in every 180 T. H. Huxley, 1874 University ; and instruction in some branch of their work made a part of the Arts curriculum. I just now expressed the opinion that, in our ideal University, a man should be able to obtain instruction in all forms of knowledge. Now, by " forms of knowledge " I mean the great classes of things knowable ; of which the first, in logical, though not in natural, order is knowledge relating to the scope and limits of the mental faculties of man, a form of knowledge which, in its positive aspect, answers pretty much to Logic and part of Psychology, while, on its negative and critical side, it corresponds with Metaphysics. A second class comprehends all that knowledge which relates to man's welfare, so far as it is determined by his own acts, or what we call his conduct. It answers to Moral and Religious philosophy. Practically, it is the most directly valuable of all forms of knowledge, but speculatively, it is limited and criticised by that which precedes and by that which follows it in my order of enumeration. A third class embraces knowledge of the phaenomena of the Universe, as that which lies about the individual man ; and of the rules which those phaenomena are observed to follow in the order of their occurrence, which we term the laws of Nature. This is what ought to be called Natural Science, or Physiology, though those terms are hopelessly diverted from such a meaning ; and it includes all exact knowledge of natural fact, whether Mathematical, Physical, Biological or Social. Kant has said that the ultimate object of all knowledge is to give replies to these three questions : What can I do ? What ought I to do ? What may I hope for ? The forms of knowledge which I have enumerated, should furnish such replies as are within human reach, to the first and second of these questions. While to the third, perhaps the wisest answer is, " Do what you can to do what you ought and leave hoping and fearing alone." If this be a just and an exhaustive classification of the forms of knowledge, no question as to their relative im- portance, or as to the superiority of one to the other, can be seriously raised. 181 Rectorial Addresses: On the face of the matter, it is absurd to ask whether it is more important to know the limits of one's powers ; or the ends for which they ought to be exerted ; or the conditions under which they must be exerted. One may as well inquire which of the terms of a Rule of Three sum one ought to know, in order to get a trustworthy result. Practical life is such a sum, in which your duty multiplied into your capacity, and divided by your circumstances, gives the fourth term in the proportion, which is your deserts, with great accuracy. All agree, I take it, that men ought to have these three kinds of knowledge. The so-called " conflict of studies " turns upon the question of how they may best be obtained. The founders of Universities held the theory that the Scriptures and Aristotle taken together, the latter being limited by the former, contained all knowledge worth having, and that the business of philosophy was to interpret and co-ordinate these two. I imagine that in the twelfth century this was a very fair conclusion from known facts. Nowhere in the world, in those days, was there such an encyclopaedia of knowledge of all three classes, as is to be found in those writings. The scholastic philosophy is a wonderful monument of the patience and ingenuity with which the human mind toiled to build up a logically consistent theory of the Universe, out of such materials. And that philosophy is by no means dead and buried, as many vainly suppose. On the contrary, numbers of men of no mean learning and accomplishment, and sometimes of rare power and subtlety of thought, hold by it as the best theory of things which has yet been stated. And, what is still more remarkable, men who speak the language of modern philosophy, nevertheless think the thoughts of the schoolmen. " The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau." Every day I hear " Cause," " Law," " Force," " Vitality," spoken of as entities, by people who can enjoy Swift's joke about the meat-roasting quality of the smoke-jack, and comfort themselves with the reflection that they are not even as those benighted schoolmen. Well, this great system had its day, and then it was 182 T. H. Huxley, 1874 sapped and mined by two influences. The first was the study of classical literature, which familiarised men with methods of philosophising ; with conceptions of the highest Good ; with ideas of the order of Nature ; with notions of Literary and Historical Criticism ; and, above all, with visions of Art, of a kind which not only would not fit into the scholastic scheme, but showed them a pre-Christian, and indeed altogether un-Christian world, of such grandeur and beauty that they ceased to think of any other. They were as men who had kissed the Fairy Queen, and wander- ing with her in the dim loveliness of the under-world, cared not to return to the familiar ways of home and fatherland, though they lay at arm's length, overhead. Cardinals were more familiar with Virgil than with Isaiah ; and Popes laboured, with great success, to re-paganise Rome. The second influence was the slow, but sure, growth of the physical sciences. It was discovered that some results of speculative thought, of immense practical and theoretical importance, can be verified by observation ; and are always true, however severely they may be tested. Here, at any rate, was knowledge, to the certainty of which no authority could add, or take away, one jot or tittle, and to which the tradition of a thousand years was as insignificant as the hearsay of yesterday. To the scholastic system, the study of classical literature might be inconvenient and distracting, but it was possible to hope that it could be kept within bounds. Physical science, on the other hand, was an irreconcilable enemy, to be excluded at all hazards. The College of Cardinals has not distinguished itself in Physics or Physiology ; and no Pope has, as yet, set up public laboratories in the Vatican. People do not always formulate the beliefs on which they act. The instinct of fear and dislike is quicker than the reasoning process ; and I suspect that, taken in con- junction with some other causes, such instinctive aversion is at the bottom of the long exclusion of any serious discipline in the physical sciences from the general curricu- lum of Universities ; while, on the other hand, classical literature has been gradually made the backbone of the Arts course. 183 Rectorial Addresses : I am ashamed to repeat here what I have said elsewhere, in season and out of season, respecting the value of Science as knowledge and discipline. But the other day I met with some passages in the Address to another Scottish University, of a great thinker, recently lost to us, which express so fully and yet so tersely, the truth in this matter that I am fain to quote them : — " To question all things ; — never to turn away from any difficulty ; to accept no doctrine either from ourselves or from other people without a rigid scrutiny by negative criticism ; letting no fallacy, or incoherence, or confusion of thought, step by unperceived ; above all, to insist upon having the meaning of a word clearly understood before using it, and the meaning of a proposition before assenting to it ; — these are the lessons we learn " from workers in Science. " With all this vigorous management of the negative element, they inspire no scepticism about the reality of truth or indifference to its pursuit. The noblest enthusiasm, both for the search after truth and for applying it to its highest uses, pervades those writers." " In culti- vating, therefore," science as an essential ingredient in education, "we are all the while laying an admirable foundation for ethical and philosophical culture." 1 The passages I have quoted were uttered by John Stuart Mill ; but you cannot hear inverted commas, and it is therefore right that I should add, without delay, that I have taken the liberty of substituting " workers in science " for " ancient dialecticians," and " Science as an essential ingredient in education " for " the ancient languages as our best literary education." Mill did, in fact, deliver a noble panegyric upon classical studies. I do not doubt its justice, nor presume to question its wisdom. But I venture to maintain that no wise or just judge, who has a knowledge of the facts, will hesitate to say that it applies with equal force to scientific training. But it is only fair to the Scottish Universities to point out that they have long understood the value of Science as a branch of general education. I observe, with the greatest inaugural Address delivered to the University of St. Andrews, ist February, 1867, by J. S. Mill, Rector of the University (pp. 32, 33). 184 T. H. Huxley, 1874 satisfaction, that candidates for the degree of Master of Arts in this University are required to have a knowledge, not only of Mental and Moral Philosophy, and of Mathe- matics and Natural Philosophy, but of Natural History, in addition to the ordinary Latin and Greek course ; and that a candidate may take honours in these subjects and in Chemistry. I do not know what the requirements of your examiners may be, but I sincerely trust they are not satisfied with a mere book knowledge of these matters. For my own part I would not raise a finger, if I could thereby introduce mere book work in science into every Arts curriculum in the country. Let those who want to study books devote themselves to Literature, in which we have the perfection of books, both as to substance and as to form. If I may paraphrase Hobbes's well-known aphorism, I would say that "books are the money of Literature, but only the counters of Science," Science (in the sense in which I now use the term) being the knowledge of fact, of which every verbal description is but an incomplete and symbolic expression. And be assured that no teaching of science is worth anything, as a mental discipline, which is not based upon direct perception of the facts, and practical exercise of the observing and logical faculties upon them. Even in such a simple matter as the mere comprehension of form, ask the most practised and widely informed ana- tomist what is the difiference between his knowledge of a structure which he has read about, and his knowledge of the same structure when he has seen it for himself; and he will tell you that the two things are not comparable — the difference is infinite. Thus I am very strongly inclined to agree with some learned schoolmasters who say that, in their experience, the teaching of science is all waste time. As they teach it, I have no doubt it is. But to teach it otherwise requires an amount of personal labour and a development of means and appliances, which must strike horror and dismay into a man accustomed to mere book work ; and who has been in the habit of teaching a class of fifty without much strain upon his energies. And this is one of the real difficulties in the way of the introduction of 185 Rectorial Addresses: physical science into the ordinary University course, to which I have alluded. It is a difficulty which will not be overcome, until years of patient study have organised scientific teaching as well as, or I hope better than, classical teaching has been organised hitherto. A little while ago, I ventured to hint a doubt as to the perfection of some of the arrangements in the ancient Universities of England ; but, in their provision for giving instruction in Science as such, and without direct reference to any of its practical applications, they have set a brilliant example. Within the last twenty years, Oxford alone has sunk more than a hundred and twenty thousand pounds in building and furnishing Physical, Chemical, and Physio- logical Laboratories, and a magnificent Museum, arranged with an almost luxurious regard for the needs of the student. Cambridge, less rich, but aided by the munificence of her Chancellor, is taking the same course ; and in a few years, it will be for no lack of the means and appliances of sound teaching, if the mass of English University men remain in their present state of barbarous ignorance of even the rudiments of scientific culture. Yet another step needs to be made before Science can be said to have taken its proper place in the Universities. That is its recognition as a Faculty, or branch of study demanding recognition and special organisation, on account of its bearing on the wants of mankind. The Faculties of Theology, Law, and Medicine, are technical schools, intended to equip men who have received general culture, with the special knowledge which is needed for the proper per- formance of the duties of clergymen, lawyers, and medical practitioners. When the material well-being of the country depended upon rude pasture and agriculture, and still ruder mining ; in the days when all the innumerable applications of the principles of physical science to practical purposes were non-existent even as dreams ; days which men living may have heard their fathers speak of; what little physical science could be seen to bear directly upon human life, lay within the province of Medicine. Medicine was the foster-mother of Chemistry, because it has to do with the 1 86 T. H. Huxley, 1874 preparation of drugs and the detection of poisons ; of Botany, because it enabled the physician to recognise medicinal herbs ; of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology, because the man who studied Human Anatomy and Physiology for purely medical purposes was led to extend his studies to the rest of the animal world. Within my recollection, the only way in which a student could obtain anything like a training in Physical Science, was by attending the lectures of the Professors of Physical and Natural Science attached to the Medical Schools. But, in the course of the last thirty years, both foster-mother and child have grown so big, that they threaten not only to crush one another, but to press the very life out of the unhappy student who enters the nursery ; to the great detriment of all three. I speak in the presence of those who know practically what medical education is ; for I may assume that a large proportion of my hearers are more or less advanced students of medicine. I appeal to the most industrious and con- scientious among you, to those who are most deeply pene- trated with a sense of the extremely serious responsibilities which attach to the calling of a medical practitioner, when I ask whether, out of the four years which you devote to your studies, you ought to spare even so much as an hour for any work which does not tend directly to fit you for your duties? Consider what that work is. Its foundation is a sound and practical acquaintance with the structure of the human organism, and with the modes and conditions of its action in health. I say a sound and practical acquaintance, to guard against the supposition that my intention is to suggest that you ought all to be minute anatomists and accomplished physiologists. The devotion of your whole four years to Anatomy and Physiology alone, would be totally insufficient to attain that end. What I mean is, the sort of practical, familiar, finger-end knowledge which a watchmaker has of a watch, and which you expect that craftsman, as an honest man, to have, when you entrust a watch that goes badly, to him. It is a kind of knowledge which is to be acquired, not in the lecture-room, or in the 187 Rectorial Addresses: library, but in the dissecting-room and the laboratory. It is to be had not by sharing your attention between these and sundry other subjects, but by concentrating your minds, week after week, and month after month, six or seven hours a day, upon all the complexities of organ and function, until each of the greater truths of anatomy and physiology has become an organic part of your minds — until you would know them if you were roused and questioned in the middle of the night, as a man knows the geography of his native place and the daily life of his home. That is the sort of knowledge which, once obtained, is a life-long possession. Other occupations may fill your minds — it may grow dim, and seem to be forgotten — but there it is, like the inscription on a battered and defaced coin, which comes out when you warm it. If I had the power to remodel Medical Education, the first two years of the medical curriculum should be devoted to nothing but such thorough study of Anatomy and Physiology, with Physiological Chemistry and Physics ; the student should then pass a real, practical examination in these subjects ; and, having gone through that ordeal satisfactorily, he should be troubled no more with them. His whole mind should then be given with equal intentness to Therapeutics, in its broadest sense, to Practical Medicine and to Surgery, with instruction in Hygiene and in Medical Jurisprudence ; and of these subjects only — surely there are enough of them — should he be required to show a knowledge in his final examination. I cannot claim any special property in this theory of what the medical curriculum should be, for I find that views, more or less closely approximating these, are held by all who have seriously considered the very grave and pressing question of Medical Reform ; and have, indeed, been carried into practice, to some extent, by the most enlightened Examining Boards. I have heard but two kinds of objections to them. There is first, the objection of vested interests, which I will not deal with here, because I want to make myself as pleasant as I can, and no dis- cussions are so unpleasant as those which turn on such points. And there is, secondly, the much more respectable 188 T. H. Huxley, 1874 objection, which takes the general form of the reproach that, in thus limiting the curriculum, we are seeking to narrow it. We are told that the medical man ought to be a person of good education and general information, if his profession is to hold its own among other professions ; that he ought to know Botany, or else, if he goes abroad, he will not be able to tell poisonous fruits from edible ones ; that he ought to know drugs, as a druggist knows them, or he will not be able to tell sham bark and senna from the real articles ; that he ought to know Zoology, because — well, I really have never been able to learn exactly why he is to be expected to know zoology. There is, indeed, a popular superstition, that doctors know all about things that are queer or nasty to the general mind, and may, therefore, be reasonably expected to know the M barbarous binomials " applicable to snakes, snails, and slugs ; an amount of information with which the general mind is usually completely satisfied. And there is a scientific superstition that Physiology is largely aided by Comparative Anatomy — a superstition which, like most superstitions, once had a grain of truth at bottom ; but the grain has become homoeopathic, since Physiology took its modern experimental development, and became what it is now, the application of the principles of Physics and Chemistry to the elucidation of the phaenomena of life. I hold as strongly as any one can do, that the medical practitioner ought to be a person of education and good general culture ; but I also hold by the old theory of a Faculty, that a man should have his general culture before he devotes himself to the special studies of that Faculty ; and I venture to maintain, that, if the general culture obtained in the Faculty of Arts were what it ought to be, the student would have quite as much knowledge of the fundamental principles of Physics, of Chemistry, and of Biology, as he needs, before he commenced his special medical studies. Moreover, I would urge, that a thorough study of Human Physiology is, in itself, an education broader and more comprehensive than much that passes under that name. There is no side of the intellect which it does not 189 Rectorial Addresses : call into play, no region of human knowledge into which either its roots, or its branches, do not extend ; like the Atlantic between the Old and the New Worlds, its waves wash the shores of the two worlds of matter and of mind ; its tributary streams flow from both ; through its waters, as yet unfurrowed by the keel of any Columbus, lies the road, if such there be, from the one to the other ; far away from that North-west Passage of mere speculation, in which so many brave souls have been hopelessly frozen up. But whether I am right or wrong about all this, the patent fact of the limitation of time remains. As the song runs : — If a man could be sure That his life would endure For the space of a thousand long years he might do a number of things not practicable under present conditions. Methuselah might, with much pro- priety, have taken half a century to get his doctor's degree ; and might, very fairly, have been required to pass a practical examination upon the contents of the British Museum, before commencing practice as a promising young fellow of two hundred, or thereabouts. But you have four years to do your work in, and are turned loose, to save or slay, at two or three and twenty. Now, I put it to you, whether you think that, when you come down to the realities of life — when you stand by the sick-bed, racking your brains for the principles which shall furnish you with means of interpreting symptoms, and forming a rational theory of the condition of your patient, it will be satisfactory for you to find that those principles are not there — although, to use the examination slang which is unfortunately too familiar to me, you can quite easily "give an account of the leading peculiarities of the Marsupialia" or " enumerate the chief characters of the Composites," or " state the class and order of the animal from which Castoreum is obtained." I really do not think that state of things will be satis- factory to you ; I am very sure it will not be so to your patient. Indeed, I am so narrow-minded myself, that if I had to choose between two physicians — one who did not 190 T. H. Huxley, 1874 know whether a whale is a fish or not, and could not tell gentian from ginger, but did understand the applications of the institutes of medicine to his art ; while the other, like Talleyrand's doctor, " knew everything, even a little physic " — with all my love for breadth of culture, I should assuredly consult the former. It is not pleasant to incur the suspicion of an inclination to injure or depreciate particular branches of knowledge. But the fact that one of those which I should have no hesitation in excluding from the medical curriculum, is that to which my own life has been specially devoted, should, at any rate, defend me from the suspicion of being urged to this course by any but the very gravest consider- ations of the public welfare. And I should like, further, to call your attention to the important circumstance that, in thus proposing the exclusion of the study of such branches of knowledge as Zoology and Botany, from those compulsory upon the medical student, I am not, for a moment, suggesting their exclusion from the University. I think that sound and practical instruction in the elementary facts and broad principles of Biology should form part of the Arts Curriculum : and here, happily, my theory is in entire accordance with your practice. Moreover, as I have already said, I have no sort of doubt that, in view of the relation of Physical Science to the practical life of the present day, it has the same right as Theology, Law, and Medicine, to a Faculty of its own in which men shall be trained to be professional men of science. It may be doubted whether Universities are the places for technical schools of Engineering or applied Chemistry, or Agriculture. But there can surely be little question, that instruction in the branches of Science which lie at the foundation of these Arts, of a far more advanced and special character than could, with any propriety, be included in the ordinary Arts Curriculum, ought to be obtainable by means of a duly organised Faculty of Science in every University. The establishment of such a Faculty would have the additional advantage of providing, in some measure, for one of the greatest wants of our time and country. I mean 191 Rectorial Addresses: the proper support and encouragement of original re- search. The other day, an emphatic friend of mine committed himself to the opinion that, in England, it is better for a man's worldly prospects to be a drunkard, than to be smitten with the divine dipsomania of the original investi- gator. I am inclined to think he was not far wrong. And, be it observed, that the question is not, whether such a man shall be able to make as much out of his abilities as his brother, of like ability, who goes into Law, or Engineering, or Commerce ; it is not a question of " maintaining a due number of saddle horses," as George Eliot somewhere puts it — it is a question of living or starving. If a student of my own subject shows power and originality, I dare not advise him to adopt a scientific career ; for, supposing he is able to maintain himself until he has attained distinction, I cannot give him the assurance that any amount of proficiency in the Biological Sciences will be convertible into even the most modest bread and cheese. And I believe that the case is as bad, or perhaps worse, with other branches of Science. In this respect Britain, whose immense wealth and prosperity hang upon the thread of Applied Science, is far behind France, and infinitely behind Germany. And the worst of it is, that it is very difficult to see one's way to any immediate remedy for this state of affairs which shall be free from a tendency to become worse than the disease. Great schemes for the Endowment of Research have been proposed. It has been suggested, that Laboratories for all branches of Physical Science, provided with every apparatus needed by the investigator, shall be established by the State : and shall be accessible, under due conditions and regulations, to all properly qualified persons. I see no objection to the principle of such a proposal. If it be legitimate to spend great sums of money on public Libraries and public collections of Painting and Sculpture, in aid of the Man of Letters, or the Artist, or for the mere sake of affording pleasure to the general public, I apprehend that it cannot be illegitimate to do as much for the promotion 192 T. H. Huxley, 1874 of scientific investigation. To take the lowest ground, as a mere investment of money, the latter is likely to be much more immediately profitable. To my mind, the difficulty in the way of such schemes is not theoretical but practical. Given the laboratories, how are the investigators to be maintained ? What career is open to those who have been thus encouraged to leave bread-winning pursuits ? If they are to be provided for by endowment, we come back to the College Fellowship system, the results of which, for Litera- ture, have not been so brilliant that one would wish to see it extended to Science ; unless some much better securities than at present exist can be taken that it will foster real work. You know that among the bees, it depends on the kind of cell in which the egg is deposited, and the quantity and quality of food which is supplied to the grub, whether it shall turn out a busy little worker or a big idle queen. And, in the human hive, the cells of the endowed larvae are always tending to enlarge, and their food to improve, until we get queens, beautiful to behold, but which gather no honey and build no comb. I do not say that these difficulties may not be overcome, but their gravity is not to be lightly estimated. In the meanwhile, there is one step in the direction of the endowment of research which is free from such ob- jections. It is possible to place the scientific enquirer in a position in which he shall have ample leisure and oppor- tunity for original work, and yet shall give a fair and tangible equivalent for those privileges. The establishment of a Faculty of Science in every University, implies that of a corresponding number of Professorial chairs, the incumbents of which need not be so burdened with teaching as to deprive them of ample leisure for original work. I do not think that it is any impediment to an original investi- gator to have to devote a moderate portion of his time to lecturing, or superintending practical instruction. On the contrary, I think it may be, and often is, a benefit to be obliged to take a comprehensive survey of your subject ; or to bring your results to a point, and give them, as it were, a tangible objective existence. The besetting sins of the investigator are two : the one is the desire to put aside a n 193 Rectorial Addresses: subject, the general bearings of which he has mastered himself, and pass on to something which has the attraction of novelty ; and the other, the desire for too much perfection, which leads him to Add and alter many times, Till all be ripe and rotten ; to spend the energies which should be reserved for action in whitening the decks and polishing the guns. The obligation to produce results for the instruction of others, seems to me to be a more effectual check on these tendencies than even the love of usefulness or the ambition for fame. But supposing the Professorial forces of our University to be duly organised, there remains an important question, relating to the teaching power, to be considered. Is the Professorial system — the system, I mean, of teaching in the lecture-room alone, and leaving the student to find his own way when he is outside the lecture-room — adequate to the wants of learners? In answering this question, I confine myself to my own province, and I venture to reply for Physical Science, assuredly and undoubtedly, No. As I have already intimated, practical work in the Laboratory is absolutely indispensable, and that practical work must be guided and superintended by a sufficient staff of Demon- strators, who are for Science what Tutors are for other branches of study. And there must be a good supply of such Demonstrators. I doubt if the practical work of more than twenty students can be properly superintended by one Demonstrator. If we take the working day at six hours, that is less than twenty minutes apiece — not a very large allowance of time for helping a dull man, for correcting an inaccurate one, or even for making an intelligent student clearly apprehend what he is about. And, no doubt, the supplying of a proper amount of this tutorial, practical teaching, is a difficulty in the way of giving proper in- struction in Physical Science in such Universities as that of Aberdeen, which are devoid of endowments ; and, unlike the English Universities, have no moral claim on the funds of richly endowed bodies to supply their wants. 194 T. H. Huxley, 1874 Examination — thorough, searching examination — is an indispensable accompaniment of teaching ; but I am almost inclined to commit myself to the very heterodox proposition that it is a necessary evil. I am a very old Examiner, having, for some twenty years past, been occupied with examinations on a considerable scale, of all sorts and conditions of men, and women too, — from the boys and girls of elementary schools to the candidates for Honours and Fellowships in the Universities. I will not say that in this case, as in so many others, the adage, that familiarity breeds contempt, holds good ; but my admiration for the existing system of examination and its products, does not wax warmer as I see more of it. Examination, like fire, is a good servant, but a bad master ; and there seems to me to be some danger of its becoming our master. I by no means stand alone in this opinion. Experienced friends of mine do not hesitate to say that students whose career they watch, appear to them to become deteriorated by the constant effort to pass this or that examination, just as we hear of men's brains becoming affected by the daily neces- sity of catching a train. They work to pass, not to know ; and outraged Science takes her revenge. They do pass, and they don't know. I have passed sundry examinations in my time, not without credit, and I confess I am ashamed to think how very little real knowledge underlay the torrent of stuff which I was able to pour out on paper. In fact, that which examination, as ordinarily conducted, tests, is simply a man's power of work under stimulus, and his capacity for rapidly and clearly producing that which, for the time, he has got into his mind. Now, these faculties are by no means to be despised. They are of great value in practical life, and are the making of many an advocate, and of many a so-called statesman. But in the pursuit of truth, scientific or other, they count for very little, unless they are supplemented by that long-continued, patient " intending of the mind," as Newton phrased it, which makes very little show in Examinations. I imagine that an Examiner who knows his students personally, must not unfrequently have found himself in the position of finding A's paper better than B's, though his own judgment *95 Rectorial Addresses : tells him, quite clearly, that B is the man who has the larger share of genuine capacity. Again, there is a fallacy about Examiners. It is commonly supposed that any one who knows a subject is competent to teach it ; and no one seems to doubt that any one who knows a subject is competent to examine in it. I believe both these opinions to be serious mistakes : the latter, perhaps, the more serious of the two. In the first place, I do not believe that any one who is not, or has not been, a teacher, is really qualified to examine advanced students. And in the second place, Examination is an Art, and a difficult one, which has to be learned like all other arts. Beginners always set too difficult questions — partly because they are afraid of being suspected of ignorance if they set easy ones, and partly from not understanding their business. Suppose that you want to test the relative physical strength of a score of young men. You do not put a hundredweight down before them, and tell each to swing it round. If you do, half of them won't be able to lift it at all, and only one or two will be able to perform the task. You must give them half a hundredweight, and see how they manoeuvre that, if you want to form any estimate of the muscular strength of each. So, a practised Examiner will seek for information respecting the mental vigour and training of candidates from the way in which they deal with questions easy enough to let reason, memory, and method have free play. No doubt, a great deal is to be done by the careful selection of Examiners, and by the copious introduction of practical work, to remove the evils inseparable from examina- tion ; but, under the best of circumstances, I believe that ex- amination will remain but an imperfect test of knowledge, and a still more imperfect test of capacity, while it tells next to nothing about a man's power as an investigator. There is much to be said in favour of restricting the highest degrees in each Faculty, to those who have shown evidence of such original power, by prosecuting a research under the eye of the Professor in whose province it lies ; or, at any rate, under conditions which shall afford satisfactory 196 T. H. Huxley, 1874 proof that the work is theirs. The notion may sound revolutionary, but it is really very old ; for, I take it, that it lies at the bottom of that presentation of a thesis by the candidate for a doctorate, which has now, too often, become little better than a matter of form. Thus far, I have endeavoured to lay before you, in a too brief and imperfect manner, my views respecting the teaching half — the Magistri and Regentes — of the Uni- versity of the Future. Now let me turn to the learning half — the Scholares. If the Universities are to be the sanctuaries of the highest culture of the country, those who would enter that sanctuary must not come with unwashed hands. If the good seed is to yield its hundredfold harvest, it must not be scattered amidst the stones of ignorance, or the tares of undisciplined indolence and wantonness. On the contrary, the soil must have been carefully prepared, and the Pro- fessor should find that the operations of clod-crushing, draining, and weeding, and even a good deal of planting, have been done by the Schoolmaster. That is exactly what the Professor does not find in any University in the three Kingdoms that I can hear of — the reason of which state of things lies in the extremely faulty organisation of the majority of secondary schools. Students come to the Universities ill-prepared in classics and mathe- matics, not at all prepared in anything else ; and half their time is spent in learning that which they ought to have known when they came. I sometimes hear it said that the Scottish Universities differ from the English, in being to a much greater extent places of comparatively elementary education for a younger class of students. But it would seem doubtful if any great difference of this kind really exists ; for a high authority, himself Head of an English College, has solemnly affirmed that : " Elementary teaching of youths under twenty is now the only function performed by the University ; " and that Colleges are "boarding schools in which the elements of the learned languages are taught to youths." * 1 Suggestions for Academical Organisation, with Especial Reference to Oxford. By the Rector of Lincoln. 197 Rectorial Addresses This is not the first time that I have quoted those remarkable assertions. I should like to engrave them in public view, for they have not been refuted ; and I am convinced that if their import is once clearly apprehended, they will play no mean part when the question of University reorganisation, with a view to practical measures, comes on for discussion. You are not responsible for this anomalous state of affairs now ; but, as you pass into active life and acquire the political influence to which your education and your position should entitle you, you will become respon- sible for it, unless each in his sphere does his best to alter it, by insisting on the improvement of secondary schools. Your present responsibility is of another, though not less serious, kind. Institutions do not make men, any more than organisation makes life ; and even the ideal University we have been dreaming about will be but a superior piece of mechanism, unless each student strive after the ideal of the Scholar. And that ideal, it seems to me, has never been better embodied than by the great Poet, who, though lapped in luxury, the favourite of a Court, and the idol of his countrymen, remained through all the length of his honoured years a Scholar in Art, in Science, and in Life. Wouldst shape a noble life ? Then cast No backward glances towards the past : And though somewhat be lost and gone, Yet do thou act as one new-born. What each day needs, that shalt thou ask ; Each day will set its proper task. Give others' work just share of praise ; Not of thine own the merits raise. Beware no fellow man thou hate : And so in God's hands leave thy fate. 1 1 Goethe. I should be glad to take credit for the close and vigorous English version ; but it is my wife's, and not mine. 198 The University a Trainer of Politicians l By William Edward Forster My first words must be my heartfelt thanks to you for electing me your Rector. It is most pleasant to a man advanced in years, and beset by the cares and interests of active life, to receive such a mark of sympathy and ac- knowledgment from so many young men whose present business is thought rather than action ; and it will always be for me a proud recollection to have been thus connected with your ancient University. Your Senatus have now made this connection a lasting one. I need not say I most gratefully value the academic distinction I have just received ; but it reminds me, or rather it impresses upon me, my unfitness for the high honour you have conferred upon me. The fact that I have in no way earned my degree as doctor, and, indeed, could not have attained any University degree whatever, except through the kindness of your authorities, makes me feel it almost presumptuous to appear before you as even the nominal head of your two Colleges. You could hardly, however, have found a Rector less versed in scholastic knowledge or more ignorant of college life than myself, and this deficiency makes it more difficult for me to address you. There are questions deeply concerning your University studies and your own individual careers which must demand your attention and engross your interest, but upon which I feel that I have too little knowledge to make my opinion worth having. It is not for me to question your curriculum or criticise your scholastic system, and it is well for you that my two immediate predecessors were so eminently fitted to advise you on these matters. However, here I am, and my present business is to talk to you for an hour 1 Address delivered 24th November, 1876. 199 Rectorial Addresses: or so. If I ask myself, as I say, what special knowledge I have bearing upon University matters, the answer is dis- couraging. If I ask this other question, who are you, shall I be more encouraged ? Well, I wish I could answer this last question better than I can. We have no time to do any- thing well in these days, or I would gladly have lived among you for a time to try and sympathise with your feelings, and find out your exact whereabouts in life's struggle. One thing is quite clear. You are a new force just come into the field ; you, or most of you, have the battle of manhood still to fight ; though some of you, I suspect, have already rehearsed it only too faithfully in childhood. Your drill is not yet over ; your posts are not yet fixed ; you are, as it were, in training at the depot. Above all you will have to fight hard, and you know it. If Oxford or Cambridge were blest with a Lord Rector, he would, in delivering his address, have before him many young men who would suppose that life had no struggles for them, was to be to them a journey of pleasure. Poor fellows ! they would soon discover their mistake ! But you will not make that mistake ; you know that you, almost all of you, have to make your own way and to earn the pay you will get. So far I am one of you ; I also had to make my own way ; but when I came to the path on which I set out in life, but few of you, I imagine, intend to tread it. Not many of you, I suppose, are looking forward to a commercial career, but the large majority of you to professions ; either legal, or medical, or clerical, or scholastic. Now here again I am at fault. I can give you no hints as to how you should train yourselves to be doctors, or divines, or lawyers. I might indeed be able to give a schoolmaster a suggestion how to meet the requirements of the Education Code, but — thanks to the Dick Bequest and the time-honoured Scotch principles of education — the Privy Council Code is, I am well aware, no measure for an Aberdeen schoolmaster. Well then, how can you and I find a common ground ? Is there nothing on which you might fairly expect me to give you any counsel? I think there is one matter, and that of no slight interest : I am a politician ; for some years politics have been my chief occupation ; you, all of you, are W. E. Forster, 1876 or will be, or ought to be, more or less politicians. Let us then consider during the short time that we are together to-day what help your University life can afford you in training yourselves to be capable politicians. Were I in America, addressing the undergraduates of Harvard or Yale, my advice to them to train and qualify themselves as politicians, would be considered almost an outrage upon good feeling, if not upon good sense. Politicians have a bad name in the States ; and almost all the political dangers of the Great Republic are contained in, or may be deduced from, this fact. I have no time now to attempt to prove this statement, but I am not sure that we in this country are altogether free from the same dangers. Politicians are suspected in America, because in that country politics are too often considered a special profession, a line of business, a mode of making money. But in our country also there must be an immense number of men gaining their liveli- hood by serving the State and by being employed in the administration of its affairs. And there is only one way in which the commonwealth can be saved from its administra- tions, by which the State can master its servants, and that is by appealing to the real source of power in the common- wealth, by constantly reminding of their responsibility all those who have to do with its government. But in Great Britain, at this moment, what is the source of power? Without doubt, it is public opinion. And who are the real governors of the nation ? Not the ministers, who are the servants of the Sovereign ; not the Sovereign, who chooses these Ministers in order that they may carry out the will of the people ; not even the voters, who are, as it were, the machine by which this will is discovered, expressed and registered ; but the men who influence this will, who persuade the voters, who originate and modify public opinion, by writing, by talking, by books or pamphlets or newspaper articles, by sermons or speeches, by conversa- tion with acquaintances or friends, and, above all, by the example of their lives. Now, surely our Universities ought to turn out men able in one or other of these ways to influence public opinion. Last year, when you were choosing your Rector, some Rectorial Addresses: of you thought of one of our most eminent writers and thinkers — my old friend Mr. Greg. I believe you thought of me first, or probably you would have had the good fortune of hearing him instead of me to-day, in which case he would hardly have resisted the temptation of warning the men of the future of what he considers to be the great dangers of the future. It is well for us that we have men like him on the look-out for the " rocks ahead ; " for we Englishmen and Scotchmen are apt to be over confident and not easily frightened. I am one of those who do not believe that we shall run the good ship upon the rocks ; but if we escape, it will be because we see them. Now, Mr. Greg points out to us three rocks — a religious rock, an economical rock, a political rock. Let us look for a moment at what to his view is the political rock. It is this. The House of Commons rules the nation ; the householder already chooses the borough members, and soon will choose the county members. The enormous majority of householders are, and must be, men who live by the work of their hands, who have there- fore no time to gain political knowledge, who, in short, by the conditions of their existence must be ignorant, and therefore dangerous politicians. This is the national danger which he foresees from what he terms " the political supremacy of the lower classes ; " and his eloquent warning ends with these ominous words : " Political power lies naturally with intellect and property ; and what God hath joined man cannot put asunder with impunity." I think you will agree with me that this aphorism is only a half truth. If by "intellect" be meant every mental, and by "property" every material possession, then this aphorism is a truism ; but if by property be meant accumulated wealth, and by intellect, book culture, then I would say that political power rests naturally also with those whose property consists in their skilful hands or their strong muscles, and whose intellect is formed by the lessons of life; and it is industry, self-denial, courage, hard work faithfully performed, that teach these lessons better than any professors ; and the proletariat, whom my friend Mr. Greg dreads so much, has its share of this teaching. But W. E. Forster, 1876 take intellect and property in their restricted sense, and I admit it would be a great calamity for our country if accumulated wealth and book culture had not their share, and a great share, of political power. As to wealth, in this money loving country, I have no fear. Property, in this restricted sense, has taken care and will take care of itself. Those who have will always rejoice in a large following and clientele among those who have not, but who hope to have. The owners of property will keep their rights if they do not wholly forget their duties, and it is a pre-eminent ground for hope in Great Britain that with us there has never been this absolute forgetfulness. But as regards intellect, interpreting it by book culture, I think there is some danger that our cultured classes may be tempted to form the American estimate of politicians, and to turn their minds away from politics, and if so, public opinion, which, I repeat, must be admitted to be the ruling force in this country, will without doubt be weakened, not to say worsened. I do not wish to compliment my audience, but, so far as I can learn, you students of the north are not likely to yield to this temptation. You feel that the citizen- ship of our Commonwealth is no small inheritance, no talent to be laid up in a napkin ; and I do not doubt that, while gaining here the tools with which you are to earn your living in your different callings, and the stores of learning with which you hope to solace your leisure hours, you also desire so to strengthen your powers and increase your information as to be best able to do your duty by your country, or, as I have defined it, to be capable politicians. Now, as you are well aware, in all studies the first desideratum is to define their scope and object Johnson tells us that a " politician " is one " skilled in politics," and that " politics " means " the science of government," " the art or practice of administrating public affairs." If, therefore, you hope to be in any way skilled in British politics, you must first try to define to yourselves what in our country and at this time are " public affairs." I can only ask you to think well over this definition ; to try to arrive at it will be in itself a good lesson in political science ; fully to give it would demand many a lecture from the best possible 203 Rectorial Addresses: Professor. Not since Rome in the height of its power has any Government had such duties to perform, such problems to solve, so many human beings dependent upon its action, as that free and popular Government in which all of us here present have, or will have, our share. This is no matter for boasting or for national pride. It is rather a matter for most serious and anxious thought; for, be assured of this, no nation can afford to leave its duties unfulfilled, its problems unsolved. With nations, the un- profitable servant is assuredly cast into outer darkness. Nations can only be saved by works ; for them no death- bed repentance will avail — their balance must on the whole be on the right side. Let us try for a moment to weigh the burden which our country has taken on itself — that " weary Titan," Staggering on to her goal, Bearing on shoulders immense Atlantean, the load Well-nigh not to be borne Of the too vast orb of her fate. We often talk of our Indian Empire. What does it really mean ? Government in India is a terrible reality. It means not merely law and order, safety to life and property, but protection of more than two hundred millions of men from the forces of nature, more destructive, alas ! there than elsewhere from pestilence and from hunger ; such an arrangement of taxation as shall not dry up the springs of industry; such a foreign rule from without as while controlling the native forces within, shall not starve, or stifle, but rather nourish and strengthen them. Turn from Asia to Africa ; take only one among many African illustrations ; the present and future well-being of those myriads who dwell between the Cape Colony and the Tropics, rests now upon the wisdom of our Colonial Government more than upon any other human agency. Leave Africa and go to the other side of the world, and we find the very existence of the islanders of the Pacific endangered, also by English lawlessness, and only to be saved by English laws and English administration. There is, I fear, sometimes a reckless and cynical selfish- « 204 W. E. Forster, 1876 ness in the manner in which we forget our responsibility in dealing with half-civilized countries, and, as it were, play with their existence in the exuberance of our power. Take for instance the hundreds of millions in the vast Empire of China ; many of you will have read pamphlets, or speeches, or leading articles, coolly discussing whether some step or another, taken to promote our special interests, to push our trade, to save our dignity, or, as it is termed, assert our position, may not break up this Empire and expose its inhabitants to all the terrible evils of anarchy. These cynical writers may over-rate our power, but no doubt for destruction it is immense and terrible. Nor is this power to be despised for construction and for bene- ficent reform. All politicians must sometimes feel that they are but flies upon the wheel of destiny, but a British politician will also occasionally find that his word or his act, apparently unimportant, has as it were by accident, a great result, owing to the immense force of the machinery with which he has to do. I remember that the mere fact that, in a question and answer across the table of the House of Commons, the Portuguese coolie traffic was called a " Slave Trade," had no slight effect in procuring a conces- sion to humanity from the Portuguese Government Nor is Great Britain only an Asiatic, an African, an Australian, or an American Power. Our European neigh- bours, who wish us to do their work for them, to fight their battles, or to pull their chestnuts out of the fire, are never tired of taunting us with our insular indifference and our shopkeeping apathy. Nevertheless, money lovers and money worshippers as we are, it is a foreign question which for many weeks has possessed the public mind. In our intense sensitiveness to our national responsibility sometimes we seem to forget that England alone cannot solve the Eastern problem. But there is no doubt the safety, and well-being, the protection from dire oppression and foul outrage of millions of men and women in European and Asiatic Turkey, do in great measure depend on the part our ministers take in the present international delibera- tion. Surely it ought to be a cause of rejoicing to men of all political parties, that the people, the real governors 205 Rectorial Addresses: whom all ministers must serve, have shown unmistakably that in this matter they desire the just and right thing to be done, and not merely that which might seem to serve some special British interest. But foreign policy affects only a part very often not the principal part of those public affairs in which a British politician ought to be skilled. There is our Colonial problem ; the conditions of which can match in importance and magnitude those of any political problem ever pre- sented for solution — simply this, how the men of our race speaking our language, inheriting our past, like politicians to ourselves, can be preserved in union with us. It may rest with the men of your generation much more than of mine, to solve this problem ; but events march quickly nowadays, and I think we of our time shall have not a little to do with it. And as yet we have not alluded to home affairs which, after all, must be the daily routine work of politics. Great Britain will soon lose her foreign influence — must let some one of her children lead the English-speaking races, if she does not preserve her prosperity, her industry, her energy, her freedom, her order. Here indeed we get beyond the range of politics. It is individual self-denial and virtue, not only in its modern, but also in its classical signification, upon which national prosperity ultimately depends. But there is much here which individuals have as politicians to do ; there is the enormous army of paupers to disband ; there are the multitudes of children whose parents cannot or will not sufficiently teach them — less neglected by the State it is true, than in former years, but still needing more teaching than they get. There is Ireland to conciliate. I may be thought sanguine, but I hope to live to see the day when there will be a real union with Ireland ; when English- men and Scotchmen will, as it were, have compelled this union, by their patient persistence in the offer which Irishmen cannot always refuse — a full share in the conduct of the public affairs of the greatest Empire the world has ever known. Then, again, there is my friend Mr, Greg's rock to avoid. There is the force of democracy, which cannot be resisted, but which may be regulated. Just in proportion 206 W. E. Forster t 1876 as we advance in real civilisation, that is, as we increase the capacity and the power not merely of certain classes of the rich, of the high born, or of the highly cultured, but the average capacity of all the inhabitants — so surely shall we find that one use they will make of this capacity will be to assert their share in the government of themselves and of their country. There is no use mincing the matter ; unless the world goes back, democracy must go forward ; the will of the people must more and more prevail. We cannot prevent numbers ruling ; we can only hope to persuade them to rule well. But without doubt, the fresh political machinery which will be needed will require most careful framing. How, for instance, to arrange our large present constituencies, our still larger constituencies of the future, so as best to save them from " caucuses," so as to rescue them from the guidance of the traders in politics, so as not to sacrifice all other culture to the wire-pulling intellect. But, as I said before, it would take many lectures by the ablest professor in political science to describe or detail the public affairs with which British politicians have to deal. There is only one other feature in our present political life to which I would allude. Public opinion, as I have said, really rules this country ; and yet, was there ever a country in which opinion is so quickly expressed by the public ? Perhaps we ought to except the old Greek Re- publics, but I doubt whether in the Athenian popular assembly opinion was more quickly expressed than in our island, though certainly we interpose greater delay between expression and action, and therefore give time for opinion itself to change. But owing to the comparative smallness of our island, to the similarity in position of all those who care about public affairs in all parts of it, to the fact that the word spoken on any platform may be, and if it is worth hearing, is heard, from John o' Groat's House to the Land's End, and that only one side of a question is presented at one and the same time to almost everybody, we find that the first answer generally given by the public upon any important question is loud and clear, and appears to be unanimous. What we call the wave of public opinion threatens to engulf us. There is no other country so 207 Rectorial Addresses: sensitive ; there is not that quick and instantaneous com- munication in all parts of France ; questions present them- selves differently to the Bavarian and the Prussian, even to the Prussian of the Rhine and the Prussian of Brandenburg ; still more in Austria, it is hardly possible for the German, the Slav, and the Magyar, to come to a similar conclusion ; and even in the States, where political conditions are in many respects so similar to our own, the distances are too enormous to make this unanimity possible : not to speak of the differences in circumstances between the north and the south, and the special position of the Pacific States. Whether or not the fact that we are subject to these electric thrills is an advantage may be disputed ; on the whole I think it is. First impressions are after all the truest, and not seldom first answers are the best, and it is well that we should be able thus unmistakably to get the first answer from public opinion, but that we do so makes it all the more desirable that the public should have opportunity to mature and reconsider its opinion before it makes its Ministers carry it out. Not seldom we complain in the House of Commons of the length of time which by our Parliamentary rules we take in legislation, of the wearisome repetitions which are made possible by second and third readings, by committees and reports ; but when I saw an important and debatable measure pass through all its stages in the House of Representatives in Washington in less than five minutes, I felt that there was something to be said for our system of delay and possible discussion ; especially as we have not the American plan of keeping defeated members in their seats for a year, and thus post- poning the realisation of the wishes of their constituents. At any rate I commend this present condition of British public opinion to those of you who hope by help of your studies to train yourselves to be able to influence it. And now it is time we should come to the real question before us : how can you best get this training during your University career? How can you educate yourselves for the performance of your political duties? Here you will find a consideration applicable to political as to all other studies. You will have two things to do ; not only to 208 W. E. Forster, 1876 increase your knowledge, but also to strengthen your power to apply it. You have to employ your time so as to learn much, and so as to acquire good brain habits. I take it to be the perfection of a scholastic system to arrive at once at both these results, and to give the student the information most useful to him in such manner as to enable him best to use it. If Greek and algebraic problems do not, as some think, give a young man the knowledge he most needs, I cannot admit that teachers have done their work until they can form habits of quick and delicate perceptions and close argument, by teaching him what he most needs to know. But this perfection is not yet arrived at in any University, not even Aberdeen, though if I may judge by your curriculum, probably as much here as elsewhere. Before, however, I enter upon any of the subjects in this curriculum, pardon me if, for a moment, I mount a hobby of my own. Modern languages, I see, are not a part of your University course, but as they are among the subjects for examination in most of your bursaries, I doubt not that the advantage of their acquisition at schools, if not at college, is fully acknowledged by your authorities. Allow me to say that I think it is difficult to over-rate this advantage. The time, I trust, will soon come when it will be thought as absurd for a scholar — and every University graduate is a scholar — to finish his education, to leave the schools without being able to read, write, and speak French and German, as it now is for a boy to leave an elementary school without being able to read and write his mother tongue. It needs no political aspirations to enforce this statement. Owing to the constant increase of international communication, the want of this knowledge is already a most serious inconvenience. For myself, I sometimes feel that I would sell all that I learnt before I was twenty-one, excepting, of course, what I might have learnt at an elementary school, for the ability to hold converse with Frenchmen and Germans, as if they were Englishmen. At any rate, your classical and mathematical professors might pardon me if I say that no acquaintance with Greek plays, no facility in making Latin verses, no skill in apply- ing the Differential or Integral Calculus will be of much o 209 Rectorial Addresses: comfort to you when you find yourself, as it were, deaf and dumb in a foreign country. For it is not the mere ability to read French and German books that will suffice. The foreign facts that a politician most wants are the feelings and thoughts of foreigners, and these no interpreter can fully give ; but if you can talk French and German you can sympathise with all classes of the nations with whom we are most in contact, and indeed with the cultured classes in all civilised countries. I wonder how it was when Latin, instead of French, was the common language of civilisation ; for instance, when Alexander Borgia did what, so far as I know, was the sole good deed of his Papal reign — issued his bull founding King's College, Aberdeen — I wonder whether Oxford or Cambridge turned out scholars as generally able to talk Latin fluently as did Paris, or Bologna, or Prague. I ven- ture to doubt it, for if it had been so I hardly think our English classical pronunciation would now sound so strange, almost unintelligible, on the Continent. I admit that this remark applies to England rather than to Scotland, and indeed I imagine that on the average you Scotchmen have more facility for acquiring foreign languages than we Englishmen. If so, the more shame for you if you finish your education without acquiring them. It strikes me that you did not cheer that last statement quite as enthusiastic- ally as you did the former one. Nor is it only for the sake of comprehending foreign nations and foreign politics that I would insist on the value of a knowledge of modern languages in dealing with public affairs. There is hardly a subject in home politics which can be fully mastered without comparing our treatment of it with that of our civilised neighbours. True, every man making any claim to polite culture, even in our isolated land, can read a French book or newspaper ; but still, generally speaking, it is but a small proportion of our scholars — I hope not in Aberdeen — to whom German is a living language, and yet consider how the Germans at this moment influence the civilised world. And as to French — how many words most of us let slip, unless we have a dictionary at hand. And how few of us really master the French style. If you W. E. Forster, 1876 wish to form an effective style in composition, you will be greatly helped by studying good French writers — historians, essayists, or even pamphleteers and journalists. There is a simplicity and clearness in good French political writings which strike me as especially worthy of imitation. If you wish to influence the opinions of others, your object ought to be to present your arguments as clearly as possible, and to present these arguments only. All flights of rhetoric, all arrangements of words which make the reader think, even with admiration, of the writer rather than of the subject, are so much wasted or misused power. I may be told that the best style is gained from classical studies. I doubt it. I remember as a young man being fascinated by Tacitus, by the reserved force and hidden strength in his sentences ; each argument, each statement, almost each phrase, having more meaning than is at first apparent. I was so fascinated that in my youthful efforts at composition I insensibly tried to imitate his style, and it took me much reading of good English and French authors to find out how much more really forcible than compression is transparent clearness. Especially is this necessary to remember, if we would avoid Mr. Greg's political rock. In order to influence the voting masses, we must not propound to them riddles, but enable them to read as they run ; we must let them see the whole of our arguments, and ask them to follow us in our reasoning step by step ; and we must present the same argument to them in different forms. May I give you two English writers who to my mind had this gift of clearness almost in perfection, though used by them to very different purposes — Bolingbroke and Cobden. Read, for instance, The Idea of a Patriot King and Russia by a Manufacturer, or The Three Panics, and then, when you go to Paris, buy the political pamphlet of the day, and you will find something of the same enviable lucidity. But let me hasten to make my peace with the men of old, and, indeed, of the present regime. Do not suppose that I contemplate anything so outrageous as the neglect or disuse of the classics by our young politicians of the future, in order to make way for modern languages. To my mind French and German are educational necessities, Rectorial Addresses : but so also is a thorough knowledge of Latin. To a man ignorant of Roman laws and institutions, British and Con- tinental and American laws and institutions are almost unintelligible ; but without doing our best to enter into the spirit of the men who by their deeds made Rome history, we cannot fully comprehend either the history of the middle ages, or recent European history, or indeed the present aspect of civilised society. For this purpose we must read their thoughts as they themselves express them, and look at their lives, if we can, with the eyes of their contemporaries. Do I apply the same remark to Greek, I may be asked ; and if not, why ? Does modern society owe less to Greece than to Rome ? Are not more political lessons to be gained from Thucydides than from Livy? Is not Demosthenes as good a model of eloquence as Cicero ? In what Roman, or indeed in what author of any country, can you find such good teaching of the science of politics, both in matter and method, as in Plato and Aristotle ? And as regards that culture of the taste and of the imagination without which it is hard to acquire the power of persuasion, can Virgil and Terence be compared with Homer and Euripides? All these questions must be answered in favour of Greek ; and the only excuse that can be pleaded is that life, especially University life, is short. If you have time at your disposal, by all means possess yourselves of Greek as completely as I suppose most of you do of Latin. Perhaps you do find the time ; if so, let me not discourage you. Your Greek will be a comfort, a luxury to you in after life. But if time drives you to pick and choose, these two con- siderations may occur to you. Surely Greek is a much more difficult language than Latin ; its thorough mastery takes much time. And then it appears to me that the political usefulness of Greek is mainly in the theory of politics. The youth of our political life has been nurtured under Roman influence, so that Roman action and thought come within the range of practical politics. But the great Greek philosophers help us rather in the formation of political thought, by teaching us systems of logic and dis- cussing theories of mental philosophy. For this purpose a translation, though a poor substitute for the original, may 212 W. E. Forster t 1876 possibly serve. It is easier by translation to convey argu- ments and theories than to instil the spirit of an age, or to enable us to sympathise with a people. Languages, however, whether classical or modern, form but part of your studies. I understand that no student can become a Master of Arts unless he passes satisfactorily your classes of English, logic, moral philosophy, mathe- matics, natural philosophy, and natural history. That agonising groan shows how hard you are working at it. And I find, taking one of your last Calendars, that "English" means English language and literature, including the prin- ciples of rhetoric applied to English composition ; and moral philosophy includes not only metaphysics — that is, the philosophy of the human mind — but also theoretical or practical ethics and political economy. I read your Calendar with a somewhat regretful pleasure. How much easier should I have found my political work, if, as a young man, I had been well grounded in all the studies necessary for your degree. Some mathematical knowledge it was my lot to acquire, and with it, to some extent, the mental habit of not taking assumptions for granted, and of defining what is and what is not a proof. Alas, I fear I have for- gotten my Euclid, and the calculus or its application would be a labyrinth of figures in which I should now be hopelessly lost ; but I value, as you also will value, this brain habit as one of my most precious possessions. Metaphysics, if not studied at College, is a possible subject for self-culture in after leisure; and most young men of thoughtful or enquiring mind will propose to themselves the metaphysical problems if they have not been proposed to them by others. " What am I ? " is a question we most of us try to answer at some time of our lives, with more or less of success ; and it may be well for you to be helped at College to find the answer, so that when left to yourselves your time and energies may be free for the further questions : " What can I do ? " and " How can I do it ? " With regard to ethics, I hardly need dwell on the political advantage of its study ; and as to political economy the mastery of its principles is an absolute necessity to every man who ventures to term himself a politician. 213 Rectorial Addresses: May I ask a few words in relation to jurisprudence, and dogmatic as well as natural theology? I know not, of course, the connection of your schools with one another, and therefore cannot tell how far the student in one school is expected to ground himself in the special studies of another ; but returning to Johnson's definition, no man can be skilled in the science of government or in the art and practice of administrating public affairs, who has not at any rate tried to learn what can or should be done in any common- wealth by its laws, and how they should be enforced. And again, as regards theology : It is a subject of such intense personal and social interest that we are apt to overlook its political importance ; but how, for instance, can a man, ignorant of the distinctive features of the Papal system, or who has not tried to find out what a Roman Catholic believes, come to a true opinion with regard to the conflict between Prince Bismarck and the Pope, which is in fact but a fresh campaign in the old war between Church and State, between Guelph and Ghibelline ; or how can he judge between M. Gambetta and the French Bishops in their educational contest ? And again any man who tries to master the present Eastern Question, must know why and how the Greek Church differs from the Roman, and what is the meaning of Mohammedanism, and the real teaching of the Koran ; and how can a man be fit to take part in the administration of India to whom Brahminism and Buddhism are meaningless words ? But I might take illustrations much nearer home. Suppose a man utterly ignorant of Scotch Presbyterianism, its doctrines and its history, what would he understand of Scotland, and what chance would he have of dealing successfully with Scotch public affairs? And yet theological knowledge is not often, I fear, considered necessary by politicians. Of all home questions the most important by far is that of a State Church ; and yet certainly in England, possibly in Scotland, there are many politicians who wish to disestablish and disendow the English and Scotch Churches, and not a few who strive to defend them, without having even attempted to define to themselves their doctrines, and how or why they became churches at all ; and who merely consider 214 W. E. Forster, 1876 their relation to the State, without trying to estimate their real raison d'etre. Some of these mental and moral studies may be pursued after scholastic education is finished, though, doubtless, with far more difficulty ; but with two of your necessary subjects this difficulty is far greater, for many persons, I almost fear, practically insuperable. It is hard to learn logic or the physical sciences without the help of the lecturer or the mental discipline of the class-room. I should be wasting words in dwelling upon the advantage, for my object, of acquiring the art of reasoning, but the political use of the physical sciences, though not so apparent, is to my mind almost as great. After all, man has to deal with nature as well as with his fellow-men ; and though much of this contest must be individual, yet in much of it also men bind themselves together and fight and conquer nature in communities and in states, and thus public affairs become, to a certain extent, scientific affairs. How, for instance, contend with pauperism and crime without ascertaining the conditions of squalor and misery of which they appear to be the necessary consequences ; and if a man be altogether unacquainted with natural science he cannot ascertain these conditions for himself, he must take them second-hand from an expert ; he not only has to ask the chemist or the physiologist to explain to him the laws of nature which he has to enforce — that, under any circum- stances, if he be wise, he will do — but he cannot even read these laws, they are to him a dead language. Again, education is, and must for long continue to be, a political subject, not only what elementary education the State must encourage and enforce, but in what manner it should assist or try to improve secondary schools, and even Universities. A committee of politicians is now, in the shape of a commission, considering the condition of your Universities ; and you appear to wish that they should do so, and there seems in Scotland to be an almost unanimous demand that the State should interfere with your secondary schools, and especially with their endowments. Now, how can higher education, either at school or at the University be placed upon the best possible footing — and that I 215 Rectorial Addresses: imagine to be the object of State interference — without an intelligent appreciation of the educational claims of the physical sciences, and especially of the extent to which they may be allowed to encroach upon the old classical domain ? I cannot make this remark without congratulating both the friends of science and all who care for your University, either as authorities or students, that you have my predecessor on your University Commission. I know from experience that it needs an exceptional amount of ignorance to withstand the rare power which Professor Huxley has of imparting information. But these physical sciences are almost as useful to the political student in method as in matter. I speak, alas ! from hearsay rather than from experience, but am I not right in saying that, as in mathematics no deduction is permitted, or indeed is possible, except from a truth which is relevant to the truth which is sought ; so in experimental science, no result is considered to be obtained by induction, unless all attainable facts have been weighed and compared. The scientific method may then be considered for a politician a better brain habit than the mathematical, because we are forced so often in public affairs to proceed by induction, and how much more successfully we should proceed if before coming to a conclusion we made it a rule to take all facts into account. And this brings me to the subject which, of all others, bears perhaps more directly upon the general purport of my remarks, and that is the study of history. There is indeed no study more necessary to a man who tries to do his duty to his country. The records of history are the storehouse of facts for the politician. They give him guidance and warning ; they record for him the experiments of the political laboratory. It is not for me to discuss whether history ought to be made with you a special subject, and to have a class for itself; but fortunately there is no study more easy to pursue in after life, and few so pleasant or so little irksome. I should indeed be presumptu- ous if I propounded to you any scheme of historical study, but as one to whom history has been a constant delight, and as a politician who feels that without it he would have ai6 W. E. Forster, 1876 been almost helpless, may I venture upon one or two hints, and especially as regards its relation to the conduct of public affairs. History, studied with intelligence, ought to teach us toleration of our opponents, moderation in feeling and in expression. There are pros and cons, honest counter convictions in every political question. If there be not, it ceases to be a question, and becomes an axiom. No man can convince his opponents unless he tries to sym- pathise with them, and indeed he cannot easily conquer them. A good general strives hard to know the exact position of his enemy. And that there are these two sides you will learn by finding that there always have been. But another lesson, even more important, history teaches, and that is the danger of indifference, the limit to toleration ; the fact that though there be two sides the balance must be on the one side or the other, and if the balance is on the wrong side the penalty must be paid. Take, for instance, our civil war ; how much had both Cavaliers and Round- heads to say for themselves, and yet, if Strafford's " Thorough " policy had succeeded, what Tory now would deny that the course of despotic rule would have blighted the hopes of England. Nevertheless, if at the beginning moderation had prevailed, if the Falklands had had their way and men had tried to sympathise with one another, the long and bitter war might not have been needed to prevent the despotism. But this strong practical warning we may all of us take home ; that no dislike to want of moderation in those whom we think on the right side ; no feeling of distaste or disapproval, however reasonable, will justify our not supporting that side ourselves with all our strength, if we think it ought to succeed. The sceptical, dilettante notion, that in politics nothing matters, that whatever we do or is done, there will be still as much good — or rather as much evil — in the world, will be utterly dispelled from your minds if you read history aright. And indeed there are two convictions which to my mind, history impresses most strongly. First, that everything matters, and from the beginning of time has mattered ; that every national act, every individual act that effects the nation, brings its certain national consequences; and next, that these acts 217 Rectorial Addresses: have been over-ruled for good ; that upon the whole, from age to age, men have become better off; that the adminis- tration of public affairs has improved ; that there has been a plan in accordance with which the faculties and powers and virtues of the human race have become more and more developed, and therefore their individual well-being more secure ; in a word, that the law of humanity is progress. And if this belief in progress once takes hold of a man, what hope, what strength it gives him in the performance of his political duties ! All politicians, all patriots have not this help. There are good and wise men who, though fearing for their country, hoping little for their race, yet strive with all their might to withstand for a time the attack of the powers of evil ; men who, seeing darkness before them, yet strive to keep alight the expiring torch. I admire their strength ; I feel that I could not hope to possess their fortitude; but what would not these men be able to do if they felt that light must dispel the darkness, that truth must prevail ; that neither the doom of fate nor the misdeeds of other men can prevent any one of us leaving the world better than he found it, if he but does his duty? But I may be reminded of a danger not foreign to these considerations. This idea of progress implies a law, a plan, a foreordained purpose — an overruling destiny. If so, what matters the individual action ? Humanity will develop itself; the world will get on, whatever either you or I or any one of us does. May we not, then, eat, drink, and be merry, and let the world take care of itself? Again, if we look at humanity as a whole, if we try, as it were, to per- sonify the human race, does not the individual personality become lost in a sense of its powerlessness ? I do not deny this danger. I warn you of it. I shall never forget the vividness of two intellectual sensations — first, the delight of finding that the plan of humanity is a law of progress ; that the records of the past are not merely a jumble of battles, of events, or even a collection of biographies ; but that they disclose a constant purpose, and enable us to watch a continuous growth : and next the disheartening, deadening feeling of hopeless insignificance in the thought that this 218 W. E. Forster, 1876 but proved that I must fulfil the law ; that I was forced to carry out the plan ; that I was as little able to act my own part as can a cog in a wheel disarrange the machinery in which it is placed. Few students of sociology, as this study of history is sometimes termed, can altogether escape this feeling. There is no reason to doubt, there is every reason to believe that if we knew all the facts of society as thoroughly as an astronomer knows his facts, we could forecast future events as clearly as he can the course of the stars, and though we are all aware that neither we nor any one of us can ever have this knowledge, we cannot but shrink from the thought that there may be a law which rules the affairs of men as absolutely as that which the physical sciences disclose in material sequence. I am getting now into deep waters, too deep for an address such as this ; but I think you will find that history will itself enable you to escape from the deadening fear. This fear is but the old problem of Fate and Free Will in a new form, which history will prove to you has never been solved ; the story of other men's lives, as well as the ex- perience of your own, will force you to admit that the insolubility of this problem is a condition of existence. But history will also tell you this, in which you may take comfort, that as with individuals, so with nations, just in proportion as there has been a sense of overruling power, call it Fate, or God's will, or the law of humanity (and if there be a law, must there not be a law giver?), just in proportion as this conviction has possessed men and nations with its awful truth, have those men and those nations shown the power of their individual wills. The disciples and St. Paul obeyed a call, Mahomet believed in his mission, William III. was a Calvinist, Napoleon had faith in his star. And when we go from individuals to states, we may learn another important lesson. Progress does not neces- sarily imply progress in virtue ; no improvement to the mental faculties teaches self-denial ; no education, no culture of the brain gives power to resist temptation ; no conquest over nature gives man power over himself. And therefore we have eras in which material and intellectual civilisation is much advanced, but without spiritual progress ; in which 219 Rectorial Addresses: each average man becomes stronger, as it were bigger, but not better, with more power, it is true, but not necessarily with a will to use that power aright ; and then vice and the misery which it brings are only so far lessened that the strong are less able to oppress the weak because the weak have become stronger. But it is far different in the ages of great spiritual development. It is when men have had faith in the unseen that they have had power over them- selves, and therefore power over others, and then it has been that the world has made its steps forward, and if, at any time, there has been a nation more than others possessed by this faith, hearing the call from above, seeing the work which has to be done, the task to be fulfilled, that nation has then led the van in the world's march. And, as it has been, so it will be, and there are some who are not without the hope, that in our, or rather your time, and in our country, there may again be faith as there was of old ; who feel that Englishmen and Scotchmen long to have the religious fervour, without the fierceness of the Puritans or of the followers of John Knox, and that this longing will not be always in vain. We have been warned that there is a religious rock ahead far more dangerous than the political or the economic rocks — the divorce, as it has been termed, of the intelligence of the country from its religion. If there be really this divorce no one can exaggerate the danger, but amid all the religious confusions, all the Church quarrels which beset us, there seem to me some signs that the intelligence of our country will not only not be divorced from religion, but will again find its full religious expression. May each one of you so train and strengthen his faculties that he may take his share in the work which England and Scotland will have to do, if that blessed time shall really come. Before I conclude these crude remarks, let me anticipate one or two objections. " Do you really consider," I may be asked, " all this culture necessary to train a politician ; must a man have this information and this power to use it before he be fit to form an opinion on public affairs? If so, surely those must be right who think that the W. E. Forster, 1876 enlargement of the suffrage must indeed become its dangerous degradation." I must refer you to what I have already said, that book culture and mental training are only a part of life culture, and that many a working man gains more knowledge how to deal with his fellow men from his work, than most students can gain from lectures and classes. But we may also remember this fact, that the final and actual question submitted to the verdict of popular opinion, or presented to the voters, is, generally speaking, even in complicated or difficult subjects, a simple issue. Most often the complications and the difficulties are not as to the object or aim, but rather as to the means ; we see what ought to be done, but not how to do it. Political ethics will generally decide the first question, but for the second knowledge is needed, and without doubt the man who knows, or even appears to know, how to get a thing done, will be able to influence opinion as to what should be done. But is all this knowledge needed even to influence opinion ? By no means. Many of the most powerful politicians in our country, and in all countries, have been half-educated men, making up for a deficiency of culture by strength and persistence of will, by force of sympathy, by power of passion, by intuitive perception, by eloquence of expression. If any one having these natural faculties now hears me, the world will hear of him, and would hear of him had he never been at Aberdeen, but he will be the first hereafter to acknowledge the advantage which he owes to his University. All that I contend for is that book culture helps a politician, and even to this statement there must be some limitation. He must not be so possessed with his knowledge of books as to forget his knowledge of men ; for instance, a clever logician may be tempted to try to carry out a true principle to its fullest logical results, ignoring the feeling and circumstances of the men with whom he deals, and forgetting that to carry out one true principle, without trying at the same time to carry out all the true principles affecting the matter in hand, is to enforce a half truth, and that half truths are as dangerous in practice as in theory. A politician, indeed, who relies solely on book culture without knowledge of 221 Rectorial Addresses men is at best like a man with a life-belt out of his depth and unable to swim. But here again I must expect another objection ; if you provide all the University students with life-belts, will they not many of them be plunging out of their depth ? Have we not already political busybodies enough without this attempt to make every graduate think that he can or should influence public opinion ? To this question my reply is very brief. Political culture will not make political busybodies ; the result will be modest reticence rather than presumptuous meddling. In so far as you get real political culture, you cannot avoid influencing public opinion by your daily life and in your intercourse with your fellows, and I think we often forget how knowledge thus leavens the mass ; but also in so far as your training is good, both sound and varied, it will not tempt you to rush into print, or on to the platform, and will rather make you feel that you must keep silent unless you have something to say which ought to be said, and, what is more, will make your standard of what ought to be said much higher. Only one further remark, and I have done. Do not suppose that even the natural faculties I have mentioned, not if all pos- sessed by one gifted man — no, nor yet if they have all received the best possible culture of the best possible Uni- versity — are all the requisites for a true politician. There remain these two absolute necessities— the knowledge, the quick perception of right and wrong ; and the desire to do right. It is not for me to turn this address into a sermon, or to attempt to preach the lessons which many a man here has learnt in his Highland home from the Bible read by his father or mother ; but remember this, that the politician you have so kindly heard to-day declares that of all possible occupations, politics is the most unprofitable, the least worth following, if for any personal or still more tempting party object its true aim be forgotten ; and that true aim is this — the fulfilment by our country of her duty, by which fulfilment, and by which alone, can be secured her power, and her prosperity, and the well-being of her sons. 332 History and a Chair of History 1 By the Earl of Rosebery What am I to say to you, gentlemen ? That is a question which has constantly occurred to me. What is a young man to say to young men, unless he is more learned or more able than they are ? He can give them neither advice nor experience ; he has no right to be didactic, he can scarcely hope to be impressive. And yet, if there ever was a conception which might lend inspiration to dullards, it would be the idea of address- ing a body of men burning with the generous sympathies of youth, strong with the robust qualities, both mental and physical, of the Scottish race, standing under the shadow of an ancient University, upon the brink of that world in which they are so soon to plunge. They know some of the evils which beset life, yet they are not afraid to face them ; they contemplate the future, not with distrust, but with confidence ; they are prepared for the responsibilities of manhood and the citizenship of a great empire. Day by day the burden of that empire waxes greater ; day by day the responsibilities of manhood will become more onerous ; day by day the future unveils itself before your eyes. And at this critical moment of your lives, I find myself chosen as your Rector, and set to address you ; chosen, I believe, as being, like you, a young Scotsman, though much older than yourselves, from sympathy rather than respect, from a sense of kinship rather than a hope of guidance. Let me express, in the first place, a heartfelt sense of gratitude to you for your confidence. It was a great honour to me when, two years ago, you chose me as your Rector ; and though various unforeseen circumstances have pre- vented my coming among you to deliver the Address 1 Address delivered 5th November, 1880. 223 Rectorial Addresses: which is the sign of inauguration, yet I have been able to take a humble part in the business of your University. But I can never forget, however slight my connection with you may be, that you called me, having no local connec- tion, and being personally unknown, to this post, rendered illustrious not merely by its own importance and antiquity, but also by the reputation of my predecessors ; and though I am conscious how inadequate I am to fill their place, yet I must always remain by your spontaneous action united in the bonds of affection and gratitude to the University of Aberdeen . I have spoken of the greatness, of the increasing great- ness of the empire. A share of that empire must devolve upon you ; and I confess that it is in the spirit of that reflection that I consider with awe the assembly before me. The destinies of a nation are in the hands of its youth. How large a part of our destinies must lie in the hands of near seven hundred students, nurtured by the very fact of high culture in the proudest aspirations, gifted with that fervid spirit which is the distinction of our race, and endowed, I doubt not, as many of you are, with an intellect which is popularly supposed to possess some of the attributes of that granite soil on which you live. Do not mistake me, gentlemen. I do not mean that those before me are necessarily to sit in Parliament either in this country or in our colonies. The executive and legislative powers are only a part of the life of the nation. They both depend upon the character of the nation itself ; and the nation must largely take that character from its educated class, of which you will form, I trust, a powerful element. Whether you enter the Church, or whether you practise in law or in medicine, — whether you undertake the functions of guiding the mind of youth, or whether, without profession, you pass through life as honest and cultivated men, you, in virtue of the training you have received, must give a colour to the society in which you live. Gentlemen, I sometimes think, in relation to this question, that we are apt to forget what the functions of a University really are with regard to the nation. We hear a great deal of the various Faculties, of new Professorships, of the questions relating to scholarships 224 Earl of Rosebery, 1880 and endowments ; we have commissions, and we have reports. But there are vital points lying outside the compass of this radius of educational investigation, with which inquiry does not, and indeed cannot, deal. Are we not a little apt to disregard the camel in straining after the gnat, to con- sider culture and to forget character, to lose sight of the end in anxiety about the means ? What, after all, is the object of University training, and indeed of all training? Is it not to produce a man, — a learned man, a cultivated man, a brilliant man, if you will ; but, after all, and before all, a man, and an honest man ? Now, of course, a University can only partially effect this purpose. Rousseau would tell you that learning is itself the bane, and that a University is the worst place in the world to produce virtue. He tells you that erudition is the sign of decadence, and that lettered and cultivated nations have always succumbed to the rude heroism of barbarous tribes. Such a paradox is not worth considering. The Germans of this generation have completely demolished it, and I think the Scots themselves form a very ugly pro- blem to a philosopher holding such ideas. But in the doctrine, however extravagant it may seem, there is a germ of truth. Learning is by no means everything. By far the largest amount of training for manhood must be internal, must be undergone without help from teachers or from libraries. " In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often," in blood and iron is the destiny of man wrought out. " I was not swaddled, rocked, and dandled into a legislator," proudly exclaimed Burke ; but is any one so swaddled and dandled ? People may be rocked and dandled into insig- nificance, but they cannot be rocked and dandled into eminence. And this formation of character, this direction of energy, must be an internal process. I speak, of course, of secular means ; for I would not casually introduce the religious aspect of the case into what I am going to say. It could not form merely a part, and therefore, rather than touch on it in a transitory manner, I deem it more reverent to omit it altogether. But as regards the formation of character, the University is only an anxious, unconscious agent. She supplies rich and rare materials ; not Solomon's p 22$ Rectorial Addresses : temple was supplied in a more catholic and imperial spirit ; but she can only sit by and watch whether the result be a shapeless block or the perfect figure of a noble man. You have before you now, gentlemen — you have within you, I would rather say — the clay and the marble, the chisel is in your hand, the dazzling models of antiquity are before you ; every day that leaves the marble untouched is lost, each day may add a masterstroke to a masterpiece ; can you not, then, understand how solemn and suggestive a thing it is for the Rector of your choice to address you at such a moment — the crisis of your lives ? And it is no light matter, this choice of a Rector. It may not, indeed, be of such vital importance to yourselves as it was to your predecessors of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The crowd of students from all parts of the world, who recognised neither country nor language in a University, but regarded it simply as one of a harmonious sisterhood of such institutions spread over Europe by the Church for the preservation and promotion of learning, no longer need a Rector to watch over their interests. The nations into which they grouped themselves indeed exist, but no longer include such varied races. Nor do you now require an official to protect you against ecclesiastical usurpa- tion or baronial tyranny. In truth, the Rector, as regards his original functions, might perhaps have followed his colleagues, the Censor and the Economus. But as a matter of fact, all University Commissions however enlightened and however austere, have always respected and preserved the office of Rector, and, if I may say so, wisely respected and preserved it. For it is not only the means by which you connect yourselves with the government of the Uni- versity, it is the means also by which you keep up your connection with the great world outside. From your ancient cloisters you look forth every three years and select candidates, whose merits you sift and discuss, partly as persons with whom you sympathise or whom you admire in the abstract, and partly as persons who, from local or accidental circumstances, may be useful to your University. Sometimes, indeed, the contest is almost purely political, and reflects the passions that are raging 226 Earl of Rosebery, 1880 outside ; sometimes it is almost purely local, while some- times it is neither ; and we may arrive at the quaint spectacle of Mr. Ruskin and Mr. Bright in apparent opposition and rivalry. The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge give no such opportunities to their students, unless the demon- strations in the theatres on honorary degree days may be deemed articulate expressions of opinion. But in Scotland we have Rectors, and I hope we shall continue to have them as an essential part of an ancient system, as a link between the students and the governing body, as a link between the University and the world. And perhaps, then, as your representative in the Uni- versity Court, I may touch upon what appears to me to be a striking defect in your University system. I have said that the University offers you the noble models of antiquity for imitation. But I venture to deem it a flagrant omission that she hardly puts before you at all the giant and immediate shapes of modern and mediaeval history. It is an omission from the threefold view in which the University may be regarded (for she wears, like the power which founded her, a triple crown) ; she is the custodian and repository of learning, she is the teacher of what can be taught, and she has that third function of which I have spoken, which she can only partially and imperfectly fulfil, the formation of individual character. It is obvious, of course, that the partial omission at any rate of the study of modern history from the University in her capacity as a teacher and as a repository of learning, is a grave defect. I would, therefore, rather deal with it as regards the formation of individual character, which I have spoken of as the most important while it is the most indirect function of the University. For what, after all, is history? It is not merely that history records the life of nations, and that the life of nations and of men is much the same — the dark infancy, the aspiring youth, the stern realisation of manhood, the fruition or barrenness of maturity, and perhaps also the decay of old age — but that it is the story of human effort, the treasure-house of human biography, and therefore of noble models and of splendid inspiration. When we peruse the life of a great man, it is common to find that his favourite 227 Rectorial Addresses: reading was Plutarch's Lives, and yet from how small a range could Plutarch choose his subjects compared to that which history can now present before us ! He only painted on a few inches of an immeasurable canvas, he only plucked a branch from a primeval forest. Against history as a scientific study, or indeed as a recreation, something may well be said. " Read me any- thing but history," said Sir Robert Walpole, " for that must be false." And, indeed, it is doubtful if history can even remotely approach accuracy. We know every day of numberless reports which circulate as true, and which remain uncontradicted, and which must of necessity remain uncontradicted, unless men would spend their lives in negation. There is no village too small to afford proofs that exact record is almost impossible, partly from the inherent carelessness of gossip, partly from deliberate falsification, partly from the unconscious colouring that an individual mind will give to meagre facts. While history, up to the sixteenth century, suffers from scarcity of evidence, the history of our own times will suffer much more from a suspicious amplitude of material ; the years of plenty will be worse than the years of famine. And, taking this gloomy view, it would appear that to urge the claims of history, when we are unable to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion about personages so well known as Queen Elizabeth, or George III., or the first Napoleon, is a futile and, indeed, a sarcastic effort. I speak, of course, of singleminded search after truth. I am not thinking of those ingenious writers who love to decorate some great criminal with padded virtues, and can, therefore, invest their narratives with all the charm of imagination and paradox. Nor, on the other hand, do I wish to allude to that other class, the body-snatchers of history, who dig up dead reputations for malignant dissec- tion. But however earnestly it may be pursued, historical truth is difficult to secure. Like a wayward vein of precious metal, it sometimes abounds on the surface, and sometimes shifts in sands, and again will bury itself in the heart of the hills. Take, for example, two prominent persons in Scottish 228 Earl of Rosebery, 1880 history. You could hardly find two men whose names are more familiar to those who have learned their alphabet than Macbeth, the henpecked murderer, and Rizzio, the soft Italian victim of Scottish pride and Scottish jealousy. We know that Rizzio was slain, and, indeed, on payment of a small fee, you may see his blood on the floor. We believe him to have expiated in this way the dangerous fascination which he exercised over a beautiful woman. But we have no means of ascertaining his fascinations or even his age, and probability points to his having been extremely old as well as extremely ugly. Macbeth, again, has been presented to us by Shakespeare as a turbulent and unscrupulous villain. It would not be possible now to paint over what has been portrayed by supreme genius, but all our historians appear to agree in this, that the reign of Macbeth was a period of unexampled peace, prosperity, and justice. In fact, if we wished to hold up for singular admiration a Scottish monarch, it would be difficult to prefer any to the man whose hapless fate it has been to be handed down to splendid immortality as a great historical criminal. But, indeed, admitting that history is inaccurate, it does not follow that it is useless for our purpose. I would go further, and say that for our purpose the accuracy of history does not signify. What we want is the bold colouring of character and the grand march of events. Whether Macbeth was really a scoundrel or not does not matter. If he had descendants, it might be important to them to vindicate his memory. For us he points a moral and adorns a tale. We see the gradual march of guilt, the uneasy success following crime, and the tragedy of complete retribution. We want events to guide us and characters to warn us, but we do not require in events the exact detail of a Meissonier or a Blaremberghe, nor do we insist on the proper costume being placed on the actor so long as he plays his part. Well, then, in spite of the objection to history on the score of inaccuracy, I humbly conceive that a University is unable to perform its functions as regards the formation of character without a professorship of modern history. But there is an omission of part of modern history, which, strange Rectorial Addresses: to say, is worse than the omission of the whole. For I cannot help regarding it as a stain not merely on this Uni- versity, but on all our Scottish Universities, that there is no provision for the teaching of Scottish history. While history in general is valuable in the one sense in which I wish to attribute value to it on the present occasion, the history of our native country is not merely useful and interesting, but absolutely essential ; and I confess that it seems to me the greatest of omissions that there is no provision for teaching it. We must not lay the fault on our founders ; they were employed in making that history, and had no leisure to devote to narrative or research. There is no great fault, indeed, to be attributed to any one, for during the last two centuries the Scots have had so much ground to make up, and have made up so much ground, that they can hardly be charged with sins of omission. Nor do I wish to be misunderstood. I think there should be a professorship of Scottish history in Scotland, but not as representing an essential school or faculty. I would rather have it like a professorship of Belles Lettres, which is, as it were, outside the academical course, but which provides lectures which all may well attend as a relaxation from that course ; or like the Chair of Gaelic which is about to be founded at Edinburgh, and which represents a patriotic determination not to let that die out which is intimately connected with the life of the country. Mr. Froude, indeed, has eloquently sketched a more ambitious scheme — a scheme which would realise the most extended hopes. If it could be carried out it would renew and strengthen the connection between the youth and the traditions of Scotland. But I half fear lest there should not be space in the academical course for so complete a system. I suspect the history course at Oxford is followed by a more leisurely class than exists to any extent at the Scottish Universities. Still we can only bow to the authority of that great historical master, while I feel that if Mr. Froude's scheme could be adopted I should re- joice ; but in default of that, if we could only achieve a less ambitious professorship I should be content. The great point is that there should be a commencement, and that we should not be liable to the reproach of producing highly 230 Earl of Rosebery, 1880 educated Scotsmen who know all about the Ephors and nothing about the Lords of the Articles. It is a truism to say that the knowledge of the history of one's native country is not merely an educational advan- tage, but a positive duty. We need not go so far as Buchanan or your first Principal Boece, and evolve out of our inner consciousness eight centuries of imaginary reigns, with their proper kings and appropriate Dutch portraits in Holyrood, so that our records may be more complete and more ancient than those of our neighbours. But at the same time it does not seem desirable, to put it on the lowest grounds, that we should ignore what has occurred in former days, the long agony of the country's growth and establish- ment, and bound our historical survey with some date of modern politics, such as the Disruption or the first Reform Bill. The history of Scotland is not a cold register of dates and treaties ; it stirs the blood like a trumpet ; no stranger can read it without emotion. But when we reflect that those who battled and endured (for the history of Scotland during four centuries is little less than a long martyrdom) are bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, when we con- sider that our qualities and defects as a race are the direct result of those circumstances, when we know that the country which has charms to attract the whole civilised world is but an empty scene to those who cannot people it from the past, when we observe how history is liable to repeat itself, and that, in dealing with Scotsmen, we must expect them to be made in the same mould as their predecessors, it seems one of those mistakes which are worse than crimes for a native of Scotland to ignore the history of his country. And, indeed, if we were not natives of Scotland, we should still be hardly justified in neglecting its history. It is, in the first place, rich in bold personalities ; and in the second place, it has certain special features which must attract the historical student, however versed he may be in the annals of other countries. And, as it is my anxious wish to attract your notice to the history of Scotland, let me, as briefly as may be, call your attention to one or two of these singularities. Take for example this peculiarity, that Scotland, while 231 Rectorial Addresses: she had a history, developed a striking character, but no material prosperity, but from the moment she ceased to have a history, she developed a material prosperity so mar- vellous as completely to obliterate her national character. Until the union of the Crowns the Scots nation were only known as a turbulent race of hardy heroes — poor, indeed, but poor because they preferred poverty to dependence, and were willing to sacrifice their castles and their crops to prevent the invader having a home or subsistence on Scottish soil. All this is now forgotten. The qualities still exist, none can doubt it, just as the faculties for industry and economy existed when there was no opportunity for their exercise. But the ancient reputation has been overlaid for two centuries with the reproach of avarice and the stigma of self-seeking. And why is this ? Because from the time of the corporate union, when, thank God, she ceased to have a history, this little rugged country made an advance in prosperity resembling the progress of some state in Western America, with free institutions planted on a virgin soil. Nor is this difficult of explanation. The very policy of Scotland required for the defence of the kingdom that its most fertile portion should be a desert incapable of yielding food to the invader. We hear much of the heroism of the Russians in burning Moscow. What then are we to say of the Scots ? Why, for two centuries Scotland furnished a succession of burning Moscows. What is now the garden of Scotland — nay, I might add, the garden of the United Kingdom — was given up to devastation in order that the race might preserve its liberties and assert its independence. There is no nobler fact in any history. It was as if Italy had made Lombardy a desert in order to starve out the incursions of the northern nations. It was the sole chance that existed for the preservation of that freedom which was dearer to Scotland than all the wealth that the world could offer. It was not that the Scots did not appreciate the satisfaction of opulence. It has been a stereotyped sneer against them for two centuries that they care for little else. But it was because they cared for freedom more, and that freedom, weighed in the scales, counterbalanced every other consideration. 33a Earl of Rosebery, 1880 When their independence and liberties were secured, when by the removal of their Sovereign to London they might hope to enjoy that civil and ecclesiastical freedom which was always in peril so long as they received the individual attention of Mary Stuart and her descendants, they settled down to repair the ravages of long centuries of agitation. It appeared then as if the tranquillity which they enjoyed after the commencement of the eighteenth century they were to enjoy on the opening of the seventeenth, and more than thirty years did, indeed, pass without serious disturbance. But at the first whisper of oppression, at the first raising of the mailed hand, at the first revelation of a plot against the security of what they had bled to secure, they did not weigh for a moment the quiet and well-being they had earned against the sanctity of that Kirk which was the breath of their nostrils. And when the King drew the sword, they without hesitation drew the sword also. Nor was it merely the people of Scotland that rose in arms. From every region of Europe the Scots who had passed into foreign armies, from restlessness, or poverty, or ambition, flocked homewards to place their valour and experience at the service of their country. Scotsmen who had taken service with Mansfeldt and had fought for the Winter Queen, trained pikemen from Holland and from Denmark, veterans who could show scars as others show medals won under the Lion of the North, all rallied under a banner nearer and dearer than any they had known. Scotland took the initiative and indicated the remedy to England. She began the great contest between the people and the Crown which changed the conditions of monarchy and de- prived the King of his life. She, with her poverty-stricken half-million, showed the path to a wealthy population ten times as numerous. Surely the history of a people, so bold, so disinterested, and so united, is not without instruction to the outside world. Again, the history of Scotland presents this original phenomenon, that the prevailing, constant, inextinguishable passion of the people was for liberty and independence, and that this was shown in an extraordinary attachment to monarchy. And this was no paradox. To them the 333 Rectorial Addresses: monarch was only a sign of independence, like the lost Stone of Destiny. We see this by the constant efforts to obtain the custody of his person, and at the same time by his total want of authority. Where the King was, there the Government would be ; hence the constant kidnapping of the Sovereign. But the King was to be only the symbol and not the possessor of power ; he had but the attributes of a living Great Seal. So that in fact the same passion for independence which made them insist on having a King for external purposes, made them reduce him to a nullity within his dominions. He was to be a cheap pageant, decorating rather than controlling the march of events — much less than a constitutional sovereign, little more than a Venetian Doge. Again, when the crimes of Mary Stuart and the defects and departure of her grotesque son had robbed royalty of interest even as a symbol, we see all the love of indepen- dence and craving for some outward sign of it find its sign and centre in the Reformed Kirk. The ancient Roman establishment in Scotland seems never to have had much hold upon the nation. Its energy in the collection of property, real and personal, attracted other feelings than sympathy. Its prelates were a luxurious and, if they be not much maligned, a dissolute class. They were, moreover, aliens in training, and their education abroad left them little in common with their fellow-countrymen at home. When the virtuous part of the nation was scandalised at their corruption, and the worldlings were irritated by their pride and covetous of their power, it was not difficult to effect their overthrow. Let us in passing be just. Before that proud Church was hurled down in Scotland, she left a supreme gift, nobler than the abbeys she had reared and the wealth she had accumulated. In the fifteenth century, as if conscious that she was about to pass away from us, and as if anxious to leave behind her the memory of a benefaction for which her name should be, if not blessed, at least forgiven, she determined to throw open to the people at large the treasures of learning that she had preserved ; she gave us the Universities. Founded in a catholic spirit, framed on 334 Earl of Rosebery, 1880 liberal principles, open freely and ungrudgingly to all that thirsted for knowledge, these Universities — and not the least our Alma Mater who gathers us together in Aberdeen to-day — give the ancient Church of Scotland a valid claim on our gratitude. But whatever were her claims she received no thanks in those days. She was the Church of the nobles ; the Church that was to succeed her was to be the Church of the people. The Reformers were no respecters of persons. Good Maister Jhone — as Knox is quaintly called — saw in his sovereign only an eminent and heinous sinner. His successor saw in James the Sixth only a suitable object for interminable exhortation and reproof. It is not too much to say that at the end of the sixteenth century the parish ministers of Edinburgh had more power than the King in Scotland. Whether this be so or not, they represented the national feelings and embodied the national aspirations. The King had gone south — so much the better for him — the King had become a name. The Kirk abided with them — so much the better for them — and remained a reality. The crimes of Mary Stuart coinciding with the Re- formation in point of date, it was easy, putting spiritual considerations aside, to transfer whatever loyalty existed from the monarchy to the Kirk. The loyalty of Scotland to the Stuarts seems to have disappeared then and there. When the wretched Queen returned to Edinburgh after Carberry, she must have heard in the yells of the avenging crowd, she must have seen in the painted banners which recalled her crime, that the feeling which hailed her birth even amid the gloom of national disaster had vanished, and that while she had sealed her own destruction, she had also dealt a fatal blow at the monarchy she represented. The Scots, indeed, took up arms for Charles II., but he was only to them a symbol of independence ; there was between him and them neither liking nor respect. And as for the re- bellions on behalf of his unhappy nephew, it seems perfectly clear that these were planned and carried out entirely by the Highland chiefs, for motives which were not shared in by the great mass of the nation. Again, in most old States we have to deal with four factors 335 Rectorial Addresses: — a monarchy, a church, an aristocracy, and the people. Surely this history of Scotland presents these four elements in a striking light. The King of Scots, without power or money or an army, was at once the most envied and the least enviable of monarchs, asserting his imperial indepen- dence abroad, and persecuted by his subjects at home ; the Church, lax and splendid, toppling over from the mere weight and canker of corruption, and giving way to a far more stringent form of ecclesiastical government, which, in spite of its austerity, was adored by the people ; the aristocracy, fierce, poor, and proud, which, by dissension* after the manner of the Kilkenny cats, had so weakened itself that at the time of the Union it had fallen, if not into contempt, at any rate into impotence ; and, slumbering beneath all, the nation, revealing itself only now and then in wild Edinburgh mobs or in stern west-country Whigamore raids, reserving itself, as it were, for its moment of power and supremacy. These surely are strange elements out of which to develop a successful nation. But I have no time to dwell on that : my contention is merely that these are elements which at any rate deserve attention, not merely from the historian or even from a Scotsman, but from the student of human nature and human progress. I have incidentally touched on the King and the Church. Let me explain in a very few sentences what I would say of the aristocracy and the people. The turbulence of the aristocracy, whose very repose was only a sort of ground- swell, was probably caused by poverty and the ease by which, under a system of constant forfeitures, large estates could be acquired by successful agitation. The estates so quickly acquired were not the less rapidly forfeited, it is true ; but the losses of the gambler never prevent his seeking perpetual windfalls. And it was not until the great galleon of the Church lay helpless amid these active privateers, and the acquisitions from an adversary so dis- abled assumed a semblance of security, that the nobles were content to settle down in peace upon their lands. As soon as dissension ceased, their influence terminated ; for they required troubled waters to fish in. With a very few exceptions, such as the Huntlys, the Hamiltons, and the 236 Earl of Rosebery, 1880 Argylls, the nobles in the seventeenth century exercised influence only as the representatives or instruments of the Anglicised sovereign. Before the Union, if tradition lie not, at the end of each session, when privilege ceased, the Canongate Jail of Edinburgh was wont to be crowded with Scots peers. At that period, the influence of the Duke of Hamilton, clouded and weakened by inherited irresolution, is the only independent aristocratic influence that we can trace ; for the extravagant outburst of Belhaven was but the scarcely coherent expression, not of the feelings of the nobles, but of the passions of the populace. It may, there- fore, fairly be said that at that time the nobles of Scotland had fallen into impotence ; and, so far as leadership may be associated with the idea of the aristocracy, their place was taken by the Kirk. But where, meantime, was the people ? There is nothing to my mind so extraordinary, in view of their energy and intelligence, as the obscurity in which the Commons of Scotland prepared themselves for the power they now enjoy. Now and then a sudden, silent, fierce outbreak betrayed the strength that was slumbering ; such were the mobs which lynched Porteous, and insisted on the hanging of the captain of the Worcester. Indeed, the first appearance in history of the democracy of Scotland was, as we have seen, when, after the surrender of Carberry, the captive Queen was greeted on her return to Edinburgh by the insults and execrations of a vast multitude bearing the ghastly effigy of her murdered husband. On that day the people first came forth to show that the robe of majesty should not shelter a great criminal ; and it was surely a notable birth of public feeling. But it is strange that these strong, nay ferocious instincts of justice and injustice should so seldom have flamed up, and that, while men sprung from the ranks of the people were obtaining education and dis- tinction all over the Continent, the great mass should have preserved so stern a silence. From the surrender of Carberry to the time of the first Reform Bill, the genuine forcible expressions of public sentiment can be counted on the fingers, and yet these were sufficient to show that public feeling and public opinion were always in vigilant existence. We have, of course, in France an instance of a similar silent 237 Rectorial Addresses: flood suddenly overflowing its banks at the Revolution, but it may fairly be urged that education among the masses in France, as compared with Scotland, did not exist. In Scotland we see an energetic and intelligent population, ruled by a remote Government and a Parliament in which they were not represented, patiently tilling the soil and sending their children to the parish school till such a time as they should be strong enough to demand a share in the control of their country's destiny. Such a spectacle, in these times of agitation and public meetings, is surely not without instruction ; it is at any rate an original and perhaps a unique manifestation. I have touched on only a few of the distinctive features of Scottish history ; and, indeed, the limits of discourse will hardly permit of more. But to those who study men more than events, our country's annals present no less attractions. The romance of history, indeed, is divided between two very different Queens of France — Marie Antoinette and Mary Queen of Scots ; while she assigns a prominent place to Charles Edward Stuart. Again the history of revolutions is ever the most interesting, because it is always inseparably connected with some great man. The English had its Cromwell, the French its Napoleon, and the Scotch its Knox. The student of human character will surely pause over the rugged features of Knox, " who never feared the face of man." He will lament the melancholy destiny that robbed Scotland at a singular crisis of Murray's precocious statesmanship. He will contemplate, not without admira- tion, the greatest and most sagacious of Scottish Kings, James the First, the Alfred of his country. He will be unable to view, without a sense of personal affection, the character of James the Fifth, the Scottish Henry the Fourth. There will pass before him the Both well of strange vicissi- tudes ; and Carstairs, perhaps the greatest man that Scotland has produced outside literature ; the sinister Morton, and the subtle Argyll ; the Wallace and the Bruce, who are not sufficiently veiled in legend to be secluded from human sympathy and admiration ; the learned Melville and the saintly Rutherford. Other names might be cited, but perhaps these will 238 Earl of Rosebery, 1880 suffice ; and indeed it is time that I should end. But let me point out one more inducement to the study I advocate. You are in the city perhaps most calculated to give an interest to the study of those times, for surely no place ever suffered so much for its prominence. From the time when the Covenanting Commissioners refused to drink the cup of Bon Accord, and were followed by Montrose with an army which slaughtered the dogs which had been made the innocent instruments of satire, this unhappy city was com- pelled to undergo as many outward changes of compliance as the Vicar of Bray or Bobbing John of Mar. Indeed, Aberdeen had been so often visited by Montrose, and in such various characters, that the authorities must have found it difficult to ascertain in what capacity they were to receive him. In those days the greatest seat of learning in Scotland, it was the fate of Aberdeen, as of Leipsic, to learn that a famous and hospitable University is no protection against siege or outrage : while your well-sacked city surviving the successive onslaughts of Malignants and Covenanters and impartial Highlanders, remains a noble monument of the stirring and perilous past of our country. But, gentlemen, I do not wish to weary, but to attract you, if possible, to the close study of Scottish history. I have thought that by so doing I could, without presumption or didactic affectation, best fulfil the duty imposed upon me. You are the best judges how far such a pursuit would suit your manifold dispositions. Around you learning spreads her various wares ; you have but to pick and choose. You are the generation that holds for the present the succession to the long roll of famous men who have adorned this University. They have handed to you the light ; it is for you to transmit it. The vestal lamp of knowledge may flicker, but it never dies ; even in the darkest hours of dormant civilisation, it found loving hands to cherish and to tend it. To you that lamp has been given by those who have watched over it in these ancient colleges. I hope and believe it will not wax duller in your hands, but rather that you will show forth its radiance in whatever part of the world you may be called upon to wield that influence which every educated man must exercise. 239 Rectorial Addresses And, gentlemen, how solemn a moment is that passing forth from the cloisters of learning into the great Vanity Fair of the world, there to take, for good or for evil, the choice of Hercules and abide by the result. Even I may, without presumption, indicate to you the crucial importance of that crisis of your lives, when it lies with you to decide whether your career shall be a heritage of woe or a fruitful blessing and an honoured memory. Day by day, the horizon of human possibility, which now lies so unbounded before you, must contract ; the time must come when, under the stroke of illness or the decay of nature, hope and health, the pride and power of life and intellect, which now seem so inseparable from your triumphant youth, will have passed away. There will then be no surer consolation, humanly speaking, than the consciousness of honest hope fulfilled, of health not abused, of life and intellect exerted in all its strength and fulness, not like water poured upon the sand, but for the raising and bettering in some degree of some portion of your fellow-men. I would fain hope that this living mass of generous youth before me was animated by no less a hope, by no lower an inspiration, and that in coming years it will be my pride and privilege to hear of some of you at any rate receiving the merited praises of grateful mankind. And if I might address your venerable University, which has conferred so gracious and so un- deserved an honour upon me, I would say, in the words with which the Psalmist hailed the sacred city, "They shall prosper that love thee ; " that love thee aright, that love thee not merely as an end, but also as a means, as the blessed link with splendid traditions and with noble men, as the faithful guide and the unfailing friend. 240 The University Ideal: Past and Present 1 By Alexander Bain By your flattering estimate of my services, I have been unexpectedly summoned from retirement, to assume the honours and the duties of the purple, and to occupy the most historically important office in the Universities of Europe. The present demands upon the Rectorship somewhat resemble what we are told of the Homeric chief, who, in company with his Council or Senate, the Boule, and the Popular Assembly, or Agora, made up the political con- stitution of the tribe. The functions of the chief, it is said, were to supply wise reasons to the Boule (as we might call our Court), and unctuous eloquence to the Agora. The second of these requirements is what weighs upon me at the present moment. Whatever may have been the practice of my prede- cessors, generally strangers to you, it would be altogether unbecoming in me to travel out of our University life for the materials of an Address. My remarks then will principally bear on the University Ideal. To the Greeks we are indebted for the earliest germ of the University. It was with them chiefly that education took that great leap, the greatest ever made, from the traditional teaching of the home, the shop, the social sur- roundings, to schoolmaster teaching properly so called. Nowadays, we, schoolmasters, think so much of ourselves, that we do not make full allowance for that other teaching, which was, for unknown ages, the only teaching of mankind. The Greeks were the first to introduce, not perhaps the primary schoolmaster for the R's, but certainly the second- ary or higher schoolmaster, known as Rhetorician or Sophist, 1 Address delivered 15th November, 1882, Q 2+1 Rectorial Addresses: who taught the higher professions ; while their Philosophers or wise men, introduced a kind of knowledge that gave scope to the intellectual faculties, with or without pro- fessional applications ; the very idea of our Faculty of Arts. So self-asserting were these new-born teachers of the Sophist class, that Plato thought it necessary to recall attention to the good old perennial source of instruction, the home, the trade, and the society. He pointed out that the pretenders to teach virtue by moral lecturing, were as yet completely outrivalled by the influence of the family and the social pressure of the community. In like manner, the arts of life were all originally handed down by ap- prenticeship and imitation. The greatest statesmen and generals of early times had simply the education of the actual work. Philip of Macedon could have had no other teaching ; his greater son was the first of the line to receive what we may call a liberal, or a general education, under the educator of all Europe. I must skip eight centuries, to introduce the man that linked the ancient and the modern world, and was almost the sole luminary in the west during the dark ages, namely, Boethius, minister of the Gothic Emperor Theodoric. As much of Aristotle as was known between the 6th and the nth centuries was handed down by him. During that time, only the logical treatises existed among the Latins ; and of these the best parts were neglected. Historical importance attaches to a small circle of them known as the Old Logic {vetus logica), which were the pabulum of abstract thought for five dreary centuries. These consisted of the two treatises or chapters of Aristotle called the " Categories," and the " De Interpretatione," or the Theory of Propositions ; and of a book of Porphyry the Neo- Platonist, entitled ' Introduction ' (Isagoge), and treating of the so-called Five Predicables. A hundred average pages would include them all ; and three weeks would suffice to master them. Boethius, however, did much more than hand on these works to the mediaeval students ; he translated the whole of Aristotle's logical writings (the Organon), but the others 242 Alexander Bain, 1882 were seldom taken up. It was he too that handled the question of Universals in his first Dialogue on Porphyry, and sowed the seed that was not to germinate till four centuries afterwards, but which, when the time came, was to bear fruit in no measured amount. And Boethius is the name associated with the scheme of higher education that preceded the University teaching, called the quadrivium, or quadruple group of subjects, namely, Arithmetic, Geometry, Music and Astronomy. This, together with the trivium, or preparatory group of three subjects — Grammar, Rhetoric, and Logic — constituted what was known as the seven liberal arts ; but, in the darkest ages, the quadrivium was almost lost sight of, and few went beyond the trivium. In the seventh century, the era of deepest intellectual gloom, philosophy was at an entire stand-still. Light arises with the eighth, when we are introduced to the Cathedral and Cloister Schools of Charlemagne ; and the ninth saw these schools fully established, and an educational reform completed that was to be productive of lasting good re- sults. But the range of instruction was still narrow, scarcely proceeding beyond the Old Logic, and the teachers were, as formerly, the Monks. The eleventh century is really the period of dawn. The East was now opened up through the Crusades, and there was frequent intercourse with the learned Saracens of Spain ; and thus there were brought into the West the whole of Aristotle's works, with Arabic commentaries, chiefly in Latin translations. The effer- vescence was prodigious and alarming. The schools were reinforced by a higher class of teachers, Lay as well as Clerical ; a marked advance was made in Logic and Dia- lectic ; and the great controversy of Realism versus Nomin- alism, which had found its birth in the previous century, raged with extraordinary vigour. We are now on the eve of the founding of the Universities ; Bologna, indeed, being already in existence. The University proper, however, can hardly be dated earlier than the twelfth century; and the important par- ticulars in its first constitution are these : — First, the separation of Philosophy from Theology. To expound this, would be to give a chapter of mediaeval *43 Rectorial Addresses: history. Suffice it to say that Aristotle and the awakening intellect of the eleventh century were the main causes of it. Two classes of minds at this time divided the Church — the pious, devout believers (such as St. Bernard), who needed no reasons for their faith, and the polemic speculative divines (such as Abelard), who wished to make Theology rational. It was an age, too, of stirring political events ; the crusading spirit was abroad, and found a certain gratifi- cation even in the war of words. The nature of Universals was eagerly debated ; but when this controversy came into collision with such leading theological doctrines as the Trinity and Predestination, it was no longer possible for Philosophy and Theology to remain conjoined. A separation was effected, and determined the leading feature of the University system. The foundation was Philosophy, and the fundamental Faculty the Faculty of Arts. Bologna, indeed, was eminent for Law or Juris- prudence, and this celebrity it retained for ages ; but the University of Paris, which is the prototype of our Scottish Universities, as of so many others, taught nothing but Philosophy — in other words, had no Faculty but Arts — for many years. Neither Theology, Medicine, nor Law had existence there till the thirteenth century. Second, the system of conferring Degrees, after appro- priate trials. These were at first simply a licence to teach. They acquired their commanding importance through the action of Pope Nicholas I., who gave to the graduates of the University of Paris, the power of teaching everywhere, a power that our own countrymen were the foremost to turn to account. Third, the Organisation of the primitive University. Europe was unsettled ; even in the capitals, the civil power was often unhinged. Wherever multitudes came together, there was manifested a spirit of turbulence. The Uni- versities often exemplified this fact ; and it was found necessary to establish a government within themselves. The basis was popular ; but, while, in Paris, only the teaching body was incorporated, in Bologna, the students had a voice. They elected the Rector, and his jurisdiction was very great indeed, and much more important than 244 Alexander Bain, 1882 speechifying to his constituents. His court had the power of internal regulation, with both a civil and criminal juris- diction. The Scotch Universities, on this point, followed Bologna ; and that fact is the remote cause of this day's meeting. So started the University. The idea took ; and in three centuries, many of the leading towns in Italy, France, the German Empire, had their Universities ; in England arose Oxford and Cambridge; the model was Paris or Bologna. Scotland did not at first enter the race of University- founding, but worked on the plan of the cuckoo, by laying its eggs in the nests of others. For two centuries, Scotch- men were almost shut out of England ; and so could not make for themselves a career in Oxford and Cambridge, as in later times. They had, however, at home, good grammar schools, where they were grounded in Latin. They perambulated Europe, and were familiar figures in the great University towns, and especially Paris. From their disputations and metaphysical aptitude, they worked their upward way — And gladly would they learn and gladly teach. At length, the nation did take up the work in good earnest. In 141 1 was founded the first of the St. Andrews Colleges; 145 1 is the date of Glasgow; 1494 of King's College, Aberdeen. These are the pre-Reformation colleges ; but for the Reformation, we might not have had any other. Their founders were ecclesiastics ; their constitution and ceremonial were ecclesiastical. They were intended, no doubt, to keep the Scotch students at home. They were also expected to serve as bulwarks to the Church against the rising heretics of the times. In this they were dis- appointed ; the first-begotten of them became the cradle of the Reformation. In these our three eldest foundations, we are to seek the primitive constitution and the teaching system of our Universities. In essentials, they were the same ; only between the dates of Glasgow and Old Aberdeen occurred two great events. One was the taking of Constantinople, 245 Rectorial Addresses: which spread the Greek scholars with their treasures over Europe. The other was the progress of printing. In 145 1, when Glasgow commenced, there was no printed text-book. In 1494, when King's College began, the ancient classics had been largely printed ; the early editions of Aristotle in our Library show the date of i486. Our Universities have three well-marked periods ; the first anterior to the Reformation ; the second from the Reformation to the beginning of last century ; the third, the last and present centuries. Confining ourselves still to the Faculty of Arts, the features of the Pre-Reformation University were these : — First, as regards the Teaching Body. The quadrennial Arts course was conducted by so-called Regents, who each carried the same students through all the four years, thus taking upon himself the burden of all the sciences — a walk- ing Encyclopaedia. The system was in full force, in spite of attempts to change it, during both the first and the second periods. You, the students of Arts, at the present day, encountering in your four years, seven faces, seven voices, seven repositories of knowledge, need an effort to understand how your predecessors could be cheerful and happy, confined all through to one personality ; sometimes juvenile, sometime senile, often feeble at his best. Next, as regards the Subjects taught. To know these you have simply to know what are the writings of Aristotle. The little work on him by Sir Alexander Grant supplies the needful information. The records of the Glasgow University furnish the curriculum of Arts soon after its foundation. The subjects are laid out in two heads — Logic and Philosophy. The Logic comprised first the three Treatises of the Old Logic ; to these were now added the whole of the works making up Aristotle's Organon. This brought in the Syllogism, and allied matters. There was also a selection from the work known as the Topics, not now included in Logical teaching, yet one of the most remarkable and distinctive of Aristotle's writings. It is a highly laboured account of the whole art of Disputation, laid out under his scheme of the Predicables. The selection fell chiefly on two books — the second, comprising what 346 Alexander Bain, 1882 Aristotle had to say on Induction, and the sixth, on De- finition ; together with the " Logical Captions " or Fallacies. Disputation was one of the products of the Greek mind ; and Aristotle was its prophet. Now for Philosophy. This comprised nearly the whole of Aristotle's Physical treatises — his very worst side — together with his Metaphysics, some parts of which are hardly distinguishable from the Physics. Next was the very difficult treatise — De Anima, on the Mind, or Soul — and some allied Psychological treatises, as that on Memory. Such was the ordinary and sufficing curriculum. It was allowed to be varied with a part of the Ethics ; but in this age we do not find the Politics ; and the Rhetoric is never mentioned. So also, the really valuable Biological works of Aristotle, including his book on Animals, appear to have been neglected. Certain portions of Mathematics always found a place in the curriculum. Likewise, some work on Astronomy, which was one of the quadrivium subjects. All this was given in Latin. Greek was not then known (it was introduced into Scotland in 1534). No classical Latin author is given ; the education in Latin was finished at the Grammar School. Such was the Arts Faculty of the 1 5th century ; a dreary, single-manned, Aristotelian quadrennium. The position is not completely before us, till we understand farther the manner of working. The pupils could not, as a rule, possess the text of Aristotle. The teacher read and expounded the text for them ; but a very large portion of the time was always occupied in dictating, or " diting," notes, which the pupils were examined upon, vivd voce; their best plan usually being to get them by heart, as any one might ask them to repeat passages literally ; while perhaps few could examine well upon the meaning. The notes would be selections and abridgments from Aristotle, with the comments of modern writers. The "diting" system was often com- plained of as waste of time, but was not discontinued till the third, or present, University dynasty, and not entirely then, as many of us know. 247 Rectorial Addresses : The teaching was thus exclusively Text teaching. The teacher had little or nothing to say for himself (at least in the earliest period). He was even restricted in the remarks he might make by way of commentary. He was as nearly as possible a machine. But lastly, to complete the view at the first period, we must add the practice of Disputation, of which we shall have a better idea from the records of the next period. This practice was co-eval with the Universities ; it was the single mode of stimulating the thought of the individual student ; the chief antidote to the mechanical teaching by Text-books and dictation. The pre- Reformation period of Aberdeen University was little more than sixty years. For a portion of those years it attained celebrity. In 1541, the town was honoured by a visit from James V., and the University contri- buted to his entertainment. The somewhat penny-a-lining account is, that there were exercises and disputations in Greek, Latin, and other languages ! The official records, however, show that the College at that very time had sunk into a convent and conventual school. The Reformation introduced the second period, and made important changes. First of all, in the great con- vulsion of European thought, the ascendancy of Aristotle was shaken. It is enough to mention two incidents in the downfall of the mighty Stagyrite. One was the attack on him by the renowned Peter Ramus, in the University of Paris. Our countryman, Andrew Melville, attended Ramus's Lectures, and became the means of introducing his system into Scotland. The other incident is still more notable. The Reformers had to consider their attitude towards Aristotle. At first their opinion was condemnatory. Luther regarded him as a very devil ; he was " a godless bulwark of the Papists ". Melancthon was also hostile ; but he soon perceived that Theology would crumble into fanatical dissolution without the co-operation of some philosophy. As yet there was nothing to fall back upon except the pagan systems. Of these, Melancthon was obliged to confess that Aristotle was the least objectionable, and was, moreover, in possession. The plan, therefore, 248 Alexander Bain, 1882 was to accept him as a basis, and fence him round with orthodox emendations. This done, Aristotle, no longer despotic, but as a limited constitutional monarch, had his reign prolonged a century and a half. The first thing, after the Reformation in Scotland, was to purge the Universities of the inflexible adherents of the old faith. Then came the question of amending the Curriculum, not simply with a view to Protestantism, but for the sake of an enlightened teaching. The right man appeared at the right moment. In 1574, Andrew Melville, then in Geneva, received pressing invitations to come home and take part in the needed reforms. He was immediately made Principal of Glasgow University, at that time in a state of utter collapse and ruin. He had matured his plans, after consultation with George Buchanan, and they were worthy of a great reformer. He sketched a curricu- lum, substantially the curriculum of the second University period. The modifications upon the almost exclusive Aristotelianism of the first period, were significant. The Greek language was introduced, and Greek classical authors read. The reading in the Roman classics was extended. A text-book on Rhetoric accompanied the classical read- ings. The dialectics of Ramus made the prelude to Logic, instead of the three treatises of the Old Logic. The Mathematics included Euclid. Geography and Cosmo- graphy were taken up. Then came a course of Moral Philosophy on an enlarged basis. With the Ethics and Politics of Aristotle were combined Cicero's Ethical works and certain Dialogues of Plato. Finally, in the Physics, Melville still used Aristotle, but along with a more modern treatise. He also gave a view of Universal History and Chronology. This curriculum, which Melville took upon himself to teach, in order to train future teachers, was the point of departure of the courses in all the Universities during the second period. With variations of time and place, the Arts course may be described as made up of the Greek and Latin classics, with Rhetoric, Logic, and Dialectics, Moral Philo- sophy or Ethics, Mathematics, Physics, and Astronomy. The little text-book of Rhetoric, by Talon or Talaeus, was 249 Rectorial Addresses: made up of notes from the Lectures of Peter Ramus, and used in all our Colleges till superseded by the better com- pilation of the Dutch scholar, Gerard John Voss. Melville had to contend with many opponents, among them the sticklers for the infallibility of the Stagyrite. Like the German Reformers, he had accepted Aristotelianism as a basis, with a similar process of reconciliation. So it was that Aristotle and Calvin were brought to kiss each other. Melville's next proposal was all too revolutionary. It consisted in restricting the Regents each to a special group of subjects ; in fact, anticipating our modern professoriate. He actually set up this plan in Glasgow : one Regent took Greek and Latin ; another, his nephew, James Melville, took Mathematics, Logic, and Moral Philosophy ; a third, Physics and Astronomy. The system went on, in appear- ance at least, for fifty years ; it is only in 1642, that we find the Regents given without a specific designation. Why it should have gone on so long, and been then dropt, we are not informed. Melville's influence started it in the other Universities, but it was defeated in every one from the very outset. After six years at Glasgow, he went to St. Andrews as Principal and Professor of Divinity, and tried there the same reforms, but the resistance was too great. In spite of a public enactment, the division of labour among the Regents was never carried out. Yet such was Melville's authority, that the same enactment was extended to King's College, in a scheme having a remarkable history — the so-called New Foundation of Aberdeen University, pro- mulgated in a Royal Charter of about the year 1581. The Earl Marischal was a chief promoter of the plan of reform comprised in this charter. The division of labour among the Regents was most expressly enjoined. The plan fell through ; and there was a legal dispute fifty years afterwards as to whether it had ever any legal validity. 1 Charles I. was made to express indignation at the idea of reducing the University to a school ! We now approach the foundation of Marischal College. The Earl Marischal may have been actuated by the failure 1 [There is no doubt that at King's College from 1628 to 1641 the students were taught by specialist professors. — Ed.] 250 Alexander Bain, 1882 of his attempt to reform King's College. At all events, his mind was made up to follow Melville in assigning sepa- rate subjects to his Regents. The Charter is explicit on this head. Yet in spite of the Charter and in spite of his own presence, the intention was thwarted ; 1 the old Regent- ing lasted 160 years. Still the Curriculum reform was gained. There was, indeed, one great miss. The year before Marischal College was founded, Galileo had published his work on Mechanics, which, taken with what had been accomplished by Archi- medes and others, laid the foundations of our modern Physics. Copernicus had already published his work on the Heavens. It was now time that the Aristotelian Physics should be clean swept away. In this whole De- partment, Aristotle had made a reign of confusion ; he had thrown the subject back, being himself off the rails from first to last. Had there been in Scotland, an adviser in this department, like Melville in general literature, or like Napier of Merchiston in pure mathematics, one fourth of the college teaching might have been reclaimed from utter waste, and a healthy tone of thinking diffused through the remainder. A curious fascination always attached to the study of Astronomy, even when there was not much to be said, apart from the unsatisfactory disquisitions of Aristotle. A little book, entitled " Sacrobosco on the Sphere," containing little more than what we should now teach to boys and girls, along with the Globes, was a University text-book throughout Europe for centuries. I was informed by a late King's College professor that the Use of the Globes was, within his memory, taught in the Magistrand Class. This would be simply what is termed a " survival." Now as to the mode of instruction. There were vivd voce examinations upon the notes, such as we can imagine. But the stress was laid on Disputations and Declamations 1 [At Marischal College there seem to have been specialist teachers from the outset to 1641, the date of the abortive attempt to unite the two Colleges as King Charles' University. Professors of Greek, Logic, Moral Philosophy and Natural Philosophy taught the bajans, semis, tertians and magistrands respectively. — Ed.] 351 Rectorial Addresses : in various forms. Besides disputing and declaiming on the regular class work before the Regent, we find that, in Edinburgh, and I suppose elsewhere, the classes were divided into companies, who met apart, and conferred and debated among themselves daily. The students were oc- cupied, altogether, six hours a day. Then the higher classes were frequently pitched against each other. This was a favourite occupation on Saturdays. The doctrines espoused by the leading students became their nicknames. The pass for Graduation consisted in the propugning or impugning of questions by each candidate in turn. An elaborate Thesis was drawn up by the Regent, giving the heads of his philosophy course ; this was accepted by the candidates, signed by them, and printed at their expense. Then on the day of trial, at a long sitting, each candidate stood up and propugned or impugned a portion of the Thesis ; all were heard in turn ; and on the result the Degree was con- ferred. A good many of these Theses are preserved in our Library ; x some of them are very long — a hundred pages of close type ; they are our best clue to the teaching of the period. We can see how far Aristotle was qualified by modern views. I said there might have been times when the students never had the relief of a second face all the four years. The exceptions are of importance. First, as regards Marischal College. Within a few years of the founda- tion, Dr. Duncan Liddell founded the Mathematical chair, and thus withdrew from the Regents the subject that most of all needed a specialist ; a succession of very able mathe- maticians sat in this chair. King's College had not the same good fortune. From its foundation it possessed a separate functionary, the Humanist or Grammarian ; but he had also, till 1753, to act as Rector of the Grammar School. Edinburgh obtained from an early date a Mathe- matical chair, occupied by men of celebrity. There was no other innovation till near the end of the seventeenth century, when Greek was isolated both in Edinburgh and in Marischal College ; but the end of Regenting was then near. 1 [Of dates from 1622 to 1732.] 352 Alexander Bain, 1882 The old system, however, had some curious writhings. During the troubled seventeenth century, University reform could not command persistent attention. But after the 1688 Revolution, opinions were strongly expressed in favour of the Melville system. The obvious argument was urged, that, by division of labour, each man would be able to master a special subject, and do it justice in teaching. Yet, it was replied, that, by the continued intercourse, the master knew better the humours, inclinations, and talents of their scholars. To which the answer was — the humours and in- clinations of scholars are not so deeply hid but that in a few weeks they appear. Moreover, it was said, the students are more respectful to a Master while he is new to them. The final division of subjects took place in Edinburgh in 1708 ; in Glasgow in 1727 ; in St. Andrews in 1747. In Marischal College, the change was made by a minute of nth January, 1753 ; but, whether from ignorance, or from want of grace, the Senatus did not record its satisfaction at having, after a lapse of five generations, fulfilled the wishes of the pious founder. In King's College the old system lasted till 1798. This closes the second age of the Universities, and in- troduces the third age, the age of the Professoriate, of Lecturing instead of Text-books, the end of Disputation, and the use of the English language. It was now, and not till now that the Scottish Universities stood forth, in several leading departments of knowledge, as the teachers of the world. The second age of the Universities was Scotland's most trying time. In a hundred and thirty years, the country had passed through four revolutions and counter-revolu- tions ; every one of which told upon the Universities. The victorious party imposed its test upon the University teachers, and drove out recusants. You must all know something of the purging of the University and the Ministry of Aberdeen by the Covenanting General As- sembly of 1640. These deposed Aberdeen doctors may have had too strong leanings to episcopacy in the Church and to absolutism in the State, but they were not Vicars of Bray. The first half of the century was adorned by a 253 Rectorial Addresses: band of scholars, who have gained renown by their culti- vation of Latin poetry ; a little oasis in the desert of Aris- totelian Dialectics. It would be needless and ungracious to enquire whether this was the best thing that could have been done for the generation of Bishop Patrick Forbes. Your reading in the History of Scotland will thus bring you face to face with the great powers that contended for the mastery from 1 560 : the Monarchy, always striving to be absolute ; the Church, whose position made it the advocate of popular freedom ; the Universities, fluctuat- ing as regards political liberty, but standing up for intel- lectual liberty. In the seventeenth century the Church ruled the Universities ; in the eighteenth, it may be said, that the Universities returned the compliment. Enough for the past. A word or two on the present. What is now the need for a University system, and what must the system be to answer that need ? Many things are altered since the twelfth century. First, then, Universities, as I understand them, are not absolutely essential to the teaching of professions. Let me make an extreme supposition. A great naval commander, like Nelson, is sent on board ship, at eleven or twelve ; his previous knowledge, or general training, is what you may suppose for that age. It is in the course of actual service, and in no other way, that he acquires his professional fitness for commanding fleets. Is this right or is it wrong ? Per- haps it is wrong, but it has gone on so, for a long time. Well, why may not a preacher be formed on the same plan ? John Wesley was not a greater man in preaching, than Nelson in seamanship. Take, then, a youth of thirteen from the school. Apprentice him to the minister of a parish. Let him make at once preparations for clerical work. Let him store his memory with sermons, let him make abstracts of Divinity systems ; master the best exe- getical commentators. Then, in a year or two, he would begin to catechise the young, to give addresses in the way of exposition, exhortation, encouragement and rebuke. Practice would bring facility. Might not, I say, seven years of the actual work, in the susceptible period of life, make a preacher of no mean power, without the Grammar 254 Alexander Bain, 1882 School, without the Arts Classes, without the Divinity Hall? What then do we gain by taking such a roundabout approach to our professional work? The answer is two- fold. First, as regards the profession itself. Nearly every skilled occupation, in our time, involves principle and facts that have been investigated, and are taught, outside the profession ; to the medical man are given courses of Chemistry, Physiology, and so on. Hence to be com- pletely equipped for your professional work, you must repair to the teachers of those tributary departments of knowledge. The requirement, however, is not absolute ; it admits of being evaded. Your professional teachers ought to master these outside subjects, and give you so much of them as you need, and no more ; which would be an obvious economy of your valuable time. Thus, I apprehend, the strictly professional uses of general knowledge fail to justify the Grammar School and the Arts curriculum. Something, indeed, may still be said for the higher grades of professional excellence, and for introducing improved methods into the practice of the several crafts ; for which wider outside studies lend their aid. This, however, is not enough; inventors are the exception. In fact, the ground must be widened, and include, secondly, the life beyond the profession. We are citizens of a self-governed country; members of various smaller societies; heads, or members of families. We have, moreover, to carve out recreation and enjoyment as the alternative and the reward of our professional toil. Now the entire tone and character of this life outside the profession, is profoundly dependent on the compass of our early studies. He that leaves the school for the shop at thirteen, is on one platform. He that spends the years from thirteen to twenty in acquiring general knowledge, is on a totally different platform ; he is, in the best sense, an aristocrat. Those that begin work at thirteen, and those that are born not to work at all, are alike his inferiors. He should be able to spread light all around. He it is, that may stand forth before the world as the model man. 255 Rectorial Addresses: All this supposes that you realise the position ; that you fill up the measure of the opportunities ; that you keep in view at once the Professional life, the Citizen life, and the life of Intellectual tastes. The mere professional man, however prosperous, cannot be a power in society, as the Arts graduate may become. His leisure occupations are all of a lower stamp. He does not participate in the march of knowledge. He must be aware of his incompetence to judge for himself in the greater questions of our destiny; his part is to be a follower, and not a leader. It is not, then, the name of graduate that will do all this. It is not a scrape pass ; it is not decent mediocrity with a languid interest. It is a fair and even attention throughout, supplemented by auxiliaries to the class work. It is such a hold of the leading subjects, such a mastery of the various alphabets, as will make future references intel- ligible, and a continuation of the study possible. Our curriculum is one of the completest in the country, or perhaps anywhere. By the happy thought of the Senatus of Marischal College, in 1753, you have a fundamental class not existing in the other colleges. 1 You have a fair repre- sentation of the three great lines of science — the Abstract, the Experimental, and the Classifying. When it is a general education that you are thinking of, every scheme of option is imperfect that does not provide for such three- sided cultivation of our reasoning powers. A larger quantity of one will no more serve for the absence of the rest than a double covering of one part of the body, will enable another part to be left bare. Your time in the Arts curriculum is not entirely used up by the classes. You can make up for deficiencies in the course, when once you have formed your ideal of com- pleteness. For a year or two after graduating, while still rejoicing in youthful freshness, you can be widening your foundations. The thing then is, to possess a good scheme and to abide by it. Now, making every allowance for the variation of tastes and of circumstances, and looking solely to what is desirable for a citizen and a man, it is impossible to refuse the claims of the department of His- 1 [Natural History.] 256 Alexander Bain, 1882 torical and Social study. One or two good representative historical periods, might be thoroughly mastered, in con- junction with the best theoretical compends of Social Philosophy. Farther, the ideal graduate, who is to guide and not follow opinion, should be well versed in all the bearings of the Spiritual Philosophy of the time. The subject branches out into wide regions, but not wider than you should be capable of following it. This is not a professional study merely ; it is the study of a well-instructed man. Once more. A share of attention should be bestowed early on the higher Literature of the Imagination. As, in after life, poetry and elegant composition are to be counted on as a pleasure and solace, they should be taken up at first as a study. The critical examination of styles, and of authors, which forms an admirable basis of a student's society, should be a work of study and research. The advantages will be many and lasting. To conceive the exact scope and functions of the Imagination in art, in science, in religion, and everywhere, will repay the trouble. Ever since I remember, I have been accustomed to hear of the superiority of the Arts graduate, in various crafts, more especially as a teacher. Many of you in these days pass into another vocation — Letters, or the Press. Here too, almost everything you learn will pay you pro- fessionally. Still, I am careful not to rest the case for general education on professional grounds alone. I might show you that the highest work of all — original inquiry — needs a broad basis of liberal study; or at all events is vastly aided by that. Genius will work on even a narrow basis, but imperfect preparatory study leaves marks of imperfection in the product. The same considerations that determine your voluntary studies, determine also the University Ideal. A University, in my view, stands or falls with its Arts Faculty. Without debating the details, we may say that this Faculty should always be representative of the needs of our intelligence, both for the professional and for the extra-professional life ; it should not be of the shop, shoppy. The University exists because the professions would stagnate without it ; r 257 Rectorial Addresses and still more, because it may be a means of enlarging knowledge at all points. Its watchword is Progress. We have, at last, the division of labour in teaching ; outside the University, teachers too much resemble the Regent of old — having too many subjects, and too much time spent in grinding. Our teachers are exactly the reverse. Yet, there cannot be progress without a sincere and single eye to the truth. The fatal sterility of the middle ages, and of our first and second University periods, had to do with the mistake of gagging men's mouths, and dictating all their conclusions. Things came to be so arranged that contradictory views ran side by side, like opposing electric currents ; the thick wrappage of ingenious phraseology arresting the destructive discharge. There was, indeed, an elaborate and pretentious Logic, supplied by Aristotle, and amended by Bacon ; what was still wanted was a taste of the Logic of Freedom. 258 Intellectual Interest 1 By George Joachim Goschen According to traditional custom, it now becomes my duty to address the students, to whose suffrages I owe my position as Rector of this University. Like my colleague at St. Andrews, I have found myself in a certain dilemma. I had to choose between deferring my address to a time, when many of those, to whom I am most indebted for their zeal in my cause, would in the natural course of things have doffed the student's gown, and delivering it under circumstances not favourable to an effort of academical composition, and in the midst of the bustle of other absorb- ing work. But my choice was soon made. Gratitude must take precedence of literary vanity, and I must rather give what I can to all who have a claim upon me, than pay my debt in fuller measure at a time, when some of my most legitimate creditors would no longer be here to receive anything at my hands. Fortunately it costs me no effort, in addressing a University audience, to revive my academic interests, for they have never died. I do not know whether it is a claim upon the favour of a Scotch University, that I began my political life with an attempt to throw open the doors of our English seats of learning to men of all creeds. It might, perhaps, be made a reproach to me that this very effort had resulted in attracting some prominent Scotchmen to the South. But you will not grudge the migration, if you remember that many of these were already graduates in their native Universities at the time, when they trans- ferred themselves to Oxford and Cambridge, and by the triumphs of their second academic career helped to shed lustre on the scene of their first. 1 Address delivered 31st January, 1888, 259 Rectorial Addresses: But perhaps I can establish a claim for more unalloyed sympathy on your part in another direction. We fully recognise in the South the success, with which the Scotch Universities have striven to identify themselves with a broader mass of the population than their English rivals have yet been able to reach. Indeed, so jealous are we of that success, that some of us have been engaged for years in trying to shed the light of University culture over a wider area, and to extend University teaching in England to populous centres, which have hitherto regarded such edu- cation as confined to an inaccessible region. With all the differences between the English and Scotch University systems, there are, I trust, an increasing number of interests which they have in common, and I need not feel disqualified to address a Scotch academic audience by the fact that my own academic training has been conducted exclusively south of the Tweed. At the same time, I hardly feel competent to dogmatise as to what, under your special conditions, you ought to read, learn, and avoid. I shall not plunge into the inex- haustible controversy about the competing claims of various branches of learning. One of my earliest University re- collections is of an essay written for discussion among a circle of friends on the question whether metaphysics or mathematics constituted the soundest mental training. I am sure no literary society of undergraduates ever existed, who did not try their nascent controversial powers on similar attractive and profound topics ; and kindred subjects seem to have supplied the maturer intellects of successive Lord Rectors with materials for their customary addresses. The two great battles — the battle of the Humanities against the Sciences, and of the Humanities and Sciences combined against the Utilities, are raging as merrily as ever, and they will rage on, we may make our minds quite easy about it, without a dearth of champions on either side ever bringing these contests to a close. I do not propose to-day to pit one of your faculties against another. I do not propose to court the favour of the medical school at the expense of philosophers ; or, much as I might have to say about it, to maintain the cause of general culture against special 2O0 G. J. Goschen, 1888 training. In all that I have ever said or done to promote the spread of higher education I have emphasised the value of culture as a means of brightening life, and not merely of increasing, though it does increase, commercial and industrial capacity. But to-day I am about to plead, not for any particular form of study, not for any particular branch of knowledge, but for a temper, an intellectual habit, an attitude of mind, which is applicable to every kind of study and indeed to every sort of work. I mean the habit of intellectual interest in all that is studied, learnt or done. I wish to emphasise the word " intellectual." Of course every one will admit that there must be interest of some sort, if any good work is to be achieved. No study, no profession, no business can be satisfactorily carried on without interest. But there are various kinds of interest. There is the interest of success, there is the interest of rivalry, there is the interest of profit, there is the interest of duty. But all these differ from what I mean by intellectual interest. They are all more or less ex- ternal to the work. They induce us to undertake it, to persevere in it. But intellectual interest springs from the work itself. It is born in the doing of it. It often becomes stronger, I had almost said in all the best work it always becomes stronger, than the interests, however powerful, which originally led us to undertake such work. And when I say this, I am thinking not only of work such as you do here, not only of those learned and scientific studies, of which intellectual interest is admittedly the only powerful spring and motive, but even of the practical and rough work of life, which men begin to do from compulsion, because it is necessary to subsistence and comfort, but which they may end by doing with pleasure, because they have found in it a source of intellectual interest. It would be going too far to say that all work is equally interesting, or even that all work is interesting at all. But I do say that in almost all work interest is to be found if the worker has the temper to find it. We are too apt to exaggerate the distinction between work that is interesting in itself and work that is interesting only because it is 261 Rectorial Addresses: remunerative, between studies pursued for their own sake, and what the Germans call " bread studies." When I look beyond the occupations of school and college to the practical business of life, to professions, and even to trade and industry, I seem to see, not only that men can be found who take intellectual interest even in those employ- ments which at first seem the least calculated to arouse it, but that it is only where such interest is taken that any profession or business really flourishes. Comparing our own country with other nations in respect of various branches of human activity, we seem to hold our own, or to fall behind, very much in proportion to the amount of intellectual interest which we display, as contrasted with them, in the different departments of work, which go to make up the great competition of civilised peoples. There is one profession, for instance, which has always stimulated in a high degree intellectual interest both in Englishmen and Scotchmen. I mean the profession of the Law. It is, I believe, a money-making profession. But it is not the interest of money-making alone, or principally, which has produced the many great lawyers of whom our country is justly proud. Our lawyers have been proverbial for their love of law. The very charges of pedantry, of narrowness, of absorption in their particular profession, which are constantly brought against them, bear witness of their devotion to it. It is thus that we have succeeded in building up both in England and Scotland bodies of law, which, if somewhat disorderly in form, are yet, in substance, magnificent monuments of systematized common sense, such as could only have been constructed by generations of men who have loved their work, have lived for their work, have taken an interest not only in its details but in its principles, who, taking it up in the first instance in order to earn a livelihood, have found in it the great interest of life, and have gloried in it and clung to it long after their original object was fully and more than fully attained. Had I time to labour the point, I might find an even stronger illustration in the history of medicine. Here we have the case, not of a profession which has long flourished 262 G. J. Goschen, 1888 because of the intellectual interest felt in it by its members, but of one which long languished because such interest was absent No doubt, in the past, every generation has had its great doctors, men who were great because they looked beyond the particular cases with which they had to deal to the general laws of health. But the great body of their fellows in past times were mere empirics, furnished and satisfied with a certain number of precepts and prescrip- tions, some salutary, some, I fear, injurious, all more or less irrational because not springing from that scientific study of the subject which men of higher education and higher aims would have undertaken. The degree of their success was determined by the degree of their human sympathy, their self devotion, their quickness of insight, or their skill of hand — all invaluable qualities, but not alone sufficient for the practice of so great an art. At the best they cured diseases ; they did little to extirpate disease. Sanitary science is a growth of recent days. Its extraordinary development in our own time is mainly the result of the growth of that intellectual interest in the bulk of the profession, which in old days was the exception rather than the rule. But you will say these are learned professions ; it is a mere platitude that intellectual interest is essential to suc- cess in them. My contention is that the same truth holds good with regard to callings which are commonly considered the least intellectual. Let me take an illustration from a very prominent controversy of the present day. Many of our commercial cities are at this moment terribly exercised by the fact that foreigners are ousting Englishmen in our counting-houses at home, and in the competition for new trade abroad. I am using Englishmen here in its strict sense, and not by a lapse of the tongue, which, as I have been taught by experience, is bitterly resented by a Scottish audience, to describe all the inhabitants of this island. German clerks, it is said, are invading every business house in London, and depriving Englishmen of their bread ; and the reason is said to be their greater knowledge, their command of foreign languages, their acquaintance with all the technicalities of their business, 263 Rectorial Addresses: the excellence of their commercial schools. Conferences have been held to consider the cause of English failure, and remedies have been suggested in plenty to meet an admitted danger. Foreign languages are to be more and more introduced into our educational system. English clerks are to have a special business training ; higher commercial schools are to be founded to produce an article capable of competing with the foreign importation. I will not throw one drop of cold water on any one of these projects, all of which have evidently become neces- sary, and all of which should be pushed with ardour and enthusiasm. But when you have done all this, when you have taught the English clerk five languages, have in- structed him in the technicalities of his business, you will still not have done enough, unless you have succeeded in making him as fond of his work as his German competitor. There is a danger in thinking that it is only knowledge that is lacking — that it is only in width of information that the foreigner is superior. He knows more, no doubt ; but that is not the root of the matter. The root of the matter is, that he cares more about his work ; that, as a rule, he takes an interest in it apart from its results in money, which, for whatever reason, the Englishman has not hitherto learnt sufficiently to take. Of course I am speaking in very general terms. There are thousands of exceptions on both sides. But I point to the admitted fact, that it is characteristic of the German clerk that his work presents to him a field which excites his interest and fills him with an ambition for wider know- ledge, which is not to be despised because its subject seems dull and dry. The man who, however instructed, mentally swears at the work to which he is condemned, who regards it as drudgery to be done from necessity or from a sense of duty, but to be got over as soon as possible and forgotten, is at a disadvantage in competing with the man, to whom that work is constantly suggesting topics of interest, and to whom it is therefore not a drudgery, but a pleasure. I have myself seen German senior clerks listening to some discussion on a complicated question of commercial law, not with the bored faces of men who keep their eye upon 264 G. J. Goschen, 1888 the clock, anxious only to know when the hour of release will strike, but with the keen interest of experts who delight in the analysis of an intellectual problem. Such men would enjoy a controversy about the law of Bills of Exchange or some ticklish point in Insurance practice, as much as a scholar would enjoy a controversy about the authenticity of a manuscript or the meaning of an inscrip- tion. You cannot explain away such interest by putting it down to the mere instinct as money-grubbing. No thought of salary was present to the minds of these salaried men. It was simply exquisite professional enjoyment like the enjoyment of a barrister in a telling piece of cross- examination, or the enjoyment of a literary controversialist marshalling an array of argumentative phrases. Over such discussion the dinner hour would be forgotten, and the question, if unsettled at last, would be taken home to be thought over in hours of leisure, not as a matter of duty or a means of earning extra pay, but as a mental diversion. I beg not to be misunderstood. 1 am analyzing a type of character, not holding up an ideal. From a different point of view the English clerk will be the more attractive man. In loyal devotion to the interests of his employers he has certainly no superior. He has natural quickness, he has energy when called upon for special duty. He has many interests beyond the counting-house or the ware- house, and if, when the hour of his release has come, he hurries off to ride his bicycle, or to strip for the river, or to carry his bag to some suburban cricket-field, or makes his way quickly to his wife and children at home, who shall say one word of blame ? But, as a man of business, the rival to whom his work is not a mere task, who gets rid of it with less alacrity, who finds pleasure in it as well as outside it, will beat him in the race. I am afraid I may find little sympathy in my plea for the interest which can be found in uninteresting work, but I must seek for some assistance from a parable. What can be more uninteresting than digging the ground ? But the tedium of that monotonous occupation is changed into feverish excitement where there is some chance of discover- ing, from time to time, even the smallest nugget of gold. 265 Rectorial Addresses: To some minds general principles are like nuggets. The chance of rinding them supplies an attraction and an interest which may relieve the apparently endless vista of repellent monotony, and lend even to drudgery some of the charm of scientific investigation. To take an extreme instance — What duller thing can there be than a pile of Bills of Exchange ? To the partners in a commercial firm they may represent an interesting amount of commission. To the clerk, who has to enter them, what can they represent but an endless monotony of figures ? Well, if he carries to his work an intellectual interest, he may find them full of light, teaching him many lessons as to the currents of trade, the movements of capital, the commercial habits and prospects of different countries, and if he studies them long enough and deeply enough, he may be able to gather some general principles by which to correct the theories even of learned writers, and to suggest many modifications in received economic truths. For it is the extraction of a principle from the dull and apparently lifeless mass of detail which is the essence of the interest of which I speak. I can perhaps adduce an illustration from my own experience. My father, who was, if I may say so, an intellectual man of business, and who owed his success in life to that fact, was always ardently anxious to establish a principle in commercial dealings. When one of those differ- ences of opinion occurred about questions of commercial right, which would naturally lead to a lawsuit, though not necessarily an unfriendly one, he was generally opposed to a compromise. A compromise might be cheaper and simpler, and most men would have been in favour of it, but what he disliked about a compromise was that it threw no light upon the question at issue. What was necessary for commercial instruction, to establish a mer- cantile precedent, was that a knotty point should be decided by a competent judge after having been argued out by first-class counsel on either side. Nothing could be more unsatisfactory than an arbitration without reason assigned. " I learned nothing from it " was the phrase with which he dismissed that expedient. To his mind the point was not 266 G. J. Goschen, 1888 simply whether you were to pay or to receive, but whether you were right or wrong in principle. Interested as he was in the scientific aspect of a dispute, nothing pleased him more than a lucid judgment pronounced from the Bench, whichever way it went, as long as it contained convincing and authoritative dicta on the various aspects of the case. Of course this is not the ordinary ideal of the man of business, nor would I deny for a moment that many men have achieved and deserved success in whom such a habit of mind was totally lacking. Indeed the merchants of a former generation, who built up the splendid fabric of British commerce, were undoubtedly more conspicuous for unerring instinct and audacity of enterprise than for any intellectual temper. Their interest in their business was exclusively practical ; but none the less they achieved great results. And perhaps persons of their turn of mind and practice do their work with all the more vigour and energy because they have no love for it in itself, and are glad to get rid of it as soon as possible. Their strength lies in their natural shrewdness. They are bored by nothing so much as by a principle. It would never occur to them to object to a compromise, if it was the quickest way of settling a difficulty, from any intellectual dislike to so unscientific a solution. Thousands of people have made fortunes by methods such as these. But such men create no school. Their instinct is individual ; it dies with them. They cannot impart it to colleagues, successors, or subordinates. The man, on the other hand, whose intellectual interest has prompted him always to look for a principle, serves those around him as well as himself. He contributes to the information of his rivals. He broadens the intellectual basis on which every business, as well as every profession, rests. Without undervaluing in the least those practical gifts, which have contributed so greatly to the success of Great Britain in commerce and industry, I would have you bear in mind that even in these fields there is room, nay, there is necessity, for the more purely intellectual qualities which are sometimes supposed to be exclusively appropriate to the learned professions. The neglect of the intellectual 267 Rectorial Addresses: side of business and commerce is, in the long run, scarcely less hurtful than their neglect in other, and what are commonly considered higher, departments of study and of work. " We are a practical people," has been the boast of the British nation. There is much truth and justice in the boast, but if it implies not only the condemnation of ignor- ant theorising but a back-hander to the intellectual study of principles and general truths in the conduct of business, it is full of danger to the prosperity of the community. Nothing can be more deplorable than that the men who have to deal with economic problems should be divided into theorists, who have no knowledge of practical details, and practical men, who shrink from the labour, or despise the results, of a study of general principles. To make the antithesis complete I should have used the word " theories " instead of " general principles." But so discredited is the very term "theory" in some commercial circles, that I shrink from it, lest, being regarded as the champion of theories, I should suffer a complete loss of credit with the practical men whom I have in my mind. They will not even like to hear of principles. But the term does not carry with it the same whiff of unpracticality which is unfortunately connoted by the word theory. One is tempted to ask how, in a country like England — I mean England in its proper sense — an intelligent, an industrious, a capable country, there has existed so long an amount of prejudice, for it is scarcely less, against intellectual interest in some of the most important depart- ments of life. Of course there has always been a recogni- tion of the value of intellect — in its proper place. But it has been too commonly held that intellectuality, like religion, should be confined to certain circles, to which it was peculiarly appropriate. Authors, professors, doctors, lawyers, might be as intellectual as they pleased, and the more so the better, but there was an unadmitted and unconscious prejudice against intellectuality everywhere else. I am approaching a delicate subject, but, as an old public school man, thoroughly devoted to the traditions under which I was brought up, and deeply grateful for their 268 G. J. Goschen, 1888 influence, why should I hesitate to utter what is in my mind ? In the English schools and universities intellectu- ality, if I may once more use an odious but unavoidable word, has never been regarded, at least never until quite recent days, with any of that favour or popularity for which boys and young men especially seek. I do not say that a boy or a young man, who did his work and had done with it, was not respected, but there was scant excuse allowed him for thinking about it more than was necessary. Remember the many epithets applied to those who, not content with doing their work, commit the heinous offence of being absorbed in it. Every school, every college, has had its choice nickname for this unfortunate class. In the presence of this academic and erudite assembly my lips scarcely like to pronounce words, which convey a homely but unmistakable depreciation of hard intellectual work. But schools and colleges which shall be nameless have invented for this purpose, with that peculiar felicity which attaches to schoolboy nomenclature, phrases, semi-classical, or wholly vernacular, such as a " sap," a " smug," a " swot," a " bloke," a " mugster." I could give a longer list, full of etymological curiosities, but let the above suffice. There is another symptom of a parallel feeling in the wide-spread censure involved in the common reproach that a man " talks shop." What does this mean ? What is " talking shop " ? It means talking of the interests of the work which you do, or the profession to which you be- long. I know men to whom the very idea of "talking shop " appears something odious and vulgar. I can think of professions which scout the idea of shop being talked out of business hours. But injustice lies in the word, and a snare in the thought. Too often it means the exclusion from lively conversation and pleasant discussion of that which forms the dearest intellectual interest of a man's life. Fashion has much to say in determining what men may talk shop, and to whom the privilege is inexorably denied. Be on your guard against this fashionable criti- cism. Many men are never so interesting as when they talk shop. The privilege is accorded in the fullest manner to the votaries of pleasure, of sport, of games ; let it not 269 Rectorial Addresses: be denied, in some degree, to higher intellectual interests. But I am resolutely determined not to glide into the tone of a moralist. I am endeavouring simply to analyze symptoms. I therefore merely call your attention to the rebuke conveyed in the expression " talking shop," meant, as it is, as a protest against carrying professional interest beyond the limits of professional occupation. Why this slight, so commonly expressed, for the habit of interest in a man's work ? What is its historical origin ? How is it to be explained ? Shall we not be right if we attribute it in part to the influence of our vast leisured class who, being independent of the necessity of work themselves, and passionately devoted to some of our characteristic national habits, have established a scale of honourable precedence in which work certainly does not hold the highest place ? And, perhaps, we may attribute it in a still greater degree to the fact, that the credit attaching in some other countries to intellectual work has had in our case to yield to that reverence for outdoor sports, and intense admiration for those who excel in them, which is not confined to the leisured class, but is an hereditary distinction of the British race. The games of Great Britain have no parallel in the education or social system of any nation that I know. Do not for one moment suppose that I undervalue them. They have contributed to the spirit which has made the Empire. They have given us esprit de corps. They have carried the dash and the chivalry of the playground into many hard fought battles on a sterner field. They have introduced "camaraderie" into our political life. They have created respect for the authority of the umpire and the rules of the game. The Duke of Wellington said, as we have all often heard, that the battle of Waterloo was won in the fields of Eton. But it is not only the soldier who has owed his character to the influence of British games. It is not too much to say that the chivalrous touch about our older Parliamentary courtesies had a parallel origin. This unique and national spirit is not incompatible with the highest form of intellectual interest and a reverence for, and love of, work. But no such combination has, in fact, 270 G. J. Goschen, 1888 been general amongst us, and to this day at English schools and universities, though less so perhaps than in preceding generations, the swagger of the place rests with the athletes of every class. So, at least, it was in my own school-days. So, I believe it is, though, as I admit, to a smaller extent, to-day. And next to the achievements of the athletes the most honour was attached, not to the sterner forms of mental training, but to the cultivation of taste. If there was one form of intellectual skill which was respected, even by the heroes of the river and the cricket-field, it was the power of writing finished verses. If there was one result, to which the educational efforts of the masters were directed, it was the turning out of elegant scholars. A satirist might have said that, if you had had to draw up a class-list of school-boy accomplishments in order of appreciation, it would have taken something like the following form : — Class I. — Athletics in all its branches. Class II. — Perfection of scholarly form. Class III. — Excellence of critical taste. Class IV. — A modicum of knowledge. Aigrotat — Intellectual interest In short, the education of the English schools and universities, had as its ideal all that is summed up in the expressive word " form." Not that such an ideal is to be despised or underrated. " Form " is a natural and far from an ignoble ideal for the education of a leisured class, for the education of men whose function is to use worthily the blessings of fortune rather than to struggle for their attain- ment. But it is inadequate by itself as the aim of an education, which is to train men to do the hard and practical work of life, and to find intellectual pleasure in its discharge. Even for the purpose for which it was directly intended the education of the English public schools, which was simply continued at the Universities, was not indeed bad, but one-sided. It developed the aesthetic faculty and style, I will not say at the expense of, but at least in preference to, activity of mind. It produced an exquisite appreciation of what is best in literature. It was less successful in inculcating the habit of mental 271 Rectorial Addresses : effort or begetting that interest in work of every kind, even work externally unattractive, which a more searching kind of mental gymnastics might have produced. But its most serious shortcomings did not lie in its effect upon the class for whom it was primarily intended. The chief seats of learning in any country influence the education of thousands who have never come within their immediate reach. They give a tone which is imitated, more or less, everywhere else. The want of thoroughness, which we have had to deplore in English middle class and popular education, is due in a large measure to the fact, that our upper class education had adapted itself to the wants of a section of society which had no need to work. In Germany an opposite social condition produced an exactly opposite result. The great body of the students at German public schools and universities, even the most fashionable, are men who have to depend upon their own exertions, and their own exertions alone, for their future livelihood. The consequence is that hard work, wide knowledge, the thorough ploughing of the mind are in that country the great objects of the highest education. The cultivation of the taste, though not neglected, occupies a secondary place. And the example, which is set on the highest educational plane, has made itself felt down to the lowest. It has made industry, knowledge, the reasoning power, interest and delight in every form of work, national, I had almost said popular, ideals to a degree unparalleled elsewhere. It has carried the scientific spirit into every form of national enterprise, into trade, into industry, even, as we have all seen, into the operations of war. If I am right in the belief that the great and early prosperity of England has been in a large measure respon- sible for the peculiarities and the shortcomings of English education, then I think we shall have no difficulty in divining the motive which is causing the character of that education in these days to undergo a noteworthy change. Our position in the race of civilised nations is no longer what it was. We had a great start in industry and commerce, and, by virtue of that start, we attained to a station of unprecedented and long unchallenged 272 G. J. Goschen, 1888 supremacy. That supremacy is no longer unchallenged. Others are pressing on our heels. We require greater efforts than formerly to hold our own. Mother wit, and boldness in seizing great opportunities — the chief factors in our previous success — are no longer sufficient, if others are to be more strenuous, more painstaking, more widely informed. It is the recognition of this fact which is at the bottom of the great stir in our educational world, of the ever- increasing demands made on our elementary schools, of the cry for technical and commercial training, of the new spirit which is manifesting itself in our public schools and universities. If this new movement is wisely guided, the pressure of competition, which we feel so bitterly to-day, may be fraught with greater blessings than the easy supremacy of the past. But it is essential that we should read aright the lessons of our comparative retrogression. Before we can apply the remedy, we must have a just diagnosis of the disease. Few things are more dangerous than the panic haste with which conscious inferiority or insecurity hurries men on to the imitation of success. After the defeat of the French by the Germans a frantic effort was made by several nations to imitate German methods of military organisation. Old systems were hastily broken up, to be rebuilt after the model of the conquerors. It is a question whether as much was not lost as gained by the precipitancy of the imitation. Let us beware that on the more peaceful field of commercial and industrial rivalry we do not commit a similar mistake and, assigning success to wrong or insufficient causes, hurriedly adopt processes in which the real secret does not lie. At present it is the vastly greater knowledge of our rivals, which is supposed to be the most dangerous com- peting force. And the inference is that we are to bustle into a system of immediate and rapid cram. I do not believe that the remedy would succeed, unless it were accompanied by the more fertile and all-pervading habit of mind, to which I have called your attention to-day. Greater knowledge is good, but there is a higher ideal— s 273 Rectorial Addresses: greater love of knowledge. You may frighten people into working harder, but the results will disappoint you, unless you have made them fonder of work. How little it is after all that schools and colleges, even of the highest order, can teach directly. Yet even the humblest of them can do something better. They can develop in their scholars a capacity, and inspire an interest, which will cause them to go through life teaching themselves. This, after all, is the final test of the value of an educa- tional system, whatever its curriculum may be. Is it intelligent? Is it thorough? Above all, is it rousing? Does it excite intellectual interest in those who come under its influence ? Does it develop in them the temper which always asks for a reason and struggles to arrive at a principle? When I look at the augmented list of subjects which now figure in our elementary education, I sometimes fear lest it should lull us into the belief that our object is gained if we can only pile up high enough the number of our studies. The question is, whether they are so taught as to expand the mind, or merely to fill it ? Are the teachers interested ? Are they interesting ? Do they stimulate as well as inform ? Let it not be supposed that I would say one word against the wider range and greater variety of modern studies. Variety promotes interest. But the mere multiplication of subjects is not what is essential. What is essential is the intellectual gymnastic which strengthens the mind to grapple with tough problems, and the in- tellectual interest which leads men to delight in that exercise. The live mind will provide itself with varied knowledge, as the well-tilled soil will grow all sorts of crops. But on the half-cultivated intelligence the stores of knowledge are lavished in vain, as the best seed is wasted on the unploughed and unharrowed field. To beget the right spirit in education, in all its grades, is a national work. No mere system can do it ; nor does it rest with the educationalists alone. It is not programmes of study, however ample, not time-tables however well constructed, not examinations, however searching, which will make an educated people. We want the steam to drive the machinery as much as the machinery itself. 274 G. J. Goschen, 1888 If a strenuous intellectual temper is to become more fashionable in all classes ; if the idea of being bored by work is gradually to die out ; if all callings are to be endowed with keener interest, it is to public opinion that we must look to effect the change. The force of public opinion in bringing about a complete transformation in the tone and character of any class or profession cannot be over-rated. Take, for instance, the case of the British army. There was no sphere in which, at one time, intellectual zeal was more slightly regarded. It was almost bad form to take a scientific interest in your profession. Courage, go, the power of maintaining discipline and of winning the affections of the men, were the sum of an officer's aspira- tions. Study of anything, including the art of war, was looked upon at best as an unmilitary virtue. But a great change has come over the public opinion of the service since the "saps," the "swots," the "blokes," of the German army, the men who were for ever poring over maps and buried in military treatises, overthrew the fiery soldiers of France, and raised Germany to the first rank as a military power. The old idea that to be a student unfitted a man to be a soldier is dead or dying. The new school are animated above all things with intellectual interest in their business. Nor has it been found that such interest detracts in the very least from those essential qualities of courage and endurance, which have always been the proud boast of the British officer. Greater intellectuality has left un- impared the heroism, which faces with absolute coolness the terrors of barbarian battle, and the cheerful hardiness, which bears without a murmur the terrible privations of the desert. With this example before us of the rapid change that may come over the public opinion of a particular profession, we need not, I think, despair of something like a revolution in the tone of society generally towards hard work and intellectual interest. We may, perhaps, even live to see thoroughness of study, and zeal, disinterested zeal to get to the bottom of a subject, as much admired and held in honour among the practical mass of our countrymen, as they always have been among the learned few. And it is certain that, until we do so, all that nascent eagerness for 2 75 Rectorial Addresses: education, which has sprung from our discovery that it does not pay to be without it, will not suffice to place us on a level with nations, where such thoroughness and zeal are universally reverenced. Gentlemen, while I have been addressing you, an uneasy feeling has crept over me, that in making these remarks to my present audience, I was, in a sense, carrying coals to Newcastle. I have been descanting on intellectual interest to men in whom I have no doubt that interest is engrained, sustained, and developed to the highest phase of the ideal which I have sketched. But let me turn a compliment into an illustration, and for that end let me dismiss from my mind, for the moment, the particular Scotchmen whom I see before me, and think of the average Scotchman. I am sure my friends south of the Tweed will not find fault with me, or disavow me, if I venture to suggest, that the average Scotchman takes far more intel- lectual interest in his work than the average Englishman. What is the result? That the Scotch, as a nation, have been remarkably successful in the practical work of life, that wherever throughout the world our common flag flies, Scotch administrators, Scotch merchants, Scotch men of business are found, out of proportion to the relative numbers of the two races, taking a foremost part in the extension of British enterprise and the maintenance of British empire. General opinion ascribes this undoubted success of the Scotch to their " canniness." If this means that the Scotch- man is innately shrewder than the Englishman, I am not sure that the proposition has my assent. I would attribute the acknowledged result to an even more creditable cause. I believe it to be due to the fact, that, as I have said (pardon my insistence on my hobby), the average Scotch- man has more intellectual interest. He has breathed from childhood a more stimulating intellectual atmosphere. It is his privilege to be the citizen of a country, where the highest form of education reaches lower down into the masses of the people, and where even those schools, which are within reach of the poorest, know how to work the minds of their scholars in a degree quite unknown in England till the last few years. 276 G. J. Goschen, 1888 There is more vivacity and less routine in Scotch teaching. Youthful dialectics begin at an earlier age. I have been astonished myself at the successful attempts to elicit genuine intellectual interest from very young scholars which I have seen in middle-class schools in Edinburgh. For my own part I like to see scholars rattled about. I like to see their competitive eagerness. Heaven forbid that we should like an argumentative child ; but the capacity for following a vein of thought cannot begin too early. With increasing years the power of following a train of thought grows into the power of checking it, and the power of checking the train of thought of another into the power of developing a train of thought for one's self. By such processes Scotch education develops mental activity, that mental activity which, as I have said, rather than exceptional shrewdness, is the foundation of Scotch success. And again, if I am not mistaken, the Scotch, as a nation, have grown up under social conditions more favour- able to the encouragement of such activity than their fellow countrymen in the south. Remember what I said with regard to the influence of a leisured class, the tone created by freedom from the imperious necessity to work, the enervating effect of wealth on the estimation in which intellectual effort is held. The poorer country, with a smaller leisured class, has not been exposed to the same temptations, and its public opinion, with regard to work has been distinguished by a more wholesome tone. Gentlemen, I trust no dark suspicion will enter into the mind of any critic of this address that, proud of the position to which you have elected me as Rector of a Scotch University, I have used Scotch virtues and English short- comings as illustrations of a priggish text. My inspiring motive has been of a very different kind, and if any apology is due from me, it is due to my Scotch hearers. I have utilized this occasion to unburden my mind on a subject in which I have long felt a deep interest. I have long watched the growth of a feeling of uneasiness as to the capacity of this country to maintain her place in the ever- increasing competition of nations. As you see, I have got 277 Rectorial Addresses: my theory as to one of the influences adverse to the main- tenance of that capacity. I have not attempted to beat about the bush. If in some quarters my remarks should give pain, my deep convictions in this matter must con- stitute my excuse for plainness of speech, as they must also supply my apology to you, if I have tried to analyse, in your presence, a problem of general interest instead of delivering a lecture, directly aimed at yourselves, such as your Lord Rector might perhaps in strictness have been expected to concoct. But students now, you will soon have become citizens in the fullest sense. Even now your interests are not merely academical, not merely local. The politics of the Empire, the economic future of the community must be subjects of concern to every society of intelligent young men. Problems of national importance and urgency are not out of place in an academic assembly. The exam- ination of causes affecting the national prosperity can never be inopportune. And least of all can it be inoppor- tune at a time, when a certain check in our career of progress compels men to serious thought. While there was no check in the tide of national prosperity ; while stern necessity had not yet laid on us the obligation to strain every nerve to keep the lead in the race of nations ; while the natural advantages which had secured to Great Britain so immense a start, could still be regarded, with the confidence of unbroken posses- sion, as belonging to her of natural right ; it might have been vain to raise a voice of protest against a tone among our upper and middle classes, which tended to weaken the esteem for intellectual effort in every section of society, and to dismiss hard work to a subordinate place as a drudge and not a companion, a limitation, not a part, of the highest blessings of life. But now when, looking around at the rapid advance of our rivals, we see that start of ours, which once seemed so enormous, growing dangerously less, when a nation, to whom work is a pride and a pleasure, appears with giant strides to be gaining on our steps, the people of Great Britain may perhaps more readily be induced to bestir themselves to add to their great natural capacities, to their natural and acquired advantages, and to the self- 378 G. J. Goschen, 1888 confidence of their ancient prestige, some of that power which the passion for mental labour has conferred on their most formidable rivals, and to resolve that, in school and in university, in bank and in warehouse, in factory and in arsenal, a larger share of time and credit, and influence and authority, shall be assigned to intellectual effort and intellectual interest. 279 Social Interest 1 By the Marquis of Huntly FOLLOWING the example of my predecessor in the Rectorial Chair, it seemed to me that the address, which is customary from him who is elected to this high office, should be delivered at the earliest opportunity to the students who have done him the great honour of making him their representative, in order to enable him to express personally his thanks to all supporters, some of whom might soon terminate their University career. There is no failure of appreciation on my part of the great position you have placed me in as Lord Rector of the University of Aberdeen, but there is some apprehension on surveying the long list of distinguished men who have preceded me, and at the additional duties which the new Universities Act entails upon the Lord Rector, duties, however, which it shall be my earnest endeavour to fulfil to the best of my ability. The very able address which Mr. Goschen delivered to the students in this hall three years ago was on the subject of" Intellectual Interest " ; he pleaded " not for any particu- lar form of study, not for any particular branch of know- ledge, but for a temper, an intellectual habit, an attitude of mind which is applicable to every kind of study, and indeed to every sort of work ; the habit of intellectual interest in all that is studied, learnt, or done." Upon similar grounds I desire to bring before you " Social Interest ; " the main interests which are involved among the different classes of society ; and how far education can assist in elucidating the problems which surround us all, and in teaching us their solution. Because the traditions, conditions, and ramifications of society are so varied and deep, social interest can hardly 1 Address delivered 6th March, 1891. a 80 Rectorial Addresses be treated as a particular form of study ; but it is equally true that "a temper, and an intellectual habit" are as necessary in dealing with the relative subjects as in any special branch of study and knowledge. Civilisation through many ages has elaborated the Caste system, which rules society in India. Influenced by climatic causes, and separate religious creeds, this system has be- come the social authority, and obtains full recognition from us among the many millions of people in that great Empire over which Great Britain holds political and ad- ministrative sway ; yet this system is entirely inapplicable and unsuited to the habits of Western nations, and, there- fore, does not aid us in dealing with our social interests ; so also are the tenets of the philosophers of ancient times unavailable for our guidance amid the constant changing discoveries and necessities of our modern existence. If the field is limited in this sense, it is boundless in its productiveness ; as the world's people increase and social intercourse extends, prophets and philosophers will grow — Tot homines, quot sententice. The progress of education amongst Western nations has created vast armies of readers by whom the conditions and wants of society are keenly discussed. The better distribution of wealth, the claims of labour, the iniquity of the capitalist, the supineness of the State, are argued ; and we are continually reminded of the necessity for secondary and intermediate education, with technical and industrial instruction for the people. While these subjects are being discussed in this country, let me call attention to the strictures passed upon the German system by the Emperor of Germany at a confer- ence on Educational Reform, at Berlin, early in December last. The Emperor is reported to have said that "the gymnasia or higher public schools no longer answered the requirements of the nation and the necessities of the time. They produced crammed youths, but not men. . . . Had the schools in question done anything to combat Social Democracy ? No, certainly not, and thus they had neglected one of their most urgent duties ; certain forces had been allowed to develop themselves, and the system 281 Rectorial Addresses: of education prevailing amongst them was clearly to blame for it ; much more stress was laid on cramming young men's heads with knowledge than on teaching them how to apply it. How was it that so many young Germans were seduced from the path of political virtue ? How was it that they had so many muddle-headed would-be world improvers among them ? ... It was this cruel, one-sided, and eternal cramming which had already made the nation suffer from a plethora and over-production of learned and so-called educated people." To summarise these allegations, they may be divided into : — the omission to combat the evils of Socialism ; and, the cramming of knowledge for temporary results without teaching the method of its application. It seems better to speak of the evils of Socialism than of "combating Social Democracy," for the necessities of the age we live in, the results of our civilisation, compel us to ignore in many instances strict economical rules, and to adapt our practices and legislation, if not upon the teaching, yet partly on the tenets held generally by Social Democrats. All laws which interfere with voluntary and strict freedom of contract between man and man, universal taxation for education and the relief of the poor, the compulsory acquisition at valuation of land and house property for behoof of others, such measures are consist- ent with Socialist doctrines. The distress which overtook portions of Ireland and Scotland, the resolutions of the nation in favour of general taxation for the general good, and the requirements of public necessity, are sufficient reason and excuse for these laws. But Socialism presses its creed further — interference in the rights of property, in the agreements between owner and occupier, and be- tween employer and employed, is held as an " axiom " beyond the necessity for such interference. All people are to be equal under the State, all property is to be divisible equally, and the State is to be governed by the elected of the people with supreme power over all private rights. The arguments which are adduced to support this 28a Marquis of Huntly, 1891 creed may be pretty, poetical, and plausible in themselves, and seemingly proved with almost mathematical accuracy ; but while its supporters might be able to say that the Elysium prophesied and pointed to, is theoretically per- fect, we are bound to deal with the more practical question, Can such things be? Are there lessons to be taught and learnt which show the existence of evils which nations should avoid, and which education can grapple with, and which it is the duty of those responsible for " social interests " to master ? It is necessary to examine shortly the principal views that have been brought forward by Socialist writers. One of the greatest of Englishmen, Sir Thomas More, in the reign of Henry VIII., wrote the Book of Utopia. This wonderful volume, which foreshadows most of the reforms of modern times, was written in 1515, it is said, "as a picture of England as it should be, and a satire upon England as it was." More foresaw the necessity for im- proved laws in every direction throughout his country, but he also sketched the dream of a free commonwealth, and attacked the rapacity of the feudal lords and the rich men as severely as the writers of the present age do. It is worthy of remembrance that, more than three and a half centuries ago, he pleaded for perfect toleration in matters of religion, for short hours of labour, and insisted on the right of the labourer to the products of his industry, that all produce should be in common among the people, one communal district assisting another in the event of deficiency ; and advocated instruction in science, lectures daily, both to men and women, for the advancement of learning. He draws this picture of his commonwealth : " Where nothing is private, the common affairs be earnestly looked upon. For in other countries who knoweth not that he shall starve for hunger, unless he make some several provision for himself, though the commonwealth flourish never so much in riches. Therefore he is compelled even of very necessity to have regard to himself rather than to the people, that is to say, to others. Contrariwise — there, where all things be common to every man, it is not to be doubted that any man shall lack anything necessary 383 Rectorial Addresses: for his private uses, so that the common storehouses and barns be sufficiently stored." Rousseau wrote in 1750, and broached the idea of a true democracy. This was it : " Each of us puts in common his goods, his person, his life, and all his powers under the supreme direction of the general will, and we collectively receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole." Professor Graham, in his excellent work on "Old and New Socialism," thus sums up Rousseau's theories : — " The people collectively form the sovereign. The exercise of the general will is the sovereignty. The general will when enunciated is law. The aim of law is the general good, and not the good of individuals or classes. It should be limited to what is good for all, or, at least, for the great majority." He preached equality, that inequality is the greatest evil, that good laws and wise government should prevent inequality, and that education was the duty of the State. But Rousseau did not propose the general appro- priation of land, capital, and property ; his Socialism was strictly State Socialism, the regulation by the State, governed on a democratic basis, of all rights, and the general diffusion of all property on these lines. He advo- cated in theory a better form of government in order to obtain the great social transformation, to realise his ideal of a perfect system, but without violent confiscation of individual rights. A generation passed after Rousseau's writings electri- fied the world, when the French Revolution occurred. The Emperor of Germany, in the speech already quoted, says that " The genesis of modern Germany and root of the present political life is to be sought for in the French Revolution, and if the transition from it to our own days could only be explained and made clear to the youth of the nation they would be able to comprehend present questions very much better." Undoubtedly the effect of the Revolution was felt in all countries, and the downfall of the predominant power of the upper classes, the rise of the lower classes, the advent of democratic rule, date from that period ; but it was many years after the fires of the great European 384 Marquis of Huntly, 1891 struggle following the Revolution had been quenched, that Socialism again reared its head. St. Simon, in 1830 was the next philosopher who started the theory of modern Socialism, that society must be reorganised with a view to the needs of industry. He is considered the founder of the new doctrines (though some of these go further than any of his writings do), and these may be taken as representing his school of thought. Starting with the fundamental principle of distribution "from each according to his capacity ; to each capacity according to its works," they hold the equality of every one in a state of nature, that each one should succeed at birth to his equal place with others of his generation in the great industrial army, and to his equal portion of its possessions. The State is to own everything, and is to be the instrument of production ; inheritance and succession to property are abolished ; all industries and means of production are to be organised by the State, who employ all as workers, to be rewarded in proportion to their work, and according to its merit. If the worker saved, he might do so, but at his death, his savings returned to the State coffers. Unlike the old Socialists who commenced by reforming the government, they completely changed the social system by a great upheaval, prevented private rights of succession, and com- pulsorily fixed the State organisation. Almost simultaneously with St. Simon, one of the noblest of writers and Englishmen arose. Carlyle saw that the old system of society was dying out ; that new powers were rising ; that the people must rule ; and while he dreaded the Parliamentary system, the levelling of every one under democratic organisations, his devotion was to hero-worship — the one, strong, capable man who could be ruler, moderator, and arbitrator ; the semi-divine leader who was to arise by the force of his own genius, a prince among his fellows. The old world being dead, a new world with a new organisation would gradually take its place, and at the head of the grand army of labourers, who alone would hold the power, the genius would be inspired who would be their general. Carlyle held society to be impossible without religion ; but here also " the old 285 Rectorial Addresses: forms were disappearing or defunct, and new ministers would be found amongst men of letters (in the high and true sense of the word), in true poets, true critics of life, men of understanding who know the meaning of life, thinkers who know the meaning and spirit of the age." ..." Only the labourer with his hand and the labourer for spiritual bread are honourable ; in government the true ruler is the able man, the born hero, who, in fact, all men in all ages are disposed to obey. This is the ruler by divine right, and here is the adamantine social rock at which revolutionary down-pulling and destruction stops." These arguments were pursued by many, until, within the last thirty years, they have been further developed by Karl Marx and his disciples, chiefly in attacks on the capitalist as the great evil ; their contention being that capital is the result of confiscation from the working classes, and should be restored to them ; that capitalism is a system of robbery and spoliation, and must be sup- pressed ; and that the State, or the community in general, is (as Professor Graham puts it) "to be the collective owner of all land and capital (as the means of production), together with the distribution of products amongst all workers, productive or unproductive, according to the quantity of work done, which is to be measured by the hours of labour bestowed on it, skilled labour being rated as a certain multiple of average or common labour." Money, markets, and the middleman in every form will be suppressed ; there will be no need for them. State bureaus and organisations will manage everything, and each labourer will be paid by " labour cheques," in proportion to the amount and kind of his work : which " labour cheques," on presentation at the State stores, will give him all the commodities he requires. It may be said that in this modern Collectivism, as in the ancient Utopia, and in all these theories produced by calm philosophic argument, there is not much danger ; that it is unnecessary for serious attention to be paid to them. Yet we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that connected with these philosophers are many extreme 286 Marquis of Huntly t 1891 sections of men who, as Communists, Anarchists, Nihilists, Dynamitards, or under other names, would not scruple to obtain the consummation of their ideas and principles by violent means. Some of them profess to treat their theories as attainable only through natural evolution ; others see no prospect of securing the end except by revolution ; while others are equally ready to win whichever way the victory can be brought about. Therefore we should not only examine the correctness of these deductions, but face the problems the theorists submit, and if right or wrong, arrive at the proper con- clusions ; if right, there is enough common sense in the people and in the educated classes, rapidly rising, to carry out the necessary changes quietly and properly ; if shown to be wrong, there is the sense of right, still the pre- dominant influence with the people, which will prevent their going astray, and which will not allow them, if properly taught, to countenance wrong-doing either in moral, economical, or political courses. This is not a received opinion, for an eminent statesman has said the difficult questions between capital and labour cannot be interfered in by the State or by outside authority. A fair field should be given to the disputants when the battle is fought, and no favour shown to either side. This may be the statesmanship of simplicity and Laissez Faire. It keeps the principal (that is, the State) out of harm's way for the time being, while his servants (that is, the People) belabour and ruin each other ; therefore it cannot be called a beneficent policy, and as the time might arrive when, powerless and exhausted, the combatants would have to fall back for aid and sustenance on the principal, their trade and means of livelihood being ex- tinguished, it cannot be called a far-seeing policy. Can one believe that this is to be the result of the great efforts to educate all classes which Europe and America and Australia have so vigorously made ? Is the effect of education to be the obliteration of common sense, a trait of character formerly supposed to be of predominant value among men ? It is further said, although there are strikes and con- 387 Rectorial Addresses: flicts between capital and labour, that the wealth of the country increases ; there is no cessation (though there may be a temporary check) in the rapidity of the advance. This is a view of matters which can be looked at in two ways ; it may be true as regards the collective wealth, and the trade of, and the property held here and in other lands by, our countrymen ; taxation and other returns may show the increase of this collective wealth ; but it is equally true many people are ruined by the dislocation of a particular trade, through strikes and lock-outs, and disagreements ; many go to the wall in misery whatever the result of the conflict ; sometimes the trade is paralysed and cannot be revived, yet the world wags on ! The statistician demon- strates the mass of our growing riches ; and the philosopher of the nineteenth century is ready with his adage, " What is one man's meat is another man's poison ! " How different was the ideal of the earlier writers on social matters ! How different was the aim advanced by their theories, and which inspired their thoughts ! The commonwealth of Utopia which Sir Thomas More dreamt of, the wise govern- ment through which Rousseau wished to obtain equality among men, the early communism of this century which led poets like Shelley, Coleridge, and Southey to breathe inspired blessings on its prospective realisation in the new world, all started from the high moral ground of improving existing institutions, of providing against the injury or want of any one, and of conferring benefits on all. The industrial revolution, which had commenced before the great European war, and which soon began to develop at its termination, and the accession to the world's wealth through the enormous discoveries of gold in America and Australia, diverted attention from the ideal beauties of com- monwealths and equality to the more tangible questions affecting capital and labour, the employer and the employed. However interesting the theories of the early writers on Socialism may be, they are dimmed in the struggle between these two contending forces arrayed against each other. Let us review the combatants in what is called the battle for industrial freedom, and take a look at the non- combatants on either side. Marquis of Huntly, 1891 In former times the capitalist was almost solely repre- sented by the landowner, the descendant of the feudal lord, and down to our own generation the social reformers considered that better distribution of the land, the preven- tion of its accumulation in the hands of a few, was the principal direction in which measures could be taken for the more equitable equalisation of the world's wealth ; but the landowner has retired into the background as the leading capitalist. No doubt many large estates and some millionaire owners of land remain, but many properties have been broken up, and there is a growing tendency in the same direction. Legislation which would simplify the transfer of land, and increase the numbers both of owners and occupiers of land, and of parcels of land, should be hailed with satisfaction by every one. The extraordinary fall in the value of agricultural produce during the last ten years has reduced the value of the land and of the landowner's capital, while the acquisition of wealth has passed into other hands who have become richer representatives of the class. The manufacturer and trader, the brewer, the banker, the shipowner, have moved up to take a large share of the increased riches of the world, and the enormous accession during the last thirty years of the country's wealth has gone into the possession of this class of capitalists ; but within this class another has sprung up in the limited company and its shareholders. Large private trading con- cerns have been turned into companies, the late owner, perhaps, sitting secure in the centre holding a large portion of the shares ; the others divided amongst the public, who thus have become small capitalists sharing with him the profits, and securing his position by their alliance. Also, a new set of capitalists have appeared in the financier, the company promoter, the cornerer, with all sorts of methods and monopolies, such as rings, pools, syndicates, and trusts : and it is far more likely, their joint interest being widely diffused, that they can protect themselves and their capital, than those who owned the land could, even in their palmiest days of power. A federation of capital is more powerful now than a federation of nobles ever was. If the position of the capitalist has changed, so has t 289 Rectorial Addresses : (though perhaps in a less degree) that of the worker ; at the base he still remains the same, the agriculturist, the miner, the porter, the artisan, the mechanic, and the small dealer ; but the development of trade has increased the sphere of the labourer, and the progress of inventions has extended the demand for the skilled worker. Railways, telegraphs, ships, and almost all trades require skilled and scientific workmen, managers of industry, clerks and secretaries of superior attainments for the conduct of their business ; these men with higher qualifications for these posts now receive higher wages, and while this system has the advantage of offering inducements to the labourer to rise, and to improve his position, it must be remembered that in the proposed future Socialist kingdom and under the crusade against capital, all this labour is to be ranked equally. The collectivists hold that skilled labour is ordinary labour intensified or multiplied, being not so severe, perhaps even more pleasant, than common labour. This point will be referred to again later on, but before leaving the description of the worker, another class must be mentioned, a rapidly growing class under our modern system, of very great importance, and in some branches indispensable, though not productive in an economic sense. As Professor Graham puts it, " There is all the labour that consists in rendering services where no material thing results, or is worked into more desirable form. There is the labour — often absolutely necessary — that consists of doing some service that some one requires, the labour of the physician, the schoolmaster, the professor, the lawyer, the magistrate, the policeman, the soldier, the domestic servant, or, as he or she will be called in the Socialistic community, the domestic help ; not to speak of the labour that merely ministers to amusement, such as that of the actor, the public singer, or the dancer. There is, too, the higher labour of the man of letters, of the artist, of the man of science, so far as he is an original investigator. There is the labour of the civil as well as of the military service. How is all this labour to be organised under collectivism and particularly how is it to be paid comparatively with productive labour ? " 290 Marquis of Huntly, 1891 The difficulties in the classification and valuation of labour in the proposed Socialist State would seem to be almost insuperable ; and little encouragement is afforded to experimentalise on these lines when one recognises the failure of the prophecies, and the disappointment of the hopes of former philosophers. There is a desire to ignore the extreme doctrines, and to adopt only small portions of the creed in the hope of peace. The very bottom of the argument of those who advocate extreme action, is the duty of " the State " to find easy and pleasant occupation for everybody. Their leaders urge all labourers to unite for the common purpose of protecting their joint interests, obtaining more wages, shorter hours of work, and for other advantages. They found their claim to employment and maintenance through the State on the doctrine that capital is the confiscation of labour, and they have the right to its restoration or better dis- tribution. So, the ordinary phrase is heard of " the necessity for adapting legislation to the spirit of the times," which means that the spirit of the times may be construed according to the individual want, conception, theory, or idea, pleasing to the moment to each person embued with that spirit. Is the question Revolutionary Socialism versus State Socialism ? The one seeks a new society, a new Con- stitution, and a new State ; the other seeks to improve existing institutions to the public advantage in the face of modern requirements upon the distinct grounds of ensuring private rights against unwarranted confiscation, and of protecting individual liberty and freedom. Re- volutionary Socialism denounces the existing distribution of wealth as a system of organised confiscation and plunder; the wages paid by the capitalist employer are insufficient ; the bankers, financiers, and the proprietors of stocks and shares in companies do little or nothing in return for the profits and interest received by them ; and the middlemen get their share of the plunder out of the consumer, who is chiefly of the working class, whose labour is the most productive, and who, in fact, are the real producers. It disagrees with co-operation and in profit-sharing, 291 Rectorial Addresses: because they would not put an end to competition, which they say is at the bottom of a host of evils, such as over-production, commercial anarchy, low wages, and unemployed workers. The new distribution is to be according to the amount and social utility of the pro- ductive labour of each worker, and the plan is to measure this by the numbers of hours worked, in order that each should receive in proportion to the number of hours of his work or labour-time. It is impossible within the limits of an address to follow the intricacies of this theory to expose its fallacies, as Professor Graham does so ably in his book already quoted from. Shortly put, he shows that we might super- sede money by expressing the values of all products in terms of the same unit of labour-time ; our labour cheques or notes might purchase a loaf of bread, or any necessary thing, or pay for a ticket on the railway, when everything has a price or value expressed in a labour-time ; but most products are the result of a long series of different kinds of labour, which it would be necessary to apportion and add up before all the units are incorporated to be equal value in labour-time. How could the hours of labour expended on products, for example, such as bread or cloth, be calculated, and how could skilled labour be brought into proportion to ordinary labour in determining the average labour when fixing the value? The collectivists say we require a standard of comparison ; simple unskilled labour to which the different sorts of skilled labour are reduced to their standard. How can we reduce the many sorts of skilled labour to this standard ? " We must first reduce the labour of the ordinary operative to it. But by what rate ? How much is it to be rated above average labour ? Then comes the skilled labour of the manual sort ; this has to be reduced to average labour. Is it to be twice, or thrice, or why ? Then, where intelligence is of importance, how is the labour into which it enters to be expressed in terms of average labour ? " The labour, for example, of the foreman and overseer, or of the clerks who must correspond in foreign languages, or, finally, of the owner or manager whose work in organising 292 Marquis of Huntly, 1891 and directing is altogether intellectual and moral? All the labour must be rated in hours of common or average labour, or we cannot tell what is its value on Marx's principles, and if we do not know its value, we cannot tell the value of a given portion of the product, nor by consequence how much of it the different workers can get in exchange for their certificate for hours of work" The hours of work would be an imperfect and unequal measure of work, and the injustice of the system would be far greater than our present methods of distribution, while it is almost past reasoning to suppose that the skilled and unskilled labourer should be treated equally, and all wages equalised. Nature has given to one man more talents than to another, and in the industrial world of all grades of society natural ability will secure the recognition of higher rewards. When we consider how many of the doctrines laid down by political economists and philosophers in the past have turned out illusory, it should make us shy at all Utopian visions in whatever garb they may be presented. The social slavery which is complained of by many orators and writers exists as much under the autocratic authority of the leader of a combination of labourers and workers as under the yea or nay of the capitalist. The tailors, hatters, and haberdashers of Melbourne had to strike under orders from their leader in the associated trades, because the dock labourers disagreed with the shipping firms. Although they had no legal interest in the dispute, they desisted by order from earning wages for themselves and their families. In a late strike, men of twenty years' service, soon to complete the term entitling them to a pension of ten shillings per week for the rest of their lives, had to go out along with others in one branch of a service because that other branch had a grievance or disagreement with the master. Did the feudal lord of olden time exercise greater power, when he summoned the serf from his land to fight under his standard, than the leader of a trades union in these days wields, when he declares war on capital ? It is impossible to deny the power, the utility for good, and the usefulness of trades unions, but it is also impossible 293 Rectorial Addresses t not to say that they may become oppressive and autocratic when they combine to suppress individual action, and to interfere with the complete liberty of the subject ; as has been often shown, we owe our freedom and supremacy to the initiative, the exertion, and ability of individuals. One who will be greatly missed in this country, Mr. Charles Bradlaugh, wrote, shortly before his death, that "men should be stimulated to achieve their own betterment, not taught to look to the Executive Government for an amelior- ation which is only permanently possible by individual initiative and exertion." Is there not a great social danger in this equalisation of labour, its voice, its wage, and its interest, which the unions sometimes demand of their members? Are they not checking the very springs of success which should be utilised and encouraged in their own interest ? The human plants do not grow all alike, and he is a poor gardener who would seek to cultivate them upon equal and similar treatment. This development was never contemplated by reformers like Mill and Kingsley ; such men never conceived the idea that separate interests and unequal capacity should unite upon the basis of equality and equal remuneration. But though the more orthodox political economists did not make the mistakes which many enthusiastic Socialists have fallen into, their prophecies and deductions have turned out equally erroneous. Co-operative production (or associated labour, or profit- sharing) was to cure all our difficulties ; and every one wishes it would. Somehow it has not progressed. Whether from insufficient capital, or the absence of the main incentive to success, the spirit of individual ambition, there is no extension of the co-operative movement in comparison with the growth of private firms and companies. We were told a great danger was before us through the in- sufficiency of our country's products for the maintenance of the population, and the gravest doubts were expressed as to the possibility of our maintaining and feeding increased numbers upon foreign supplies. The evolution of the resources of the world, and the means of attracting these resources to us, of obtaining what we require, has 294 Marquis of Huntly, 1891 upset all calculations ; and he would be a bold man indeed who would now attempt to limit the numbers our race may attain in these islands. Some were content with prophesying the dangers and evils and terrors ahead of us ; and there were some among the philosophers who took another view of the future, and held that the age is dawning when the best men and women will treat the possession of their higher and superior gifts for the purpose solely of performing higher and superior duties without extra recompense, without profit to them- selves. These reformers say that, as the exercise of the higher qualities is more pleasurable and affords more real delight to the human being in this world, he or she should be satisfied with this success. Perhaps the gratification of popularity or popular appreciation of his work may be added ? The day is, however, far distant when the work of the writer, the author, the poet, and the critic will be treated, ranked, and paid for equally. There is a market for merit. Having criticised some of the failures of the prophets, and the errors on the side of the labourer and his leader, it is incumbent on me to say that the strictures which through ages past have been brought against the capitalist have not been without foundation. The charges now brought against capital are not unwarranted. There is not the sense of duty, the feeling that the possession of wealth involves responsibility beyond the interest of self, which should be more accepted, and was in former times more understood. The writers of former times did not attribute such rapacity and covetousness to their nobles and merchants as do the scribes of our day who attack the modern capitalist for his pride of wealth. The egoism of the rich man, increased by the opportunities of acquiring the power which money brings with it, has not diminished since Carlyle thundered his denunciations against Mam- monism. Stupendous as the evil of excessive self-interest, of absorbing cupidity is, there is also engendered the want of sympathy with labour, which creates danger, and, unless that feeling of sympathy is kept up, it is difficult to see how the battle between the two hosts can be avoided. Sympathy 295 Rectorial Addresses: is necessary in dealing with the difficulties and quarrels which arise, and, if egoism is to be the controlling influence on the side of capital, the conflict will be often renewed and the strife will be bitter. Human nature is the founda- tion of society and its controlling power. It should recognise the duties inherent with responsibilities, and faithfully discharge them. We are approaching the fourth century since Bacon wrote these words, yet they are as true in this age as at the time of the Tudors : " I cannot call riches better than the baggage of virtue : the Roman word is better — impedi- menta ; for as the baggage is to an army, so is riches to virtue ; it cannot be spared nor left behind, but it hindereth the march ; yea, and the care of it sometimes loseth or disturbeth the victory. Of great riches there is no real use, except it be in the distribution ; the rest is but conceit." But apart from the claim which society has upon individuals to perform their duties, it is necessary that the State, with its slowly moving organism, should adapt its laws to modern requirements, and enlarge its functions as civilisation progresses, and thus extinguish revolution. In advancing on the lines of State Socialism, for the good of all parties within the State, for the maintenance of progress as a society as well as a State, everything depends on the training, the teaching, and the learning of the youths of the Empire. You, the students of this University, are but a small brigade in the great phalanx of the rising generation, which, with modern ideas, surrounded with modern theories and inventions, will soon occupy the predominant position among your race in the world ; upon your individual efforts you may hesitate to place importance in dealing with such world-wide problems of social interest ; but it will be you who have received the advantages of training and education in the leading institutions of the realm, each in your own sphere of life, wherever your lot is cast, who can influence the society around you, the social needs and progress of your neighbours. Is there any ground for the criticism on cramming merely for temporary results? In learning to become a 296 Marquis of Huntly, 1891 useful member of society, wherever you may be placed, there is something in addition to the mechanical acquisi- tion of the knowledge required to take a degree or pass an exam. This acquisition is doubtless necessary for the particular business or avocation in life which you may select, but beyond it are the social interests, the relations with your fellow-creatures, the laws of society, all demand- ing your study and attention. No mere cramming can teach you how to deal with the ever-changing situation ; in this particular study the intellectual habit of mind is still as necessary, but combined therewith, with the acquisition of knowledge of the subject, should be practised three of the most important traits of human character and social life, namely, mutual forbearance, common sense, and tact. Can nothing be done to further instil these principles and creeds of social fellowship among us ? Every one can read ; to all are presented in glowing colours the splendid results to be obtained through the social changes proposed, and to those who have received the privilege of the highest course of learning which the University affords, we must look as the future guides and leaders of the people. The past few years have shown us the growing importance of these questions, not only in the discussion raised upon them, but also by practical evidence. Every one who thinks for himself on subjects of " social interest " realises the absorbing importance therein contained. The future of our great country depends upon the manner in which they are treated, in the forethought of our leaders, in the sound education and common sense of our people. In that very remarkable lecture which Mr. Courtney delivered the other day on "Socialism," at the London University College, he showed with ruthless logic and irresistible argument that as a working system it was impracticable under the conditions of our existence, in the age we live in, and while we are a great trading, commercial community. The power and capabilities of the Labour Bureau under the Socialist regime could not check the progress of inventions or keep pace with the development of ideas and individual energy ; neither could they enact a law controlling fashion, or prevent 397 Rectorial Addresses: different men from wanting different things. We must not, however, be content with the logical demonstration of impossibilities, but in addition we should see that the lessons are learnt by all classes in the State. It has been well pointed out that our trade in this country largely depends on our supremacy as the porters and carriers of the world. We have many keen rivals in the same field, and it would not take much to put them ahead of us. The influence of Socialism in the " New Unionism " is directed against the employment of free labour; it does not ask everything which in theory it desires ; but begins by uniting against those who do not unite with it. Quoting from Mr. Bradlaugh : — He says, " I note the word ' blackleg ' figures in the advocacy of Socialism in politics as it often figures in Socialist speeches ; but the so-called ' blackleg ' is mostly only an honest man with a hungry wife and starving children, who is trying to work for food instead of begging and stealing." This is a very critical question in the interest of the commercial community of the whole nation, as well as of the workers in any particular branch of industry. Instances have occurred of business and industrial concerns being trans- ferred from us to other countries through disputes with the workers, and the dislocation of the trade connection. Capital has retired from the enterprise, and left the labourers high and dry to find other employers. Trade is a shy maiden, coy and hard to please ; one whose affections may be easily alienated ; once lost, the influence will not be regained. We should stick to the old love before we are on with the new. The English Socialists have sprung into power through their alliance with, or rather their appointment to the management of, many of those great industrial organisa- tions, the trades unions. Though the Socialists may at present have the controlling power in these bodies, it is believed by many people that the " New Unionism " will eventually swallow up and extinguish Socialism. These writers argue that the development of the unions, with the increase in their power, brings about a solution of the conflict with the employers ; that, for instance, in the 298 Marquis of Huntly, 1891 cotton trade, the strength of labour on one side and capital on the other is so great, amicable negotiations are the rule in fixing the wage standard, it being left to delegates representing both sides to adjust the scale of wages as circumstances require it They think that it but needs to have all labour, skilled and unskilled, efficiently and thoroughly organised, for the unions' power to become so extensive, that, as in the action of the strong unions nowadays, the result will be the pacific settlement of questions arising with the masters, and the unions will become preservatives of order and progress, and anti- Socialistic in their ideas. But it is well to remember that the cotton industry cannot be taken as absolute proof of the efficacy of Trades Unionism as a pacific power, and as a check upon Com- munism. Oldham is worthily named as a place where the adjustment of wage differences has been amicably negotiated ; it is most desirable that the example should be followed elsewhere. Lancashire has always been fore- most of counties in teaching her sons practical and sensible conduct ; and the social movement which blended together the interests of all classes in that county during the cotton famine at the time of the American War, left abiding traces of sympathy and mutual understanding between them, the fruits of which are ripe to-day. It is impossible to compare the trade interests in one centre with another, or to hold the dock labourer, for instance, equal to the skilled mechanic ; yet this seems to be the aim of the " New Unionism " on the Socialist basis, and it is attempted in Australia with the strongest organi- sation yet known. The result is, in that colony, where nine-tenths of the employed are in unions, united in joint interest, periodical and violent disputes between labour and capital occur ; high wages but higher prices for all commodities, through the protective duties which the labourers insist upon, are the rule ; and the example clearly does not hold good for us in these islands. We should lay down no rule for the guidance of other in- terests in other countries ; new communities may require and demand protection for their industrial development ; 299 Rectorial Addresses : we are in different circumstances. First in the field of commerce, and predominant in the commercial world, determined to leave industry unfettered and to secure free importation, the questions before us are different from those which appertain to any other country. We can meet them and deal with them only by thoroughly understanding and learning them, and educating our people, imbuing them with the truth. Flinch not from the subject because it is dry ; squirm not at it because it is difficult ! Two great evils of the age are the distaste at touching dry and difficult matters and the dread of making oneself unpopular by dealing with them. A German writer, Dr. Gebhart von Schulzegaevernitz, has just published a book aiming to show that we in Great Britain are more likely to solve social problems than other nations of Europe can, by the gradual process of evolution. Tracing the course of events which led to the extension of the power of the working classes, and the trials they went through, he believes that the efforts made by social reformers in this country during the last forty years, have resulted in uniting all classes in the bonds of sympathy and mutual respect, such as exist in no other country. First of these reformers he places Carlyle, to whose influence, as a very beacon of progress, he attributes the rise of that large band of noble workers who set themselves to found institutions which would lead to the gradual improvement of mankind. Co-operation has made more progress in England than elsewhere, and though it has not done all that was prophesied for it (for instance, has not abolished the competitive wage system), an immense amount of good has resulted from its teaching both directly and indirectly. To the personal efforts of such men as Maurice, Kingsley, Hughes, and Lowder, is chiefly due this success. But to Arnold Toynbee and those who followed him, who felt that the material im- provement of the conditions of industry is a necessary preliminary to the moral amelioration of the working classes, must be placed the credit of giving practical effect to the teaching of Carlyle. We can point to Toynbee Hall, Oxford House, the 300 Marquis of Huntly, 1891 People's Palace, the Polytechnics, and Mechanics' Insti- tutes ; the colleges for working men and women ; the University extension schemes and lectures ; libraries, reading rooms and reading classes, ever increasing and spreading, as evidences of our efforts on the road of social progress ; and equally can we look to debating societies, workmen's clubs, our national sports, and to everything which gives rational recreation and affords instruction, as aids in the same direction, to enable us to overcome obstacles by teaching us all to feel we are members of the same community with common interests for our mutual and social improvement. There is danger that political parties may bid for the support of rival interests in order to acquire temporary power, which may not only lead to ruin for the country, but also bring disaster upon the successful interest. Mr. Bradlaugh says "our Constitution is a patchwork of ex- pedients and compromises, to make up which party flags have been cut into so many snippets. A Disraeli has managed to make his party almost toe the line marked in the People's Charter of fifty years since, for which Schoolmaster Lovett was sent to gaol ; and to-day legis- lators on both sides of the House are far too ready to bid against each other for the popular vote, which, if it cannot give them safe lease of political power, can almost certainly drive any Government from office at a general election. Those who in time of storm should firmly steer the vessel, find it easier to run before the wind ; those who might breast a strong current are content to glide along with the tide." None of us can regard the conflicts between labour and capital, between employes and companies, strikes and lock- outs, with equanimity ; the misery brought upon many innocent people, the loss entailed through the closing of factories and works have been painfully brought home to us during the last months. Much good can be done by those whose duty it is to educate the rising generation, if both by precept and example they interest their students in questions of social interest. The history of the past, as bearing on the progress of the human race, affords endless 301 Rectorial Addresses: themes for instruction. There appears to be some dread of dealing with them for fear of touching political suscepti- bilities ; this should not be so. State Socialism has become a recognised principle in Great Britain ; but it is a principle little understood, and has often been demanded in directions where it would be mischievous and useless. The evils to avoid and the objects to attain deserve the attention of educational authorities, on the national grounds of policy, apart from private political influences. The assurance of individual and personal liberty, the remedy of abuse, the assistance of the distressed, and the security of the public health and safety, are subjects of social interest which require the education of the highest academic training. Following these lines, upon safe grounds, what a future there is for State Socialism ! It is the safest, and only practicable, means of bestowing equal benefits on all classes of our race. Authors of universal cures, doctors, each with a patent panacea, are numerous, but their intelligent subjects, the public, fight shy of their nostrums. There is one theory, however, which was dear to the heart of my late lamented friend, Professor Fawcett, which no one has disputed or depreciated, viz., the encouragement of thrift. He did much during his short reign of office in the Postal Department to help the scheme whereby the working classes might easily invest their savings on liberal terms. A further extension of this scheme might be made in connection with the Savings Banks, holding out the prospect of insurance for his life to the workman, after a certain term of weekly or periodical payments. The masters might be brought into the scheme by contributing, in their own interests, a percentage on their servants' wages to encourage continuous service ; and this department (the Post Office), deriving its affluence from an indirect tax on the people, might be utilised in con- trolling the direction of what would be practically a guaranteed, sound insurance on commercial principles, encouraging thrift on the labourers' side for the advantage of gain, securing comfort in his declining years, or in the event of accident, and enlisting the sympathy and aid of the capitalist. 302 Marquis of Huntly, 1891 There are many objections to State insurance, but it is desirable that the work Mr. Fawcett commenced should be extended on the lines he laid down. At present it is hampered by many absurd and vexatious regulations, which prevent its extension. During the last ten years the premium revenue in the Insurance Department of the Post Office has only increased about .£3,700. Further effort should be made to develop its advantages. Through State Socialism of this description, we shall arrive at the solution of the difficulties which surround us. The diffi- culties are great, but not appalling. Macaulay, when describing the new philosophy which Bacon heralded to his countrymen, replies in these eloquent words to the question, What has it effected for mankind ? " It has lengthened life, it has mitigated pain ; it has extinguished diseases ; it has increased the fertility of the soil ; it has given new securities to the mariner ; it has furnished new arms to the warrior ; it has spanned great rivers and estuaries with bridges of form unknown to our fathers ; it has guided the thunderbolt innocuously from heaven to earth ; it has lighted up the night with the splendour of the day; it has extended the range of human vision ; it has multiplied the power of the human muscles ; it has accelerated motion ; it has annihilated distance ; it has facilitated intercourse, correspondence, all friendly offices, all despatch of business ; it has en- abled man to descend to the depths of the sea, to soar into the air, to penetrate securely into the noxious recesses of the earth, to traverse the land in cars which whirl along without horses, and the ocean in ships which run ten knots an hour against the wind. These are but a part of its fruits, and of its first fruits. For it is a philosophy which never rests, which has never attained, which is never perfect. Its law is progress — a point which yester- day was invisible is its goal to-day, and will be its starting point to-morrow." A generation has passed away since those words were written. The tide of progress has not abated ; the limits of this philosophy are endless ; the benefits which may be vouchsafed to the human race through the application of 303 Rectorial Addresses research and science are not to be recounted or foretold ; the sun sets to-day upon our knowledge only to rise to- morrow radiant with the hopes which gild the horizon of discovery and improvement. Here is the inheritance which we as citizens have succeeded to ! Socialism will ever strive to obtain the consummation of its ideal state, of its Utopian common- wealth ; individualism will continue to exhibit the ano- malies, those inequalities in all grades of society, which orators and philosophers with all their eloquence and power will never cease from exposing ; but as in the realms of Nature all things have a separate life and exis- tence, though members of a genus, a tribe, or a family ; so is man in our world, an individual with the separate power of his brain, his knowledge, his intellect controlling his motives and his actions, but withal a social animal, knit by the ties of blood, of race, of habit, of custom, and of tradition in the strong human bonds of kindred. As inheritors of this kingdom, as members of this vast society, it is our part to protect ourselves from any dero- gation of our personal rights and any encroachment upon our individual freedom and action ; as true brethren it is our duty to unite in furthering our joint interests, in elevating our race, in providing for the necessities of all classes of society within the State, in showing that, while individuality is recognised and preserved, the community as a whole cannot be undermined through neglect, or its parts disorganised under the control of an unimprovable anarchy. And as custodians of this inheritance, in the education of the youth we build the buttresses to the pillar of the State ! Long may this University flourish, devoting, as it has always done, the highest place to the study of questions of social interest ! 304 Imperialism and the Unity of the Empire 1 By Lord Strathcona and Mountroyal In the first place I must thank my constituents, most warmly, for having placed me in the honourable position which it is my privilege to occupy to-day. When the matter was mentioned to me, last year, I felt some diffidence in allowing my name to be put forward as a candidate. I could not but remember the many distinguished men who had previously held the office of Rector, with so much credit to themselves, and advantage to the University ; but, in the end, largely on the understanding that no political significance would attach to it, I accepted the invitation. You will readily understand that, as the representative of Canada in this country, I could not very well identify myself with either of the great parties of our political system of to-day. It was largely owing to this reason that almost at the last moment the promised excitement of a contest, so dear to the hearts of students, resolved itself into what appeared likely to be the tran- quillity of an unopposed return. I am afraid that this state of things did not give unalloyed satisfaction within the precincts of the University — a feeling in which I might have shared myself, had I been one of the electorate instead of a candidate. Still, if I remember rightly, the proceedings were not altogether devoid of the liveliness by which even Rectorial elections are usually accompanied ; and I believe the citizens of Aberdeen were made aware that something out of the ordinary run of the daily life of the city was taking place. I hope that the students, at any rate, thoroughly enjoyed themselves on the occasion. In thanking you for the support and consideration ex- tended to me by the students of both sexes, I desire, at 1 Address delivered 18th December, 1900. v 305 Rectorial Addresses: the same time, to express my appreciation of the action of Sir Edward Grey. I might not admit it in public, but I might be willing to confess in private, that probably Sir Edward Grey would have made a better Lord Rector, in the interests of the University, than myself. While com- paratively a young man, he has had considerable experience of public affairs, and has won the respect and admiration of his fellow-countrymen, as one who may be relied upon to place the welfare of his country before any local or political considerations. It is a fortunate thing for the Empire that we have rising statesmen of his calibre, in whose care its interests are sure to be safe-guarded, and its integrity maintained. I understand that when Sir Edward Grey learned that the contest would not, in any case, be fought upon political lines (so far as I was concerned), he withdrew his name ; and as it left the field open to me, I feel under many obligations to him. There is one other matter to which I must refer before proceeding with my Address. I allude to the death of the late Principal, my old and valued friend Sir William Geddes. He was associated with the University for many years ; and his personal character, scholarly and intellectual qualifications, eminently fitted him to fill, with much dis- tinction, the high place which it is no figure of speech to say he adorned. His passing away was a great loss, both to the University and to education generally. We are, however, fortunate in having, as his successor, the Rev. Dr. Marshall Lang, whose attainments, personality, and long experience, form a guarantee in themselves that the Uni- versity of Aberdeen will continue to maintain the position which has given it a reputation far beyond the limits of our own country. When it became necessary to consider the choice of a subject on which to address you, I found myself somewhat embarrassed. I might have spoken on the Ethics of Rectorial Elections, with a reference to famous battles for the Standard ; or I might have taken one of the more or less abstruse questions of an academic nature, upon which most of you are far better informed than I am. But, I decided to deal with a matter which is sure to be especially 306 Lord Strathcona, 1900 interesting to Scotsmen, both young and old, and in con- nection with which I have had some little experience. I refer to the growth of Imperialism, and to the efforts that are being made to bring about the consolidation of the Empire. Perhaps I ought to tell you why I have chosen this particular theme. It is because Scotsmen have a great deal to do with the development of Greater Britain — more perhaps than any other section of the British race ; but it might not be wise to say so much to an audience south of the Tweed. By a wise dispensation of Providence, Scots- men, or at any rate some of them, in the past, for one reason or other, preferred to wander rather than to stay at home. Several explanations of this nomadic weakness — or strength, as the case may be — have been given ; but they are generally offered by Englishmen, Irishmen, or Welshmen. However, Scotsmen and their descendants are to be found in every part of the world. It might have been for the good of their own country had our people remained at home ; but we may say without egotism, for it is generally admitted, that it has certainly proved to be for the good of the Empire, that they took with them to the rising colonies, in those early days, their education, and their habits of frugality, thrift, and perseverance. They have done much in helping to build up Greater Britaini and to give the flag in which the Cross of St. Andrew occupies a prominent place, the importance it possesses to-day in the eyes of the world. I venture to believe also, that the present generation, and the rising generation, of Scotsmen, and of their fellow British-subjects, will fully recognise and appreciate the grand heritage which is being handed down to them ; and that they will be as proud of it as we are ourselves, and show themselves equal, in every way, to the responsibilities which its possession entails. These are some of the reasons which lead me to think that I could not have fixed upon any more attractive text for my address to the students of the University of Aberdeen. It is casting no aspersion on the memory of those who have gone before us to state that in acquiring for Great Britain so much of the earth's surface, they apparently had 307 Rectorial Addresses: little or no idea of what they would do with it, or how it was likely to affect the British Empire of the future. It was a custom in those days, and one in which all peoples alike shared, more or less, to seize anything that happened to be within their reach — if it belonged to an enemy, or if its possession was likely to afford an enemy any satisfaction. This practice not only prevailed collectively among nations, but among individuals as well, if our Border history is to be relied upon. Little or nothing was attempted for many years to colonise the territories that were acquired. On the other hand, much was certainly done to hamper and restrict their development, in the interests of the trade and commerce of the United Kingdom — their existence being regarded largely as for its benefit and profit. This, and other mistakes, led to disastrous results, which might have been fatal to the progress of any other nation than our own. An endeavour was made, in later years, to promote the export trade of the Colonies, by the granting of preferential fiscal treatment in the United Kingdom ; but as the result of the agitation which led to the reform of the Corn Laws, that privilege was partially withdrawn, and subsequently was altogether abolished. Whether the policy, so far as it concerned the rest of the Empire, was for the best or not, I will not argue at this moment, neither is it the proper occasion for doing so ; but it had the effect of destroying the family commercial relations that existed, and of placing our kith and kin very much in the same position as foreigners as regards the interchange of trade. It might be interest- ing to endeavour to arrive at some conclusion as to what the state of Canada and the Colonies would have been to-day, had there been, during all these years, a closer commercial union between the different parts of the Empire. In my opinion it would not be difficult to show that the expansion of their commerce would undoubtedly have led to the more rapid development of their immense natural resources ; and that their population and wealth might easily have been greater, in more favourable circumstances, than they are at the present time. It is often said that fifty or sixty years ago the Colonies were not popular, and that there was a feeling in existence 308 Lord Strathcona, 1900 that they were likely to be a source of weakness rather than of strength. Their exact position and limits were not always well-known in official circles, if the stories handed down to us are true ; and, besides, they gave rise under the old system of administration, to a great many troublesome questions, which did not make life happier for Ministers and their subordinates. The concession of responsible government was not regarded in many quarters as likely to bring about a closer union. The Colonies were still daughters in their mother's house, although mistresses of their own. This local autonomy was intended, if rumour be true, as the beginning of a state of things that might lead to their establishments becoming entirely separate ; and the feeling prevailed, it seems, that while their relation- ship and intercourse would, under the new order of things, be of a most friendly character, there would be no other closer connection. Some authorities contend that these steps were taken in order to prevent the possibility of the Colonies becoming a drain upon the United Kingdom — either in blood or in treasure. Imperialism was not yet ! Happily, however, these measures, if they were con- ceived in any spirit of that nature, had an altogether dif- ferent effect to that which was anticipated ; and the grant of responsible government has turned out to be the best thing that could have happened, both for Great Britain and for Greater Britain. The Colonists were thrown upon their own resources, and they became more independent and self-reliant. They commenced to work out their own salvation, and to develop the great wealth with which they were endowed. The question of the encouragement of immigration became of importance. The same remark applies to the construction of Railways, Waterways, and Telegraphs, and to the provision of Harbours and Docks. And it is gratifying to know that these descendants of the British race have retained their affection for the country from which they sprang ; and that they have been imbued from the first with that feeling of Imperialism which, con- tinuing from generation to generation, has had such magni- ficent results. I am inclined to believe that the growth of Imperialism, 3°9 Rectorial Addresses: in its true sense, and in its earlier stages, commenced in the Colonies, and that it dates from the time when they received the grant of responsible government. In British North America, the desire to promote closer and preferen- tial trade relations between the different Provinces at once became a leading question. The proposal was not, in the first place, encouraged by the Imperial authorities ; but, owing to the pertinacity of the Colonists, the principle was eventually conceded, and they were given the power to treat one another as members of the same family instead of as strangers. The concession did not bring about any immediate result. At the same time it undoubtedly was the germ from which the Dominion of Canada resulted in 1867 ; and this union of the provinces of British North America, which is now complete, with the exception of Newfoundland, may be regarded as the foundation-stone of that greater Federation, now in course of construction, which we hope may, in some form or another, be brought into being long antecedent to the period known as the dim and distant future. The example of Canada attracted attention in the other parts of the Empire. In Australia, for instance, the ques- tion of the trade relations between the different Colonies became the subject of discussion. After a good deal of negotiation with the Imperial Government, legislation was passed permitting preferential arrangements in 1873. When the Australians had obtained the acceptance of the prin- ciple for which they were contending, they also remained satisfied for the moment, and nothing more was done. But it must be regarded again as the germ that subsequently led to the Federation of Australia, which is to be brought into practical effect on the 1st of January next. The inauguration of the Dominion of Canada was allowed to take place, without any great rejoicings or jubilation, probably because the significance of the move- ment was not then thoroughly grasped. We are all glad, however, to see the greater attention which the union of Australia has attracted, and to know that the occasion is to be marked as one of the highest moment. The visit of the Duke and Duchess of York to open the first Parliament 310 Lord Strathcona, 1900 of the Commonwealth in May next, is a tribute to the im- portance which is attached to the birth of United Australia by Her Majesty, by Parliament, and by the other parts of the Empire. I believe that the federation will be as suc- cessful as that of the different provinces of Canada ; that it is another of the steps in the growth of Imperialism ; and that it will have the greatest possible effect upon the still wider movement which is ever in our minds — perhaps in an indefinite shape at present — having for its object the con- solidation of the Empire. That, in the near future, as soon as the memory of recent events becomes less acute, there will be a similar movement for federation in South Africa does not seem to admit of a doubt. An Imperial Union will then be within nearer reach than at present. When that desirable consummation is accomplished it will mean a new era of peace and prosperity for the British Empire, and perhaps for the world. Notwithstanding what is sometimes said of us in other countries, I do not think we are an aggressive people. Most of the territory we possess was acquired in times when other countries were not ready, or able, to acquire and to hold it. The justification of our policy, from the points of view of humanity and civilisation is shown by a comparison of the results of our efforts with those of other nations which now number, or have numbered in the past, considerable territories among their possessions, and by the position of our self-governing Colonies — or rather let us call them the self-governing Provinces of the British Em- pire. We have, in Canada, a federation of all but one of the provinces of British North America. The Australian Colonies are shortly to begin their united career. South Africa is in the throes of trouble at the present time, but out of it good is likely to come. In Canada and in these Colonies, and in the Crown Colonies, there is probably a population of from twelve to fourteen millions of white people — nearly half of them being in Canada — and they are increasing in a greater proportion than the inhabitants of the United Kingdom. The import trade of Greater Britain is equal to nearly one-half of the imports of the United Kingdom, and its exports are developing at a very 3" Rectorial Addresses: rapid rate. In every part of the Empire the " Open Door " is much in evidence. We do not always sufficiently appreciate the struggles made by the Colonies to bring themselves to the position they occupy to-day. Owing to their large areas, and to the numerical weakness of their populations, especially in the early days of their existence, they had to find the means for opening up their resources. As already men- tioned, this meant the construction of roads, of railways, of telegraphs, of water-ways, and many public works, and the subsidising of steamship and cable communication. In view of local conditions, these important undertakings were not initiated by individuals or by companies, as in older settled and more populated countries. The people had to do the work themselves, or, at any rate, to find the money. They had to tax themselves heavily to raise the necessary revenue, and it had to take the form of indirect taxation, owing to the difficulty of collecting anything in the nature of direct taxation. Some may argue, from economic con- siderations, that this was a mistake, but in any case, it is a mistake which has been condoned by most of the countries of the world, even in more favourable circumstances. Per- sonally, when it comes to a question of taxation, I do not see that it matters very much whether it is taken out of one pocket or the other. We may talk as much as we like about this or that method of taxation, but we have to find the money that is required. The next step was to borrow money on the public credit — that is, upon their revenue-pro- ducing powers. In the earlier stages this had to be done at high rates of interest, but now the credit of the Colonies is so good — much better, indeed, than that of many foreign countries — that they can borrow within a fraction of the rate of interest at which the United Kingdom itself can obtain money ; and quite recently their stocks have been raised to the dignity and status of securities in which Trustees may invest. Colonial borrowing is criticised from time to time, but generally by people who do not under- stand the situation. There is no doubt that the security offered is considered to be good, or the money would not be lent ; and, in justification of this statement, it may be 31a Lord Strathcona, 1900 added that the cautious Scotsmen have always invested largely in such loans. Most of the money is spent upon reproductive works, which form, in themselves, in addition to the public revenues, the security for the debts. Not only do they afford a safe investment for British Capital, but most of the materials required for public works have in the past been bought in the Mother Country — which therefore gets a double benefit from the borrowings. Canada has not borrowed so much as the other Colonies, because the Railways in the Dominion, with one exception, are owned by Companies, and not by the people. Indeed Canada has gone upon the principle of subsidising railways (land grants forming a considerable portion of the aid given), rather than of assuming a proprietary interest in the lines ; but the indirect results upon the development of the country have probably been as great, while the national obligations are considerably lower. So far, in the course of my remarks, I have dealt largely, and, from force of circumstances, in a superficial manner, with some of the events which have marked the growth of Imperialism in the outlying parts of the Empire. It is not my wish to under-rate, in any way, the growth of the Im- perial idea in the United Kingdom. I am inclined to maintain, however, that it has been brought about chiefly by the perseverance and pertinacity of our fellow-subjects in the Colonies ; and that its growth has been slower here than there, although it cannot be doubted that in the Mother-land, the Imperial sentiment is the dominant feature of the moment, and, to use an Americanism, has apparently come to stay. In my judgment the better knowledge which now pre- vails in the United Kingdom, of Canada and the Colonies is largely owing to the efforts of the Colonial representatives during the last twenty or thirty years. Those who come from Greater Britain are not yet altogether satisfied that as much is known about them as ought to be the case; but they are compelled to recognise the immense progress made in comparatively recent times. It has been a part of the duties of these representatives to preach the gospel of the Colonies for various reasons. One has been with the 313 Rectorial Addresses: object of attracting immigration, which is, and must be, for many years to come, foremost among the many im- portant questions requiring the consideration of Colonial statesmen. I only wish it had received greater attention in times past, in official circles, in this country. Then, again, they have done their utmost to make the various Colonial products better known in the English — or perhaps I had better say in the British markets; and the fact that Canada and the Colonies have spent millions and millions of money in the purchase of materials and stores for public works, has helped to bring home to manufacturers, to workmen, and to shippers the existence and importance of the outlying parts of the Empire. They have acted for their governments in connection with the borrowing of money, and in consequence a large and increasing number of people are materially interested in Greater Britain, because they occupy the position of lenders. We like to think that, when investing in these bonds and stocks, not from any sentimental point of view, but because they think it good business, our creditors are likely to retain something more than a friendly interest in the develop- ment of the Colonies, and that they naturally do all they can to promote their welfare. Probably the first practical object-lesson the public received of the potentialities of Canada and the Colonies, and the position they would probably occupy, as producers of many of the articles which Great Britain imports, and consumers of the products of the United Kingdom, was derived from the Colonial and Indian Exhibition of 1886. That Exhibition caused much surprise amongst those who thought they knew a good deal of Greater Britain ; and I believe that it awakened an interest in Colonial develop- ment and enterprise, in this country, which had not been apparent to the same extent before. Nothing like it has since been seen in London ; and certainly, there is no com- parison between the Colonial exhibits in South Kensington in 1886 and those at the recent Paris Exhibition. I am glad to notice, however, that Canada and many of the Colonies are making arrangements for representative dis- plays at Glasgow next year ; and I am sure that it will 314 Lord Strathcona, 1900 afford much satisfaction and pleasure to the people of Scotland. The Colonial and Indian Exhibition was followed by a gathering which will be historical, as the first occasion on which what may be termed an informal Parliament of the British Empire met in London. I refer to the Colonial Conference of 1887. It was summoned by the late Hon. Edward Stanhope, then Secretary of State, and presided over by his successor Lord Knutsford. It was attended by leading statesmen from every part of the Empire, and the questions discussed were of the first importance. Some have been disposed of, and others are still not yet settled ; but it is impossible to over-rate the significance of the event, as it brought into prominence the idea of an Imperial Council, which some regard as likely to be the next step towards Imperial unity. The Conference called together by the Government of Canada in 1894, was equally as remarkable in its way. All the Australasian Colonies were represented, as well as Cape Colony and Natal, and the Earl of Jersey watched the proceedings on behalf of Her Majesty's Government. Many subjects of great moment from an Imperial standpoint were under con- sideration ; and several important developments closely connected with Imperial unity will be regarded by the historian as having been brought within the region of practical affairs by the Ottawa Conference. Another step in the growth of Imperialism in the United Kingdom was the celebration of the sixty years of Her Majesty's reign in 1897, when representatives from Greater Britain were invited to London. The Colonial Premiers were present, and also representative contingents of the Colonial military forces, of which we have heard a good deal more since. The outburst of enthusiasm which the participation of Greater Britain in that memorable event created will not readily be forgotten. It seemed to bring the subjects of Her Majesty in, and outside, the United Kingdom closer together than they had ever been be- fore. The occasion was also marked by a conference between the delegates of the Self-governing Colonies and Mr. Chamberlain, the Secretary of State, who has 315 Rectorial Addresses: done so much to promote the consolidation of the Empire. It will thus be seen that on three occasions within the last thirteen or fourteen years has an informal Imperial Parliament, or Council, been called together. There have been other interesting events in recent years, affecting both the Colonies and the Mother-land, which have not, perhaps, attracted so much attention as those already mentioned, but are none the less striking, and of moment. There is, for instance, the contribution of Australasia to the Navy — that is, towards the cost of maintaining a special Australasian Squadron. This was practically the outcome of the Confer- ence of 1887. Another matter of Imperial interest has been the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. The Canadian people have willingly assumed a burden of about a million sterling a year, in order to open up their Western Country, to connect the Atlantic with the Pacific } and to provide a new Imperial highway affording an alter- native route to Australasia, to China and Japan, India, and to the East generally. The preferential trade policy of Canada also deserves mention. It may be said to be the outcome of the abrogation of the Belgian and German Treaties, which in effect prevented the Colonies granting preferential treatment to Great Britain. Those conventions, like many other Treaties, were entered into without the Colonies being consulted ; but it was a long time before public opinion became sufficiently strong to induce the Government to terminate them. It came about at last, in 1896; and was precipitated by the offer of preferential treatment to British imports by the Dominion. The policy could not, however, be carried out effectually so long as the Treaties remained in operation, and happily they were, in consequence, brought to a close some two or three years ago. British imports now receive a preference of 33 J per cent, off the custom duties, as compared with similar articles from other countries. It has led to an increased import trade from the United Kingdom, and to an increase in the exports to Great Britain. No direct reciprocity has been offered and none has been asked for. If rumour be true, it is not unlikely that a somewhat similar preference may 316 Lord Strathcona, 1900 be shown by Australia to British products, when the new Constitution gets into working order ; and the question is said to be under consideration in New Zealand. One of the leading statesmen of South Africa — I refer to Mr. Cecil Rhodes — is also in favour of the policy. You will see, therefore, that, perhaps unconsciously, we are making rapid advances towards a closer union between the different parts of the Empire, for commercial purposes. There are one or two other matters to which a brief allusion may be made as bearing on the question. In late years considerable progress has been made, both by the Mother Country and by the Colonies, in improving means of inter-communication. This applies not only to Austral- asia and the Cape, and to Canada, but more recently still to the West Indies. Too much importance cannot be attached to this matter, if we are to continue to say that the seas do not divide us but form a bond of union. It is the most effective means of promoting Imperial trade, and of meeting the foreign competition which is now growing stronger and stronger. The principle is one which our foreign competitors fully recognise, notably Germany, as their immense subsidies to steamers plying to Australasia and other parts of the world clearly shows. Within the last few weeks, the construction of the Pacific cable, connecting Canada and Australasia, has been agreed upon, and the contract will very shortly be signed. It will be operated jointly by certain of the Australasian Colonies, Canada, and the United Kingdom, and it is impossible to over-rate the importance or the value of this truly Imperial work. The Pacific Ocean has not been much exploited up to the present time. There are only two regular lines of steamers crossing it under the British flag. Those are the Canadian Pacific Railway Company's steamers to Japan and China, subsidised by the Canadian and by the Imperial Governments ; and the Australian Line, subsidised by Canada and some of the Australasian Colonies, between Vancouver, New Zealand, Sydney, and Melbourne. There seems a bright prospect for the increase of trade, in the future, by way of the Pacific Ocean ; and the possession of a British cable, touching nowhere but on British territory, 317 Rectorial Addresses: should do much to place it largely in the control of Great Britain and of her Colonies. Mention must be made also of the Imperial Penny Post. It was discussed for many years before being adopted, and everybody is surprised now, after the event, that so desirable a change in our arrangements was not brought into operation before. Perhaps it is of even greater sentimental importance than of practical advantage ; but it does give the people of the different parts of the Empire an opportunity of com- municating with each other at the cheapest rate possible, and is an aid, also, in the promotion of commercial inter- course. Another and perhaps the most important instance of the growth of Imperialism, I have left to the last. At any time within the last two or three decades, and even earlier, when the Mother Country seemed likely to be embroiled in difficulty, there has been an intense desire in Canada and in the Colonies to be allowed to take their share in the burdens of Empire. We all remember how the Australians and Canadians fought with the other soldiers of the Queen in the Soudan ; and the war in South Africa is too recent to need any special reference. It is sufficient to say that the people of the Colonies are proud of the Empire, and as jealous of its interests as their fellow- subjects at home. Events have proved that they are ready to sacrifice their lives, and to give their resources, for the maintenance of British interests. I venture to think that the troops of the Colonies have done good service, although no more than their duty, or more than their brothers-in-arms, as they would be the first to admit ; and I believe that one of the results of the war will be to bring much nearer the consolidation and unity of the Empire. Upon the whole, therefore, we have reason to con- gratulate ourselves upon the position of Imperialism, both in the Colonies and in the United Kingdom, at the present time. All movements of the kind are naturally slow. Great changes spring from small beginnings, and are gradual in their development, although their maturity, or partial maturity, may come upon us somewhat sud- 318 Lord Strathcona, 1900 denly. Whatever opinion you may entertain on the subject of my address, I make one claim upon your consideration — I have not given you any of the volumin- ous statistics, which might have been appropriate on such an occasion, to illustrate my statements, and to show the progress that has been made, especially by the Colonies, in the last few decades. I prefer to take it for granted that to an audience like this which I am addressing, figures would be wearisome, and are besides quite un- necessary. And I am not at all sure that there is such an universal faith in statistics as those who compile them like to believe. You know the old story that there are three kinds of lies — lies, other lies, and statistics. Happily, there is no need nowadays for anything in the shape of columns of imposing figures to show the extent of the British Empire, the advance it has made in recent years, and the important position the Colonies now oc- cupy, both individually, and as parts of the Empire. It is only necessary to look at the red colouring on an ordinary map of the world. The greatest tribute I ever heard to the extent of British influence and British com- merce was paid by an American, who, after returning from a trip round the world, said, that the thing which struck him most in the course of his travels was that at all the ports the ship entered the British flag was either flying on the land, or the vessels in the harbours. Those are not, perhaps his exact words, which were somewhat stronger, but they represent what he meant to convey. This is all very well so far as it goes. We know what the Empire is. We know that it consists of a galaxy of nations, all subject to one Sovereign, and proud of one flag ; and yet not bound so closely together, in regard to matters of a practical nature, as they are in sentiment and loyalty. The great question we have to consider is : what of the future ? We have glanced, rather hurriedly perhaps, at some of the milestones along the road which has led to the cross-roads we are now facing. And we have to consider which of them must be taken. Shall it be the one which points to the maintenance of the existing order of things, or the other which will lead 319 Rectorial Addresses: to closer unity for Imperial purposes, for commercial purposes, and for defence ? There seems to be a general feeling in favour of the latter, which will assure the different parts of the Empire full liberty of self-government, while giving them a voice in Imperial policy, the desire for which is becoming stronger every year. There are some who think that the solution of the problem is to be found in the representation of Canada and the Colonies in the Imperial Parliament. I am not one of those who share that view, at any rate until a truly Imperial Parliament to deal with Imperial affairs can be established. As at present constituted, Parliament is occupied largely with local affairs, of little or no Imperial significance, important though they may be in themselves ; and in these circum- stances it is not clear to me where the usefulness of Colonial members in either House would be apparent. In times to come it is within the bounds of possibility that there may be local Parliaments to deal with local affairs in England, Scotland, and Ireland; and we may also then have a Parliament with representatives from the different parts of the Empire, which will be Imperial in name, and in its work. But even on such a basis, the Empire is so vast in its area, and so varied in its resources and in its interests, that the solution for which we are seeking will be surrounded by many difficulties ; and he would be a bold man who would attempt to frame a con- stitution which would satisfactorily meet the requirements of the situation. We are approaching a period when all parts of the Empire will want to have a voice in Imperial foreign policy, and in other subjects affecting the well-being of the community in general. This is not unnatural, and there can be no true consolidation until it is brought about. How it is to be done I am not prepared to say. I hope I have the proverbial caution of the Scotch too well developed to rush in where angels fear to tread. That some way may be found of meeting the aspirations of the Colonies does not, however, admit of doubt. I have made some reference to the question of an Imperial Parlia- ment. That may be the ultimate solution, or it may not. 320 Lord Strathcona, 1900 But, in the meantime, the formation of an Imperial Council, in conjunction with the Colonial Office, consisting of repre- sentatives of Her Majesty's Government, and of Canada and the Colonies, has been mentioned as a preliminary step, even if the Council were only consultative at the commencement. Then there is the question of Imperial Defence. It is very much the fashion to complain that the Colonies do not contribute to the expenses of the Army and Navy, although the services exist for Imperial purposes. There may be something in the contention, but it is really only half a truth. They do not perhaps, except in the case of Australasia, make any direct contribution, but they have been piling up debts, for which they alone are responsible, for works and developments of Imperial as well as of local utility and importance. Their railways, telegraphs, and harbours, subsidies for steam and cable communication, expenses for local defences, and Militia establishments, all come under this heading. In Canada, the construc- tion of the Intercolonial and Canadian Pacific Railways, as already stated, entails an annual charge upon the country of over a million sterling. These facts should be borne in mind in considering the matter. I do not mean to say that the Colonies ought not to pay towards the cost of the Army and the Navy. No such proposal has yet been made to them ; but I am sure that, if put forward, it will be taken into serious consideration. At the same time it must not be forgotten that the proposi- tion is only a part of a far larger subject, and really affects the solution of the whole problem of Imperial unity and representation. In the meantime, much more may be done than has so far been accomplished in the matter of defence — as viewed from the Imperial standpoint. And I have no doubt that something will be attempted in connection with the military reorganisation, which is said to be under consideration. There seems no reason why there should not be greater cohesion between the military forces in the Colonies and those at home. They certainly ought to form parts of the machinery on which the Empire could implicitly rely in times of trouble and difficulty. As x 321 Rectorial Addresses: to the Navy, much more co-operation is also possible. Up to the present time, or at any rate until quite recently, the large seafaring populations in the United Kingdom and in the Colonies have not been utilised to any appreciable extent for the formation of a trained naval reserve. A beginning has been made in Newfoundland, and it may be extended. Speaking of my own country, no better material could be found than among the 70,000 hardy sailors and fishermen who inhabit the long coast lines of the Dominion. There is one aspect of this branch of the subject which seems to deserve consideration. No one will deny that even the connection — more sentimental, perhaps, than practical — that has existed so far has been good for the different parts of the Empire. It is not easy to imagine what would have been the condition of the Colonies to-day had they drifted away from the United Kingdom, although the old truism about blood being thicker than water would doubtless have proved right in that case. But would the position of the United Kingdom have been the same as it is now ? We all know the part our fleet has played in the past, and the important factor it has proved, in the building up of the Empire. It is regarded as our great protection and safeguard now ; but with the disappearance of the grand old wooden walls our ships are entirely dependent upon coal and strategic positions. And is it not the fact that the leading coal supplies of the world outside Europe and the United States are found in the Colonies ? Without the advantages of these deposits, especially in times of war, the protection of British commerce, or what remained of it, would give rise to very serious problems, apart altogether from the absolute necessity of the harbours and docks which Canada and the Colonies have provided. That steps could, and perhaps should, be taken to bring the different parts of the Empire in closer touch with each other commercially I fully believe. Personally, I do not think that an arrangement of the kind is either impossible or very difficult to accomplish, or that it need necessarily be antagonistic to the principles of Free Trade. The time may be not yet, but I feel sure it will come, when Canada will trade with Australasia, with South Africa, and with the 322 Lord Strathcona, 1900 United Kingdom, on different terms from at present — when their commercial relations will be placed on a more friendly, or, shall I say, on a family, footing. What the United Kingdom looks for is a predominance in the markets of the Empire. What the Colonies desire is the market of the Mother Country and of Greater Britain for their pro- ducts, which they hope to see favourably regarded — all other things, such as price and quality, being equal. As to the form such an arrangement will take it is not easy to forecast, but it is certain that, and perhaps before very long, we shall have to pay greater attention to the development of Imperial trade. This will be the case, especially, if our position in outside markets is not maintained, if the doctrine of the " Open Door " is not realised, and if we should have to meet, to a greater extent than at present — a contingency which is not unlikely — the competition of other countries in neutral markets, and in markets we have hitherto regarded as more or less under our control. Such a policy cannot fail to be beneficial to the Empire, and I cannot see any international reasons to prevent our regarding from a more favourable point of view our internal trade, as distinct from the external trade, or, let me say, our domestic trade as distinct from our foreign trade. I have ventured to address the students on these topics to-day, because I think they are among the most important that can engage the attention of thoughtful men and women. It is by them, and by their contemporaries, that the problems to which I have alluded will perhaps have to be settled. Whether the education of the present day is the best fitted to raise a governing and resourceful people, is a subject upon which some doubt has recently been expressed. I look upon education, not so much from its intrinsic value, as from its general effect upon the minds of the people, and as tending to bring about a higher form of intelligence and a greater capacity for deliberation and judgment ; but, at the same time, I am strongly in favour of its standard being modelled to meet modern requirements. If what has been accomplished so far was done in spite of the apathy with which Imperialism was for a long time regarded, what may we not hope from the fact that it is now becoming, as I have 323 Rectorial Addresses: already mentioned, the dominant feature of our political life, both at home and in the Colonies? I must confess I do not like the word " Colonies," which I have used so often ; but the difficulty is to find another word to describe them. It signifies a position of dependence and tutelage, which by no means represents the condition of the Canada, the Australasia, and the South Africa of to-day. They are rather partners — not yet predominant partners — in the great alliance or combination known as the British Empire. The greater attention which is now being devoted to Canada and the Colonies in our schools and colleges must have beneficial results ; but I should like to see even more time devoted to the study of the history, geography, and resources of Greater Britain. The apathy of the past is no doubt to be attributed largely to the lack of knowledge of the subject that pre- vailed ; and this is not surprising when one remembers the text-books in use fifty or sixty years ago, and even within a more recent period. In all our educational institutions, the present position of the Empire, and the relations of its different component parts, ought in my judgment to receive more prominence than at present. If those to whom this magnificent heritage is to be handed down are impressed with its importance, and its potentialities, it will make the solution of the questions we have been discussing far easier when the proper time comes ; and it is as well to remember, in this connection, that they are closely associated with the future existence of the Empire. And now I must bring my address to a close. My remarks have been discursive, but the subject is a large one to deal with in the short time at my disposal. The object I had in view was to place before you some material for reflection. I have tried to indicate some of the steps in the development of Imperialism, and also to point out the course which affairs are taking in the direction of the closer unity of the Empire. Although having spent over sixty years of my life in Canada, and entitled to call myself a Canadian, I am also a Scotsman, proud of my country, and of the part my countrymen have taken, in conjunction with our fellow-subjects in England, Wales and Ireland, in the development of Greater Britain. Perhaps this explains also 324 Lord Strathcona, 1900 why I am no believer in the pessimism of which we hear overmuch at times. It is enthusiasm or optimism — there is not much difference in the meaning of the terms — that alone will carry us onward. We must retain that confidence in ourselves, both in our individual capacities and collectively as a nation, which has always been a distinguishing char- acteristic of our race ; and we need then have no fears such as are sometimes expressed for the future. This leads me to express, in conclusion, my own conviction that our children, and their children, will be fully alive to the re- sponsibilities which they are to inherit ; that, under their auspices, the different parts of the Empire will be brought closer together than they are now ; and that they will be equally as keen as their forebears in extending its influence for the good of humanity and in the interests of peace and civilisation. 3»5 APPENDIX: THE RECTORS APPENDIX. THE RECTORS OF UNIVERSITY AND KING'S COLLEGE. 1 1498. Mr. Andrew Lyell, " thesaurarius noster." Elphinstone's Confirmation of the King's grant of the patronage of Slains. (King's Coll. Muniment Room, Old Chest, i. 1.) 1501. Mr. Andrew Liell. Elphinstone's publication of two Bulls by Pope Alexander VI. (O. C, xliii. 8.) 1506. Mr. Alexander Cullan, prebendary of Oyne. Commission directed to him by Elphinstone. (O. C, xxv. 35.) 1516. Mr. Alexander Galloway, official of Aberdeen. Collation by Mr. Alexander Hay of Mr. Alexander Lawson to a Burse in Canon Law. (O. C, xxvi. 6.) John Tyre, James Lyndesay, and Andrew Kyninmond are named as " procurators nationum " in this deed. 15 — Mr. Alexander Hay. Professor Gordon's MS. Collections in University Library. 152 1. Mr. Alexander Galloway. Gordon's MS. 1529. Mr. Gilbert Strathauchin. Fasti Aberdonenses, p. lxxvi., but not in Gordon's MS. 2 1530. Mr. Alexander Galloway. Fasti, p. lxxvi., but not in Gordon's MS. 1531. Mr. Gilbert Strathauchin. Signs Dunbar's Confirmation. (O. C, xlviii. 3.) 1535. Mr. David Dischinton, precentor of the Cathedral. Fasti, p. lxxvi., but not in Gordon's MS. 1537. Mr. Alexander Spittal, canon, prebendary of Clatt. Parchment Chartulary, p. 144. 1538. Mr. Alexander Spittal. Instrument of possession to the Chaplains of the Choir. (O. C, xix. 5.) 1539. Mr. Alexander Hay. Fasti. Not in Gordon. 1 Supra, pp. 26, 27, 29. 8 Unfortunately Mr. Cosmo Innes, in the lists prefixed by him to the Fasti, too often quotes no authorities for the statements made. 329 The Rectors of the 1542. Mr. James Strathauchin, prebendary of Belhelvy. Registrum omnium vasorum, etc., made at his Visitation, the first on record. (O. C, xxiii. 1.) The Assessors are Mr. Alexander Gallo- way, canon of Aberdeen and prebendary of Kinkell ; Mr. Alexander Spittall, canon and prebendary of Clatt ; Mr. James Wawin, canon and prebendary of Oyne ; Mr. John Elphinstone, canon and prebendary of Innernochty. In the following year Strathauchin was Rector of the University of St. Andrews. 1549. Mr. Alexander Galloway, prebendary of Kinkell. Account of his Visitation, the second on record. (O. C, xxiii. 2.) The Assessors are Mr. Patrick Myrtoun, archdeacon of Aberdeen ; Mr. Alexander Spittall ; Mr. James Wawane ; Mr. Duncan Burnett, canon and prebendary of Methlik. 1563. Mr. Alexander Setoun, chancellor of Aberdeen. Presentation of Mr. John Kennedy to a burse. (O. C, ii. 16.) 1585. Mr. Robert Lumsden of Clova. Presents books to Town's Library. 1592. Mr. Nicholas Hay, civilist and commissary. " Vide his gravestone in the College Chapel," Gordon's MS. (I. 10; II. 179). 1600. Mr. John Strauchane, parson of Kincardine O'Neil. Fasti; which also gives years 1608, 1612, 1614. Gordon makes him Rector only in 1602, 1605, 1609, 1610, 1613 (I. 11 ; II. 173-7). 1618. Mr. John Strauchane. Charter on Umfray's Croft. (O. C, xxxiii. 12.) 1619, September 14. Mr. John Leythe. Elected by Commissioners of Visitation. (O. C, xxiii. 4.) 1623. Mr. James Sandilands, commissary. Record of Royal Visitation. (O. C, xxiii. 4 s .) 1628. Mr. James Sandilands. Record of Chancellor's Visitation. (O. C, xxiii. 5.) Gordon makes him Rector also in 1626, 1627, 1630, 1631 (I. 11 ; II. 179). According to Fasti, " 1623 to 1633, inclusive ". Portrait by Jameson in possession of University. Tombstone in Cathedral of St. Machar. 1634, June 30. Mr. John Forbes, doctor and professor of Divinity. As this is the first regular election of a Rector on record, the minute, which does not appear in Fasti Aberd., is quoted verbatim. " At the Bischopis pallace of Abd. the last day of Junij Mvic threttie four yeiris in presence of the memberis of the Universitie these ar to say: doctor Williame Leslie principall of the Kingis Colledge of Abd., doctor Williame Gordoune mediciner of the said Universitie, mr James Sandilandis canonist, mr David Leiche subprincipall, mr Johnne Lundie grammarian, mr Gilbert Ross cantor, mr Robert Ogilvie, mr William Strauchen, mr Alexander Middletowne and Alexander Scrogie, procura- tors nationum, being all conveened according to ane preceiding act of the daitt at the said Bischopis pallace the twantie sex day of Junij of 33o I University and King's College this instant, for electing and chuising the Rector of the said Universitie, thay hawe all in ane voyce maid electioune of mr Johnne Forbes doctor and professor of Divinitie in the said Universitie till the twantie four day of Junij nixt. Quhilk the said mr Johnne hes accepted in and wpone him wpone this conditioune and protestatioune that quhat be vertue of the said office he sail lawfullie inact and ordaine the said memberis of the said Universitie and Kingis Colledge within it, maisteris, regentis, and wtheris salbe lyable to obey wnder the paine off all hiest censure that may follow therwpone. Whiche protestatioune wes ad- mitted and allowed be all the memberis forsaidis and ratifiet be the chancellar of the said Universitie. In verificatioune quheroff the haill forsaidis memberis hawe sett their handis therto day yeir and place forsaid and subscrivit with the hand of mr Robert Reid clerk of the Universitie forsaid. " Sic subscribitur Pa : Aberdene «' Mr. Willesli prinU " Mr. Williame Gordoune mediciner " Mr. James Sandilandis canonista " Mr. D. Leiche subprinU " Mr. J. Lundie grammarian " Mr. Gilbert Ross cantor " Mr. Ro : Ogilvie pro' Angusiensis \ " Mr. Gul : Strachan pre Moraviensis ' " Mr. A. Middletoune pre Laudoni- i ensis ) " Al : Scrogie pror Aberdonensis." [Student.] On 7th July the rector, principal, canonist, mediciner, subprincipal, grammarian and cantor nominate Drs. Patrick Dune, Robert Barroune and James Sibbald " assessoris in the former act " of 30th June, and these three sign the minute as homologating the election of Dr. Forbes. Immediately thereafter the same ten, together with the three regents elect Drs. Barroune, Sibbald, Dune and Dr. Alexander Scrogie " asses- soris and visitoris with the said rector till the 24 day of Junij nixt to cum. . . . Lykas the saidis memberis hawe appoyntit tuo generall visitatiounes ordinar to be yeerlie be the rector his assessoris and the rest of the memberis wpoune the first Twysday of November the ane and the [uther] wpoune the first Twysday of Junij yeerlie, but pre- judice to the said rector as occasioune offeris for the said Universitie and Colledge weel and sattleing the effairis of the samen wpoune lawfull citatioune, to indict and call ane visitatioune at his pleasour at all tymes convenient." Dr. Barroune is also elected dean of the faculty of divinity, Dr. Dun dean of the faculty of medicine, the canonist dean of the faculty of law, and the subprincipal dean of the faculty of philosophy ; but in future "ewerie deane of facultie sail be chosen be his awen facultie." 1635, J une 2 4- Dr. John Forbes of Corse. Procurators as in previous year : Mr. Alexander Scrogie being styled " younger ". Assessors : Doctors Robert Barroune, Alexander Scrogie, James Sibbald and Alexander Rose. The principal is elected dean of faculty of divinity ; the other three deans are re-elected. 33i The Rectors of the 1636, June 24. Dr. Alexander Scrogie, minister of Old Machar; D.D. 1627. Procurators : Mr. Robert Ogilvie, Mr. Alexander Middletoune, Mr. Alexander, Gardyne regents; John Forbes, student. No minute of election of assessors, but Doctors John Forbes of Corse, William Guild, Alexander Rose and Patrick Dun are so styled 5th January, 1637. 1637, June 23. Dr. Arthour Jhonstoun, one off his sacred majesties medicinens ; M.D., Padua, 1610. Procurators : the same three regents and Mr. George Halyburton. Assessors : Doctors Alexander Scrogie, William Guild, Alexander Ross and Patrick Dun. Portrait by Jameson in possession of the University, reproduced in Musa Lat. Aberd., I. (New Spald. Club). 1638, June 25. Dr. Alexander Ross, minister of third charge of St. Nicholas ; M.A. 1618 ; D.D. 163-. Elected for year ending 24th June, 1639. 1639, Dr. Alexander Ross. No extant minute between 25th June, 1638, and 13th October, 1639. 1639, October 13. Dr. William Guild, minister of second charge of St. Nicholas; M.A. Mar. Coll. before 1605; D.D. (of?) between 1633 and 1635. In place of Dr. Ross deceased ; elected for period ending 1st No- vember, 1640. In future, Rector to be chosen at Hallowmas (Min. of nth Nov.). Portrait in Bain's Merchant and Craft Guilds. 1640, November 16. Dr. William Guild. Who had been elected principal on 18th August. The principal, two assessors, civilist, subprincipal and grammarian elect procurators : Mr. Alexander Mideltoune, Mr. Alexander Gardyne, Mr. Patrick Gordoune, regents, and Mr. Robert Innes ; who unite with the aforesaid members in choosing the rector. The rector with consent of the others nominates as his assessors Dr. Dun, Mr. William Robertson, Mr. Thomas Sandilands, commissary, and Mr. William Moir. 1641, Dr. William Guild. No minute between 30th June, 1641, and 26th January, 1642. Is styled Rector at later date. 1642, November 11. Dr. William Guild. " Rector of King Charles Universitie of Aberdeen, comprehending the said King's Colledge and Marschall Colledge." The electors are Dr. Guild himself (as Principal of King's College), Dr. Patrick Dun (Principal of Marischal College), and the other three assessors, the civilist, subprincipal, grammarian and three regents. There is no mention of procurators, who do not reappear in connection with elec- tions of rectors till 1760. Same four assessors renominated. 1643, November 23. Dr. William Guild. Re-elected in similar terms. 1644, Dr. William Guild. No minute between 7th October and 4th December. Is Rector at latter date. 332 University and King's College 1645. April 23. Mr. David Lindsay, minister of Belhelvie; M.A. 1603. Dr. Guild having " demitted my said office of Rectory," Mr. Lindsay is elected to 23rd April, 1646. The phrase " King Charles University " is abandoned. 1646. Mr. David Lindsay. No minute between 13th November, 1645, and 24th June, 1646. Is Rector on 13th November, 1646. 1647. April 15. Mr. David Lindsay. 1648. Mr. David Lindsay. Is Rector on 5th October. 1649. Mr. David Lindsay. Is Rector on 18th June. 1650. Mr. David Lindsay. Is Rector on 14th March. No minutes are extant for the years 1651-62. 1651. Mr. Andrew Cant, one of the ministers of Aberdeen ; M.A. 1612. Fasti, p. lxxvii., but not in Gordon's MS. 1659-60. Mr. Alexander Scrogie, minister of Old Machar; M.A. 1634. Principal Row's accounts for 1659-60, printed in Fasti, p. 606. Son of the rector of 1636. 1663, November 10. Mr. William Scrogie, minister of Rathven ; M.A. 1638. Brother of the last. 1664. Mr. William Scrogie. Is Rector on 27th September. Minute of Visitation, Fasti, p. 316. 1665, April 25. Mr. William Scrogie. Continued Rector till Michaelmas. 1666. Mr. William Scrogie. Is Rector on 5th February. Is Bishop of Argyll on 25th June. 1667. Mr. John Menzies, professor of Divinity, Mar. Coll. ; M.A. Mar. Coll. 1642. Gordon's MS. 1668. Mr. Robert Reynolds, minister of Old Machar; M.A. 1647. Chartulary, p. 8. 1669, May 13. Mr. Robert Reynolds. Election to be on first Monday of June. 1670, June 1. Mr. Robert Reynolds. 1672. Mr. William Scrogie. 1673, January 13. Mr. George Nicholson of Cluny ; M.A. Mar. Coll. 1654. " The late Rector, Mr. William Scrogie, being removit." Elected Civilist, 7th May, 333 The Rectors of the 1674, July 2. Mr. John Menzies, professor of Divinity, Mar. Coll. 1675, Mr. William Scrogie. [?] Fasti, p. lxxviii., but not in Gordon's MS. 1676, July 3. Mr. John Menzies. " Continued." 1677, July 4. Mr. John Menzies. 1678, July 8. Mr. John Menzies. [1680-83. No minutes extant.] 1682. Mr. John Menzies. Fasti, p. lxxviii. : not in Gordon. 1683. Mr. James Scougall, commissary ; M.D. 1684. October 24. Mr. James Scougall. Re-elected. Appointed Civilist at same time. Demits office of Rector 24th October, 1685. 1688. Dr. Patrick Urquhart, mediciner. Fasti, p. lxxviii. : not in Gordon. [1690-99. No minutes extant.] 1698. Sir Thomas Burnett of Leyes. Chartulary, p. 90. 1705, June 18. David Forbes of Leslie. Chancellor had urged election (April 9). Assessors chosen by Rector's advice from a leet of eight furnished by masters. 1706, December 2. David Forbes. 1708, February 3. Archibald Forbes of Puttachy. No extant minutes between March, 1706, and January, 1709 ; but see New Chest, xxxviii. 1709, March 12. Sir William Forbes of Craigievar, 3rd bart. 1711, May 7. John Farquharsone of Invercauld. Two years had elapsed since last election. 17 18, March 27. Arthur Forbes of Echt. Elected for one year by principal and masters. " Rectorall meetings " (opened and closed with prayer) held on 17th April (being the first " since the College was last visited "), 29th April, 8th May, 27th May. Mr. Forbes is styled " Lord Rector ". (So in Mar. Coll., 1728.) 1 7 19, Arthur Forbes. Minute of 23rd March imperfect. Held Rectoral Courts on 29th April, 7th September, 10th March, 1720. 1720, March 16. Arthur Forbes. 1 72 1, March 6. Arthur Forbes. Rectoral meeting on 8th May. 1722, March 6. Arthur Forbes. Rectoral meetings on 8th March, 25th October. 1723, March 18. Arthur Forbes. Rectoral meeting on 10th March, 1724. 334 University and King's College 1724, March 16. Arthur Forbes. Rectoral meeting on gth March, 1725. 1725, March 15. Arthur Forbes. 1726, Arthur Forbes. No minute between 21st February and 26th March. Rectoral meeting on 26th November. 1727, March 14. Arthur Forbes. 1728, March 12. John Paton of Grandholme. Rectoral meeting on 21st March. 1729, March 5. John Paton. 1730, February 25. John Paton. Rectoral meetings on 7th December, 28th December. 1 73 1, February 8. John Paton. 1732, February 28. John Paton. Rectoral meeting on 22nd March. 1733, March 12. John Paton. Rectoral meetings on 15th March, 21st September. [1734-59. No election.] 1760, May 13. George Middleton of Seaton. "As there is no Rector at present." Supported by Professor Lumsden, the Mediciner, the Humanist, Mr. Reid and Professor George Gordon : together with Procurators, Patrick Duff of Premnay, Moray; Patrick Wilson, Angus; Mr. David Dalrymple, advocate, Lothian ; Mr. Theodore Gordon, Mar. George Burnet of Kemnay was supported by the Principal, the Subprincipal, the Civilist, Mr. Macleod and Mr. Leslie : together with their nominees as Procurators, Baillie Andrew Burnet, merchant, Moray ; James Thomson of Portlethen, Angus ; Professor Francis Skene, Mar. Coll., Lothian; Provost John Robertson of Pitmillan, Mar. The Principal gave his casting vote for Mr. Burnet, but Professor Lumsden protested against his deliberative vote. 1761, June 1. George Middleton. Procurators : Charles Forbes of Sheils, Moray ; Patrick Wilson , Angus ; Thomas Mossman, advocate, Lothian [Mr. Theodore Gordon, Mar, being absent: see May 14], vote with Professor Lumsden, the Mediciner, the Humanist, Mr. Reid and Professor George Gordon in this election. 1762, May 14. George Middleton. Procurators : Charles Forbes of Sheils, Moray ; Patrick Wilson, Esq., Angus ; Alexander Innes, commissary-clerk, Lothian ; Mr. Alexander Gordon, minister of Kintore, Mar ; vote with Professor Lumsden, the Mediciner, the Humanist, Mr. Reid and Professor George Gordon in this election. For George Burnet of Kemnay vote as Procurators : James Thomson of Portlethen, Mar ; Alexander Leslie, merchant, Angus [Provost John Robertson, Moray; Mr. Peter Simson, minister of Inverury, Lothian, being absent], with the Principal, the Subprincipal, Mr. Macleod, Mr. 335 The Rectors of the Leslie and Mr. Thorn [claiming to be Civilist]. Each party claimed the election. Mr. Middleton's party named their four Procurators as Assessors. Mr. Burnet's party named Sir Alexander Ramsay of Balmain, Mr. Buchan of Auchmacoy, Dr. Campbell, Principal of Marischal College, and Dr. Gerard, Professor of Divinity in the same. Mr. Middleton held Rectoral meetings on 5th November, 10th November, 1762 ; 21st March, 25th April, 10th May, 1763. On 21st March, the Principal and Masters unanimously acknowledge Mr. Middleton as Rector ; and Messrs. Forbes, Wilson, Innes, and Gordon, as Assessors. On 25th April, the Rector and Assessors consider a long Report from Messrs. Forbes and Wilson, who had been appointed on 21st March a Committee " to revise the Minutes of College Meetings, and other papers that may show the usual forms of proceeding in Rectoral Visitations ". (See Evidence of Commission of 1826-30, iv. 169.) The Court " find the Institution of the Rectorall Court necessary for the preservation of the College, and find that in all time comeing the annuall election of a Rector shall proceed without Procuratores Nationum chosen to join in the said election . . . and with regard to the Procuratores in general, find that previous to every election where these are entitled to vote by the Foundation of the College, their election shall not be for a year, or for any stated time, but pro re tiata." This finding was approved by the Chancellor, Lord Deskford, 10th May. 1763, May 14. George Middleton. Unanimously. No mention of Procuratores Nationum in future. 1764, May 14. George Middleton. 1765, May 6. George Middleton. 1766, May 5. George Middleton. [1768, May 2. Election deferred] " that the Society might have an opportunity of conferring together at a full meeting in order to consider whether the above office should continue above two years in the same person at one time." 1786, May 1. Sir William Forbes of Craigievar, 5th bart. Grandson of rector of 1709. Rectoral meeting on 15th May. 1787, May 7. Alexander Burnet of Kemnay. Rectoral meeting on 14th May. 1788, May 5. Alexander Burnett. Rectoral meetings eodem die, and 8th May. 1789, May 4. Alexander Burnett. Rectoral meeting on 13th May. 1790, May 3. Alexander Burnett. Rectoral meeting on 13th May. 1 791, May 2. Alexander Burnett. Rectoral meeting on 18th May. 1792, May 7. Alexander Burnett. Rectoral meeting on 23rd May. 1793, May 6. Alexander Burnett. Rectoral meeting on 27th May. 336 University and King's College 1794, May 5. Alexander Burnett. Rectoral meeting on 27th June. 1795, May 5. Sir John M'Pherson, Bart.; M.A. 1764. 1796, May 2. Sir John M'Pherson. 1797, May 1. Sir John M'Pherson. 1798, May 7. Alexander Burnett of Kemnay. Rectoral meeting on 31st May. 1799, May 6. Alexander Burnett. Rectoral meeting on 12th April, 1800. 1800, May 5. Alexander Burnett. By casting vote of chairman (subprincipal, with whom Sir A. Bannermann, Mr. Ogilvie, Dr. Macpherson) the other name proposed being that of David Scott of Dunninade (for whom Dr. Dauney, Dr. Gerard, Mr. Scott, Mr. Bentley). 1801, January 3. In connection with the admission of Dr. Jack as subprincipal, Professor Ogilvie protested "that the mode of electing the Rector has been introduced by intrigue and the compromise to party interests, and tho' it may be understood to confer an honorary and titular office of a very equivocal kind, it cannot invest the person so elected with those essential powers and privileges which Bishop Elphingston meant to entrust only to a constitutional Rector chosen by the whole body of the Suppositi as in Paris. To suppose this is indeed a mockery and a travesty of the Founder's manifest intention. That under cover of this supposition the College Meetings have during the last fifty years ventured on various proceedings in the management of the College Estate, and in the concerns of the Bursars, which no Rector chosen by the Suppositi would have suffered to pass unrescinded. That therefore the present mode of Election ought to be annulled, and that genuine constitution of the University, to which alone the provisions of the Foundation Charter of King's College refer, or can be applied, ought to be restored." This protest seems to have had no adherents. 1801, May 4. David Scott of Duninald. 1802, June 16. David Scott 1803, May 2. David Scott. 1804, May 7. David Scott, M.P. 1805, May 6. David Scott. October 29. Rt. Hon. Silvester Douglas, Lord Glen- bervie ; M.A. 1765. In place of Mr. Scott, deceased. Election in future to be on last Tuesday of October. 1806, October 28. Lord Glenbervie. 1807, October 27. Lord Glenbervie. 1808, October 25. Lord Glenbervie. Election in future to be on Tuesday after Bursary Competition, 1809, October 31. Lord Glenbervie. 1810, October 30. Lord Glenbervie. y 337 The Rectors of the 1811, October 29. Lord Glenbervie. 181 2, October 27. Lord Glenbervie. 1813, October 26. Lord Glenbervie. 1814, November 1. James Ferguson of Pitfour, M.P. 1815, October 31. James Ferguson. 1816, December 2. James Ferguson. Two previous minutes were considered at this meeting. " October, 29, 1816. " Convened — The Principal, Dr. Dauney, Dr. Macpherson, Mr. Bentley, Mr. Paul, and Mr. Macpherson. "The members . . . taking into consideration that this is the day appointed for the election of Rector and Assessors . . . and David Cromar having been sent to Dr. Jack's house for the minute book, Dr. Jack called out Dr. Dauney into the adjoining room, and the remaining members after waiting for a considerable time were informed by David Cromar on his return that the Principal desired him to say that there was no meeting. Thereafter the members to whom this was intimated, having taken into consideration that a meeting regularly convened for the despatch of important business at which they had intromitted with the mortification funds to a considerable extent, and at which they had annually for many years exercised their rights of election in the appointment of Rector and Assessors, could not be dissolved by such a proceeding as had just been had recourse to without a regular record of the res gestae, they unanimously called Dr. Macpherson as senior member to the chair, and drew up this minute, at the same time de- clining to proceed for the present in the elections for which they were legally convened, as being unwilling to involve the respectable gentle- men who might be proposed, in the disputes of the society. (Signed) " Hugh Macpherson, Praeses." "November 16, 1816. " Convened — The Principal, Professor Ogilvie, Dr. Dauney and Dr. Bannerman, in consequence of a notice officially intimated to all concerned from the Principal fixing this day for the election of a Rector and Assessors : the nomination of the present office-bearers expiring on the eighteenth current. The Principal and professors above named attended in the meeting-room at twelve o'clock the hour appointed ; but altho' the College servant was sent by the Principal to the other resident professors, requiring their immediate attendance, none of them thought proper to make their appearance, or so much as to return an answer. The Principal and professors who attended having waited till half-an-hour after one o'clock, and there being no prospect of the attendance of any other member, those present in place of proceeding to a regular election were of opinion that all circum- stances considered it was most expedient to declare it to be their understanding that the Lord Rector and Assessors now in office shall be requested to continue their functions for the ensuing year, and the Principal was authorised to intimate this resolution to the gentlemen concerned accordingly. (Signed) "William Jack, Principal." 338 University and King's College 1817, October 28. George, fourth Earl of Aberdeen. Elected by the Senatus : so called for the first time. Rectoral meeting on 22nd September, 1818. 1818, October 27. Earl of Aberdeen. 1819, October 26. Earl of Aberdeen. 1820, October 31. Earl of Aberdeen. 1 82 1, October 30. Earl of Aberdeen. 1822, October 26. Earl of Aberdeen. 1823, October 28. Earl of Aberdeen. 1824, October 26. Earl of Aberdeen. 1825, November 2. Earl of Aberdeen. 1826, November 1. Earl of Aberdeen. 1827, August 28. John, eighth Viscount Arbuthnott. 1828, October 29. Viscount Arbuthnott. 1829, October 28. Viscount Arbuthnott. 1830, October 27. Viscount Arbuthnott. 1 83 1, November 2. Viscount Arbuthnott. 1832, October 31. Viscount Arbuthnott. 1833, October 30. Viscount Arbuthnott. The Principal proposed the Right Honourable Charles Grant, but this was not seconded. 1834, October 29. Viscount Arbuthnott. On March 22, certain students had demanded a perusal of the Foundation and other charters, considering themselves as "entitled to certain rights and privileges, such as the power of electing the Lord Rector." Drs. Macpherson and Mearns were authorised to confer with them and to exhibit such records " as may appear proper to them." Principal again proposed Mr. Grant. 1835, October 28. Viscount Arbuthnott. Principal proposed Mr. Grant, now Lord Glenelg. 1836, November 2. Viscount Arbuthnott. Principal proposed Earl of Errol. 1837, November 1. Lord Francis Egerton. 1838, October 31. Lord Francis Egerton. 1839, October 30. Lord Francis Egerton. 1840, October 28. Lord Francis Egerton. 1841, October 17. Lord Francis Egerton. 1842, November 2. Lord Francis Egerton. 1843, November 1. Lord Francis Egerton. 1844, October 31. Lord Francis Egerton. 1845, October 30. Lord Francis Egerton. 1846, October 29. Lord Francis Egerton, now first Earl of Ellesmere. 1847, October 28, Earl of Ellesmere. 339 The Rectors of the 1848, November 2. 1849, November 1. Earl of Ellesmere. Earl of Ellesmere. On November 24 it was resolved by a majority " that in con- formity with a practice long current in the University, but which has recently been departed from, in the event of a vacancy taking place in the office of Lord Rector or Assessor to the Lord Rector, the election shall be made annually as at present, but that the period of office shall be limited to two years only." 1850, November 5. 1851, November 1. 1852, October 30. 1853, November 5. 1854, November 11. 1855, November 10. 1856, November 13. Earl of Ellesmere. Earl of Ellesmere. Earl of Ellesmere. Earl of Ellesmere. Earl of Ellesmere. Earl of Ellesmere. Earl of Ellesmere. Elected for four years by the Graduates. At a conference held on 6th April, 1856, between the Senatus and a deputation of the Graduates of the University, an agreement was entered into in conformity with a scheme adopted by the Senatus on 20th April, 1855, and sanctioned by the Chancellor, to the effect that in future the Lord Rector, two of the four Assessors, and the four Procuratores Nationum should be chosen by the Masters of Arts of the University (not holding mere honorary degrees), and that the Senatus should confirm the election so made. It was further agreed that Graduates should keep their names on the Register of the University by annual payment of 25. 6d., or by a single life payment of £1 is. ; and should meet every two years for the elec- tion of University Officers ; voting to be by voting papers, per capita for the Rector and Assessors, per nationes for the Procurators. The limits of the Nations were fixed thus : — Moray = the Synod of Moray. Mar = the Synod of Aberdeen north of the Dee. Angus = the Synods of Aberdeen south of the Dee, Angus and Mearns, Stirling and Perth, and Fife. Lothian = the rest of the world. The results of the first election, held on 15th October, 1856, were as follows : — Rector : Earl of Ellesmere, 279 John Inglis, 51 Assessors: Henry James Baillie, M. P., . . . 159 Alexander Matheson, M.P., . . . 142 Charles L. Cumming Bruce, M.P., . . ng William Baxter, M.P., . . . . 83 Rev. David M'Taggart, D.D., ... 77 Alexander Kilgour, M.D., .... 74 George Trail, M.P., 32 Procurators: Moray — Rev. Alexander Taylor, D.D., . 64 Rev. Thomas M'Lauchlan, . 48 340 University and King's College Mar — Edward Woodford, LL.D., . . 72 Rev. Robert Simpson, ... 28 Rev. William Duguid, D.D. . . 27 Angus — Rev. William Allan, ... 25 Rev. William Paul, D.D., . . 16 Lothian — Rev. George Tulloch, LL.D., . 24 Norman M'Pherson, . . 20 Rev. Donald M< Donald, D.D., 7 Robert Daun, M.D., . . 6 Thereafter the Senatus elected Charles L. Cumming Bruce, M.P., and Sir James Clark, Bart., M.A., M.D., to be the remaining Assessors. Lord Ellesmere died 18th February, 1857. 1857, May 2. John Inglis, Dean of the Faculty of Advocates. Received 235 votes ; Colonel William Hay Sykes, M.P., 102. To hold office till October, i860 ; was created LL.D., and formally installed Rector on 14th October, when he delivered an Inaugural Address printed on pp. 92-106 supra. Thereafter held a Visitation of the College and a Rectoral Court. Inglis was elected Rector of Glasgow in 1865. 34i THE RECTORS OF MARISCHAL COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY. 1 1619. Mr. Patrick Dun, doctor of medicine. Present at visitation of the College, 31st December, when an ordin- ance was made "that the College fees payable by the students to the regents should be conform as they were appointed at a visitation in the King's College, viz., twenty merks for the sons of noblemen and barons, ten pound for the sons of other gentlemen, and the bursars and poor scholars to be taught gratis." Dun had been Professor of Logic in 1610, and became Principal in 162 1. 1625. Dr. William Forbes, minister of Edinburgh ; M.A. 1601; D.D. St. And. 1616. Graduation Theses dedicated to him in this capacity. 1632. Dr. William Forbes. Signs a deed, 14th April, constituting Principal Dun common pro- curator of the College (Ch. Ch. " Rectors," 2). First Bishop of Edin- burgh in 1634. 1642. Dr. William Guild. Elected "Rector of King Charles' Universitie of Aberdeen," nth Nov., supra. 1643. Dr. William Guild. Re-elected 23rd November, supra. 1648. Mr. David Lindsay. Signs as Rector a discharge of Marischal College accounts. Rector of King's College, 1645-50, supra. The Caroline Union, though not referred to in the elections, doubtless subsisted during that period. 1664. Mr. Arthur Rose, minister of Old Deer ; M.A. 1652. Afterwards Archbishop of St. Andrews. This being the first election recorded in the old Rectorial Minute Book (part of Album I.), the minutes are quoted verbatim. "Att Aberdeene the auchteint day of October 2 Jm vie threescore foure yeares D. James Leslie principall, mr Wm. Meldrum, mr George Banerman, mr Wm. Patersone, mr John Gordon, regents. " The quhilk day in presence of the principall and regents of the colledge Marischall of Aberdeene Gilbert Beidie nottar publict was elected and chosene clerk to this present meeting and actings thairin by consent of the principall and haill regents. " The qlk day the colledge being fullie conveened and divided in four nationes, the hie classe in the name of the natione of Buchane, 1 Supra, p. 26. 2 The Foundation Charter enjoins an annual election on 1st March. 342 Rectors of Marischal College the thrid classe in the name of the natione Marre, the second classe in the name of the natione of Angus, and the first classe in the name of the natione of Murray, did with ane uniforme voice choose and nominat mr Alexander Pattoune, mr Robert Thomsone, mr Duncane Liddell, and Andrew Thomsone, to bee procurators for electing of ane Rector. " The said day the principall, masters of the college and procurators abouenamit did elect, nominat, and choose master Arthoure Rose, minister at Old Deare, to be Rector of the said colledge, by whose advice and concurrence the affaires of the said colledge are to be regulat. "Att Aberdeene the nynteint day of October, 1664. " The said day the principall, regents of the colledge and procurators abouenamit being present, mr Arthoure Rose, Rector abouelected, did accept to be Rector of the said colledge and gave his oathe de fideli administratione thruntill, qlk was administrat to him bee doctor Leslie principall." 1665. Mr. John Milne. Election on 1st March (and so henceforth) " be the wholl Colledge divided into four nationes conforme to the fundatione." Rectorial Court on 1st August, to consider the " heterodox and profane " theses of Patrick Strachan, regent. [1666-72. No record.] 1673. Mr. George Meldrum, minister of Aberdeen ; M.A. 1651. Assessors : Professor John Menzies, David Lyell, and Patrick Sibbald, ministers of Aberdeen. " Ane list of grave pious and learned men" was presented to the procurators to choose from. Court on 1st April, anent lands and march stones of College ; and on 4th May, anent " sacred lessons " by the regents. 1674. Mr. George Meldrum. Assessors : George Skein of Fintray, Charles Dune, George Wilsone of Finzeauche, James Milne, burgess. 1675. Mr. George Meldrum. The list of students classified for this election is printed in Fasti Acad. Mariscall., ii., 244-5. Moray has 24, Buchan 11, Mar 64, Angus 9. [1676-78. No record in Minute book.] According to Wodrow (Analecta, I., 176) Meldrum was Rector ten times. He had been a Regent and was afterwards Professor of Divinity in Edinburgh and Minister of the Tron Kirk. 1679. Mr. Patrick Sibbald, minister of Aberdeen ; M.A. 1661. "Ane list of grave learned and pious men" was laid before the procurators, and "haveing seriouslie pondered and considered the same, they unanimouslie, with speciall consent of the masters, elected and choysed Mr. P. S." 1680. Mr. Patrick Sibbald. Court on 24th May, anent students' chambers and church attendance. 1681. Mr. Patrick Sibbald. 1682. Mr. Patrick Sibbald. [1683. No record.] 343 The Rectors of the 1684. Mr. Patrick Sibbald. The minute of election is not preserved, but on 15th May a Court grants Mr. Thomas Burnet, Regent, leave to study at Leyden during the vacation. Sibbald becomes Professor of Divinity during this year. Portrait in possession of University. 1685. Mr. Patrick Sibbald. 1686. Mr. Patrick Sibbald. [1687. No record.] 1688. Dr. William Blair, parson of Saint Nicholas; M.A. 1660; D.D. (K.C.). 1689. Dr. William Blair. 1690. Dr. William Blair. [1691-1713. No record.] 1 7 14. John Urquhart of Meldrum. The minute bears that "many difficulties have interrupted" the election " for some years past." The procuratores nationum on this occasion were: Moray, Mr. Robert Harald, governor to William Urquhart, younger of Meldrum ; Angus, Mr. Charles Young, governor to William Duff, younger of Dipple; Mar, Mr. Alexander Seton, governor to James Ferguson, younger of Pitfour ; Buchan, Mr. William Edward, son to Mr. Thomas Edward, minister of the gospel at Teningham. " Spent at choosing the Rector, £3 14s. 6d. " (College accounts). Court on 20th November suspended Mr. George Keith from his office of regent " untill his offences be more fully enquired into." [1715-19. No record.] 1720. Sir William Forbes of Craigievar, 3rd bart. ; alumnus 1674; Rector of King's College, 1709. 172 1. Sir William Forbes. 1722. Sir William Forbes. No minute of election. 1723. Thomas Forbes, younger of Eight [Echt] ; M.A. 1703. "The sd. day Mr. Thomas Blackwel, Principal; Dr. Matthew McKaile, Professor of Medicine ; Mr. Patrick Hardie, Mr. David Verner, Mr. George Turnbull, Professors of Philosophy, and Mr. George Cruden, Professor of Greek, in the sd. College, being met in faculty and duely constitute, taking into consideration that by the death of the Honourable Sr. William Forbes of Craigievar, the office of Rector in the sd. College is now vacant, did therefore, according to the power granted to them by the Foundation, cause the whole students of the College divide themselves into the four Nations of Mar, Buchan, Murray, and Angus, and those of the Nation of Marr did choose Mr. Laurence Selkirk, Tutor to Mr. Forbes of Eight his children, those of the Nation of Buchan Mr. John Rose, student of Divinity, those of Murray Mr. Alexander Irvine, student of Divinity, and those of Angus Mr. Robert Farquhar, student of Divinity, their Procurators ; who after- wards did nominate and elect unanimously the Honourable Thomas 344 Marischal College and University Forbes, younger of Eight, Rector." (First entry in new Rectorial Minute Book : signed by the Principal, professors, procurators, and Mr. John Osborn.) The Rector accepts office on 6th March. 1724. Thomas Forbes. " Resolved " by the Principal and Masters, and " intimated to all the students regularly concerned," who acquiesce. The minute is not signed. 1725. Thomas Forbes. The Masters quarrel and choose Professor McKail chairman instead of the Principal, who dissents. A leet of gentlemen is submitted to the Procurators "according to the former practice of the Colledge." Rectorial Courts are held on 23rd, 24th, 25th March, and 7th April, to consider the disputes between the Principal and Masters. 1726. Patrick Duff of Premnay. The Principal and Masters approve. Entries relative to a leet, or to subsequent confirmation, occur in the minutes down to the year 1822. 1727. Patrick Duff. Minute of election in Charter Chest (" Rectors," 7). 1st Sept., Rectorial Court anent appointment to Chair of Mathematics. 1728. Patrick Duff, Lord Rector. Rectorial Court on 17th June directs preparation of an inventory of all papers in the charter chest. 1729. William Duff of Braco; M.A. 1705. Earl Fife, 1759. [1730-31. No record.] 1732. Sir Alexander Ramsay of Balmain. [1733-36. No record.] 1737. George Skeen of Skeen ; alumnus 1709. Many meetings of Rectorial Court, 1737-38, anent case of Regent William Duff. Henceforward no Rectorial Court is summoned till 1825. 1738. George Skeen. 1739. George Skene. 1740. George Skene. 1 741. George Skene. 1742. George Skene. 1743. George Skene. 1744. George Skene. 1745. George Skene. [1746-60. No record.] 1 76 1. Sir Arthur Forbes of Craigievar, 4th bart. ; alumnus 1723. 1762. Sir Arthur Forbes. 1763. Sir Arthur Forbes. 1764. John Gray; alumnus 1714. Hitherto the Rector had lived in Aberdeen or its vicinity. Mr. Gray was resident in London. In 1768 he founded two mathematical bur- saries. 345 The Rectors of the 1765. John Gray ; LL.D. 1765. 1766. John Gray. 1767. John Gray. 1768. John Gray. 1769. John Gray. 1770. Alexander Fordyce of Col pna. 1 77 1. Alexander Fordyce. [1772-81. No record of elections.] " According to Dr. Hamilton, 1825, none took place, it being regarded as a thing of no consequence " (Knight). 1782. Cosmo Gordon of Cluny, one of the Barons of H.M. Exchequer in Scotland. For the first time a notice of election in Aberdeen "Journal of 4th March : a very brief paragraph under " Domestic Occurrences " : " On Friday last, the first of March, in the Marischal College and University of Aberdeen, came on the election of a Rector and Assessors and of a Dean of Faculty, for the ensuing year ; when the following gentlemen were chosen," etc., etc. The Nations are not mentioned. 1783. Cosmo Gordon. [1784-85. No record.] " Dr. Hamilton thinks the same continued " (Knight). 1786. Cosmo Gordon. 1787. Cosmo Gordon. 1788. Francis Garden of Gardenstown, Senator of the College of Justice. A portrait of the Rector is preserved in the College. 1789. Francis Garden. 1790. Sir William Fordyce, Physician in London ; M.A. 1742 ; M.D. Cantab. 1770. Sir W. Fordyce bequeathed his medical library to the College, and founded the Lectureship on Agriculture. A portrait, by Angelica Kauffmann, and a bust are preserved in the College. 1 791. Sir William Fordyce. 1792. Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo, 6th bart. 1793. Sir William Forbes. 1794. James Ferguson of Pitfour, M.P. for Aberdeenshire. 1795. James Ferguson. 1796. Alexander Allardyce of Dunnotar, M.P. for this district of burghs. 1797. Alexander Allardyce. 1798. Sir Alexander Ramsay Irvine of Balmain, bart. Sir A. R. Irvine was a benefactor, 1802. 1799. Sir Alexander Ramsay Irvine. 1800. Sir William Forbes of Craigievar, 5th bart. ; Rector of King's College, 1786. 346 Marischal College and University 1801. Sir William Forbes. 1802. Alexander Baxter of Glassel. 1803. Alexander Baxter; LL.D. 1803. 1804. Alexander Baxter. 1805. Alexander Baxter. 1806. Alexander Baxter. 1807. Alexander Baxter. 1808. Alexander Baxter. 1808, June 17. Sir William Grant, Master of the Rolls; alumnus 1762. On the death of Alexander Baxter. Elected by the Faculty, " with- out the concurrence of the students." 809. Sir William Grant. 810. Sir William Grant. 811. Sir William Grant. 812. Sir William Grant. 813. Sir William Grant. 814. Charles Forbes of Auchmedden, M.P. 815. Charles Forbes. 816. Charles Forbes ; LL.D. 1816. 817. Charles Forbes. 818. Charles Forbes. 819. Sir George Abercromby, 4th bart., of Forglen and Birkenbog; M.A. 1768. 820. James, 4th Earl Fife. 821. James, Earl Fife. 822. Charles Forbes of Auchmedden. In 1823 he presented to the College his Rectorial Gown, made for the King's visit to Scotland. This Gown, which still survives, though disused since i860, appears in Dyce's portrait of Sir James McGrigor. 1823. James, Earl Fife. In the minute for the first time are left out the words, " which elec- tion the Principal and Professors did ratify and approve." The entry simply bears that the Procurators elected Earl Fife, but one of the Nations, Mar (Procurator, Alexander Henderson), chose Joseph Hume, M.P. The following report is from the Aberdeen Chronicle of 8th March : " It was known that a great majority of the students had agreed to vote for Mr. Hume, and that of the four Nations, the Angusiani, Aberdonenses [Mar] and Moravienses had appointed Procurators in- structed to vote for that gentleman. The Buchanenses were divided, but the majority were in favour of the Earl of Fife, who was the only other candidate in nomination. That the proposal to elect Mr. Hume to that honourable office had excited a great sensation among some members of the Senatus Academicus was well known, but as some of the most active of his opponents had declared that they — meaning 347 The Rectors of the the Professors — could not interfere (we presume directly), and as the students up to the hour of election remained unshaken in their purpose to elect Mr. Hume, no effectual opposition was anticipated. It may be necessary here to observe, for the information of the public, that, according to the practice in Marischal College, the four Nations elect their Procurators in presence of the Professors, the election having previously taken place according to their own uninfluenced judgments, unanimously or by a plurality of votes, as may happen. The elections had already taken place ; but upon a Professor's entering the class- room where the Angusiani were assembled, and inquiring whether they had agreed upon a Procurator — a student answered No; while others said that the majority had elected a Procurator, and mentioned his name. The Professor, however, inquired whether there was any other candidate, and one was immediately mentioned for the first time, and a division immediately took place, under the direction of the Pro- fessor. However impartially the Professors (for another had now joined) may have acted upon this occasion, it is ascertained that some of the younger students, who had previously voted for the Procurator in favour of Mr. Hume, were prevented by their presence from dividing in his favour ; as one of them very artlessly said, when reminded of his former promise and vote : ' How could I divide in favour of Mr. Hume when the Professors were just looking at me ? ' The conse- quence was that the hitherto unheard-of candidate for the office of Procurator was declared duly elected, and proceeded to the discharge of his expected duty, without any instructions from his constituents. " The Moravienses being equally divided, a student was openly solicited by a Professor to change his vote, which he did ; and con- sequently the Procurator of that Nation also was changed. The Aberdonenses stood firm, and the Buchanenses were not attended by any Professor on the occasion. By this arrangement a majority of the Procurators declared in favour of the Earl of Fife, a majority of the students still adhering to their original decision in favour of Mr. Hume, the numbers being, according to the statements which we have seen : — " For Mr. Hume 98 For the Earl of Fife, including the votes of four private students 94 Majority in favour of Mr. Hume .... 4 And striking off the four private students who had no right to vote Eight. " We have been careful to ascertain the facts of this extraordinary case ; and from unexceptionable authority assure our readers that the above statement is correct. Other circumstances have also come to our knowledge, no less extraordinary and equally well authenticated, all tending to establish the fact that, had the students been allowed to conduct the election freely, Mr. Hume must have been at this time Lord Rector of the University, notwithstanding the unworthy threat held out that a list of all those who should vote for Mr. Hume should be made out, and transmitted to a Noble Lord— as if it were criminal 348 Marischal College and University in the students to choose as their Rector a gentleman whose public services during the last six or seven years have been of more advantage to the country than those of all the Chancellors and Rectors connected with Marischal College for the last century." The Rector gave £50 for prize books. 1824. Joseph Hume, M.D. 1799; M.P. for the Aberdeen district of burghs. The opposing candidate was the sitting Rector, Lord Fife, and the result of the poll was as under : — Nation. Hume. Fife. Mar 51 33 Buchan 26 17 Moray n 10 Angus 33 17 121 77 "In 1818," writes Professor Knight 1 in his Collections, "Joseph Hume, having been chosen member of Parliament for the district of burghs consisting of Aberdeen, Bervie, Montrose, Brechin and Forfar, became highly in favour with certain persons in Aberdeen who had long taken a part in the petty politics of that city. These persons, failing in procuring for him the freedom of the town or any other mark of honour from the Magistrates, began to practise upon the students of Marischal College in order to obtain his election as Rector. In March, 1824, they were at last successful, and Hume was elected. He sent a letter of thanks addressed to the Procuratores Natiorum " [sic]. Professors Davidson and Hamilton protested "against the election of the Procurator for Angus on account of the violation of their rights in being prevented from being present at the election of the said Pro- curator by the bolting of the Greek class-room door, where the Angusiani were convened." Many letters criticising the College authorities in the Aberdeen Chronicle, 7th February to 6th March. See Letter to the students of Marischal College on the subject of the ap- proaching election, Aberd., 1824 [by James Forbes, jun., A.M. 2 ]. (Supra, P- 33-) "No election," writes John Hill Burton, a student of 1823-26, " creates more interest, ferment, heart-burning and quarrelling, than does the election of the Rector of Marischal College, among the waspish set of little individuals which form its constituency. By the charter, the Rector is eligible by the students. 3 It is said that formerly the Pro- fessors considered it quite unnecessary to inform them of their privilege, and the young gentlemen themselves never dreamed of the possibility of possessing any such power. It was then the practice for the Pro- fessors to convoke the students and inform them that they wished such and such a person to be Rector, and hoped the young gentlemen would 1 Natural Philosophy, 1823-44. 2 i8i8; aftds. merchant in Aberdeen; baillie 1838-45. ' ' Eligatur per omnes Academiae suppositos divisos in quatuor Nationes. . . . Harum nationum singuli sint Procuratores qui Rectorem eligant." 349 The Rectors of the approve of their choice ; on which the young gentlemen, wondering at the unusual condescension of their usually unbending superiors, and highly gratified with the mark of respect paid to them, simultaneously shouted consent, and on dispersing, inquired at the porter the name of the person who had been chosen, as they had not distinctly heard. So went matters smoothly on until some unlucky wight, born certainly in Addison's year of confusion, and not having before his eyes the fear of the poet's saying, ' Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise,' dis- covered that the elective franchise was, by the charter, vested in the students. Then there was a change in the aspect of affairs. The condescension of the Professors, so much admired before, met with no charity. The body public was convulsed, and treason against the higher powers filled every mouth. It was impossible to stem the torrent. The Professors trembled in their chairs. Bent brows and fierce glances had no effect, hints and threats lost their efficacy, as it was wisely considered that a whole University could not be easily punished. Nor were the Bursars, who generally stood in mortal terror lest an insolent glance or a disrespectful mode of addressing a Professor should lose them their benefices, more pliable on this occasion than their fellow-students ; and finally, the students took the conclusive and uncompromising step of choosing as their first Rector under the re- formed constituency Mr. Joseph Hume ! " {TaiVs Magazine for May, 1833, pp. 187-88). 1825. Joseph Hume. Unanimously. " He arrived in Aberdeen," Knight records, " on 9th November, and during his stay of a few days lived with Mr. Alexander Bannerman in Marischal Street. On the following day he called on Principal Brown, 1 where he discussed for an hour and a half, read some notes he had taken from the Charter, pronounced gerere, gerere, and was duly reprimanded for the false quantity ; and wished the students to be assembled next day in the public school. The Principal demurred to this on account of his Latin oration not being ready. The Rector said it might be in English, and was duly reprimanded again for under- valuing the classical tongues." On 14th November the Rector held a Court (the first since 1738), summoned by public advertisement, to inquire into " irregularities and abuses ... in some departments of the College, prejudicial to the interests of the students." The Rector was attended by three of his assessors, Thomas Gordon of Cairness, Alexander Bannerman and Robert Abercrombie. The fourth, Lord Provost Gavin Hadden, declined to attend because " the general nature of the complaints which have been lodged " had not been previously submitted to the Assessors. Pro- fessors Hamilton, Kidd, Skene, Knight and Cruickshank were also present. The Rector explained that various representations had been sent to him alleging " that the Professors were not regular in their attend- ance ; that the state of the Bursaries required to be looked into ; that the students had been deprived of the use of the Library ; and that the Charter had in different respects been infringed. . . . He was bound to come forward openly and fearlessly discharge his duty. ... He differed 1 William Laurence Brown, Principal 1796-1830. 350 Marischal College and University entirely from his Assessor the Lord Provost. . . . There was nothing which he reprobated so much as private meetings." The Rector having called for complaints, such were lodged in writing by various students and replied to by the Professors. It was admitted that an interval of ten or fifteen minutes was often allowed to elapse at the beginning of an hour before a Professor began his lecture, and the Rector expressed an anxious hope that the Professors would set an example to the students by being punctual to their time in their own attendance. It was admitted that the bursaries mentioned in the Foundation Charter did not now exist, nor was it known at what time they had ceased to exist. It was admitted that the Library, instead of being open for four hours daily while the classes met (as provided by its foundation), was open for only one hour weekly and that on Saturdays : the Senatus ex- plaining that " in drawing up the present regulations, which it had become absolutely necessary to do, owing to the great increase of late in the number of applications for books from the Library, they were actuated solely by a wish to render the library as extensively useful as possible, consistently with the preservation of its contents." It was admitted that hitherto the unvaried custom at examinations for de- grees had been to dictate both questions and answers ; but Professor Knight stated that the Senatus considered it necessary that the old plan should be altered. See Full and correct report of proceedings, Aberd., 1825 ("with a very scurrilous preface by Mr. George Kerr, Surgeon," Knight) ; " Narrative of Proceedings drawn up by order of the Principal and Professors " (Minutes) ; Account 0/ proceedings of com- mittee of graduates, Aberd., 1826 ("a great tissue of abuse and misre- presentation," Knight) ; Mr. R. S. Rait's " Joseph Hume and an Academic Rebellion '' in The Scottish Antiquary for July, 1898. On the 16th, when the College Session began, Mr. Hume delivered to the assembled students a short speech, which may be regarded as a Rectorial Address in embryo. 1826. Sir James McGrigor ; M.A. 1788; M.D. 1804 ; Director General of the Army Medical Department. Two Nations, Buchan and Moray, voted, through their Procurators, for Sir James McGrigor, Mar for Joseph Hume, Angus for Viscount Arbuthnot. The Rector held a Court on 31st July. See Report of proceedings, Aberd., 1826 ("a false and garbled statement," says Knight, whose own account appeared in the Aberd. Journal of 2nd Aug.); Northern Iris, Aberd., 1826, pp. 66, 181; Aberdeen Censor, ii., 180, 221. " Since the students held the electoral franchise in their own hands, Rectors on both sides of politics have filled the chair. Mr. Joseph Hume has been frequently chosen on the Liberal side, Sir James McGrigor on the Tory. The former held a Rectorial Court during the time of session, in presence of the students, and gave the Professors much trouble, by making an investigation into grievances. The latter followed his example in a more convenient manner by holding a Court during the recess, in presence of the Professors and a few students in the neighbourhood ; thereby preventing great annoyance to the learned dignitaries " (Hill Burton). 351 The Rectors of the Much lively discussion took place at this Court, of which a specimen may be quoted to illustrate the attitude then taken by the Professoriate towards the graduates. " Principal Brown. — My Lord, I beg leave to lay before you the protest of the Principal and Professors of this College against the last Rectorial Court, on account of the irregularity of the proceedings, and the incorrectness of the record of them, which the late Lord Rector left behind him. "James Forbes, junior, A.M., begged leave on the part of the graduates of Marischal College to oppose the reception of any protest which might tend to invalidate the proceedings at last Rectorial Court, as these proceedings naturally affected the interests of the graduates. " Principal Brown. — The Senatus never acknowledged any such body as the Committee of Graduates. A meeting was called of these gentlemen, who elected themselves into a Committee to represent the whole of the graduates of the College, who are scattered up and down through the four quarters of the Globe. The Senatus never did acknowledge such a Committee as a corporate body, and they never will acknowledge them as such until they produce a deed constituting them the representatives of the graduates. " Mr. Forbes stated that the meeting referred to was called by public advertisement, when all who could attend were present. His Lordship was well aware that no meeting could be held of all the graduates ; and he conceived that the appointment of a public meeting was a sufficient warrant for a Committee as its representatives. . . . " Principal Brown. — Mr. Forbes can in no shape be heard. He, as well as all the other graduates, by their leaving the University, have abandoned all right to interfere with its affairs ; they have no connec- tion with it ; they are absolved from their allegiance. . . . " Mr. Forbes. — These gentlemen call our rights in question ; I also question theirs! and now call upon them to show any part of the Foundation Charter which recognises any such body as the Senatus Academicus. (Thundering applause : when Principal Brown requested the Rector to make the spectators keep back ; the intense interest which this contest excited having produced a general rush forward to the table round which the Professors were sitting.) . . . " The Lord Rector wished to see the memorial of the graduates. " Mr. Forbes said that . . . the graduates had addressed a series of letters to the Principal and Professors, on the subject of the publication of the Charter, couched in the most respectful terms, and he regretted to state, that to this day every one of these remained unanswered. " Principal Brown. — . . . We do not acknowledge any such body as the Committee of Graduates. There is no such body recognised as belonging to any other College. It would go to the utter subversion of all order and subordination. It would lead to the most pernicious consequences. . . . " Mr. Cruickshank stated that the Professors had all along expressed their intention to publish the charter. " Mr. Forbes in reply observed, he was sorry to say, that from the terms of a communication he had received from that gentleman in the month of February, compared with what he had just now stated, there 352 Marischal College and University seemed an appearance of equivocation. . . . Every application which the Committee had made to the Professors was in the most respectful and courteous terms ; and they had uniformly been treated, on their part, with supercilious contempt." 1827. Sir James McGrigor. Mar voted for Joseph Hume. " The most tumultuous election, chiefly from a party of divinity students. See the investigation, in the Minute Book, on two of them, John and Daniel Mackenzie, who attempted to force their way violently into the Hall before the election was over " (Knight). A portrait of Sir James McGrigor by Dyce, subscribed for by the students of 1826-27, * s now m tne possession of the University. 1828. Joseph Hume. Angus voted for Sir James McGrigor. Hume wrote on 12th March, 1828, to the Procuratores Nationum : " I flattered myself I had induced the majority of the Senatus Academicus to make such alterations and improvements as seemed imperatively necessary for the credit and efficiency of the Institution. I am deeply concerned to find that the hopes held out to me have not yet been realised." This letter was sent to Principal Brown to transmit to the Procuratores, but by the advice of the Senatus was returned to the writer, "as no such body exists except on the day of Election." Hume subsequently wrote to the individuals who had acted as his Procurators expressing the belief that a Royal Visitation alone could effectively alter the system on which the discipline of the College was founded. " I therefore made the requisite representation to Mr. Peel, who, with a readiness and candour highly honourable to him, after satisfying himself of the accuracy of my representations, appointed the com- mission which is now engaged on that business." He further offered prizes for essays on " The Evils of Intolerance towards those who Differ from us in Opinions" and "How far the Studies in the Universities of the United Kingdom are directed to the General Education of Mankind." He will be " happy to hear that the students continue to conduct themselves respectfully and properly, although the Professors should act in any manner uncivilly to the students." Portrait of Hume in possession of University. [1829. No Rector.] Mar and Buchan voted for Sir James McGrigor, Angus and Moray for Joseph Hume. There being no precedent or rule in the Charter, the whole case was referred to the Commissioners of Visitation then sitting (Evidence, vol. iv., pp. 298-301). The Commissioners recom- mended a new election, but declined to grant a warrant for holding this on any day other than 1st March. On the advice of the Chancellor no new election was held (Coll. Minutes, 7th Sept., 7th Nov., 25th Dec). The election proceedings of 1829 were very disorderly. " During nearly an hour amid great clamour and noises of various kinds, short speeches were made by different students. ... An attempt was made by a con- siderable number of the students to force their way into the hall where the Senatus were sitting ; which attempt was repelled by the Professors " (Minutes). Hume claimed the right as Rector of the preceding year to z 353 The Rectors of the have a casting vote, which he proposed to give to his opponent, but the Senatus unanimously disallowed this. See also Letters addressed to the students of Marischal College, by Joseph Hume, M.P., Aberd., 1829. 1830. Sir Charles Forbes, bart. Hume was in a minority in every Nation. Moray voted for Sir Walter Scott. The Rector gave £50 for prizes to the students of 1830-31. 1830, October 28. On this date was signed the General Report of Peel's Commission of Visitation of the Scottish Universities appointed in 1826. The Commissioners recommend " that the two Universities and Colleges of Aberdeen should be united, that the site of the United University should be at King's College "... and they submit a "Code of rules to be observed in all time coming in the United University of Aberdeen " inter alia. " II. There shall be a University Court in which the general superintendence and government of the University shall be vested. That this Court shall consist of: — " 1. A Rector, being the head or President of the Court. That the Rector shall be elected by the Principal and Professors and matriculated students, according to the mode hitherto adopted in Marischal College ; and also by the graduates of King's College and Marischal College who have received degrees since 1825, and by the graduates of the United University. . . . " That the Rector shall continue in office for the space of four years. . . . " That the Rector, by acceptance, shall undertake per- sonally to perform the duties of the office, and to be present at the University Courts when not necessarily prevented from attendance. " That neither a Principal nor a Professor of any of the Universities shall be eligible to the office of Rector. . . . " 4. An Assessor, nominated by the Rector, not being a Principal or Professor. . . . " We further propose that all members of the University Court should subscribe the Confession of Faith." These resolutions remained inoperative. 1831. William, 17th Earl of Erroll. " Election quiet. Hume's party again bring forward Sir Walter Scott, in order to divide, but it was a failure, not one nation voting for Joseph " (Knight). 1832. Sir Michael Bruce of Stenhouse, bart. Moray voted for Sir James Mcintosh. " Hume not even proposed as a candidate." The Rector announced four prizes of a gold medal and five guineas each to the students of the four years in Session I 83 I -3 2 ; "but only gave very inferior silver medals instead of gold" (Knight). 1833. Sir Charles Forbes of Newe and Edinglassie, bart. Moray voted for Francis Jeffrey, lord advocate. Many letters in the Observer and the Herald. 354 Marischal College and University 1834. Alexander Bannerman, M.P. ; alumnus 1801. Sir Charles Forbes was proposed. The new Principal (Daniel Dewar) allowed the students at the election to make speeches in the Hall on the merits of the candidates. The Procurators claimed to be allowed to vote in the election of Dean of Faculty, but this was dis- allowed. Professor Knight protested against the elections on this occasion for reasons which are entered at length. " When the plan introduced by Dewar became insupportable to himself, and when tampering with the students in favour of Whig Rectors made them regularly choose Tory ones, he proposed going back to the old plan, which was carried into execution in 1840 " (Knight). x 835. John Abercrombie; M.A. 1798; M.D. 1802; M.D. Edin. 1803; H.M. first physician in Scotland. Mar voted for Alexander Bannerman ; Sir Charles Forbes was again proposed. " Under pretext of giving an explanation," Professor Clark " had very improperly taken a side in the discussion " on behalf of Mr. Bannerman. This " led to a good deal of confusion and cries of 'Unfair, unfair,' mingled with hooting and hissing" ; and to a pro- test from Mr. Reid, the seconder of Dr. Abercrombie. Professor Knight again protests. Dr. Abercrombie appears to have been the first Rector to deliver (on 5th Nov.) an Inaugural Address, which will be found reprinted supra, pp. 45-61. " The noise very moderate. Next day he gave a dinner to sixty in the Rooms, and afterwards £50 for prizes. On the 8th the Principal and Professors accompanied him twice to the College Gallery in the Greyfriars " (Knight). See Letter to the students of Marischal College on the election of Lord Rector, Aberd., 1835. 1835. June 22. Mr. Bannerman, M.P., ex-Rector, introduced a Bill into the House of Commons " for uniting King's College and Marischal College into one University and College." It was mainly based on the recommendations of the 1826 Commission, and provided that "the Rector of the United University shall be elected by the Principal, Pro- fessors, Lecturers, Monitors, Graduates and Matriculated Students in the United University, as well as by the Divinity Graduates of King's College and Marischal College. ... If any Rector elect shall fail to be installed within three months after his election he shall, ipso facto, be held to have resigned. . . . The Rector shall preside in the Rectorial Court to be held statedly once a year." The powers of the Court are detailed at great length. The Bill was read a second time on 7th July, but was then dropped. 1836. John Abercrombie. Alexander Bannerman was again proposed. The Rector gave £50 for prizes to the students of 1835-36. 1837. John, Lord Lyndhurst. Mar voted for John Abercrombie, M.D., and Moray for John C. Colquhoun of Killermont. Sir David Brewster was proposed. The Rector declined to visit Aberdeen. 1838. Henry, Lord Brougham and Vaux. Buchan voted for Lord Lyndhurst, and Moray for John C. Col- quhoun. "The Tories supported Lyndhurst, the Whigs Brougham, 355 The Rectors of the the Saints Colquhon" (Knight). One hundred and eight students protest and appeal to the Chancellor, who declines to interfere. A full report in Aberdeen Constitutional of 3rd March. 1838. The Commissioners of Visitation of the Aberdeen Universities ap- pointed in 1836 issued their First Report which recommended that the Universities should be united, but that the Colleges should continue separate as Schools of Arts ; also that the Rector, as President of the Rectorial Court, should be chosen by the Principal and Professors, by the Graduates and by the Matriculated Students, according to the mode at present adopted in Marischal College, " with the exception that the students are not to vote by Nations." These resolutions remained inoperative. 1839. John Campbell Colquhoun of Killermont, M.P. Thomas Campbell was proposed. The Rectorial Address, delivered 27th November, was printed in Glasgow. The Rector " left so small a sum (£20) for prizes that, it being impossible to divide it, it was given to the Building Fund " (Knight). 1840. Sir George Sinclair of Ulbster, bart. Mar voted for the Earl of Erroll. Robert Southey received 4 votes in Mar, and 17 in Moray. 1841. Sir James McGrigor, bart. Moray voted for the Hon. Fox Maule. " The Church questions now agitating greatly, they came to add some embitterment to the parties into which the students divided. The last two Rectors had been chosen partly as supporters of the governing party in the General Assembly. This year the same party made a stronger attempt by bringing forward Fox Maule, Under-Secretary of State in the Home Department, but he had a majority in Moray only, from the number of Divinity Non-Intrusion Students belonging to it. Among the outre proposals was that of the Marquis of Waterford ! " (Knight). 1842. Sir John Herschel. Mar voted for Sir Jas. McGrigor, Moray for the Hon. Fox Maule. Angry protests against the action of Professors Brown and Lizars, who, when the vote in the Angus Nation was stated to be 17 to 16 in favour of the Procurator representing Sir John Herschel, proffered their votes on the side of the minority, although it never was " the custom for professors to vote at the Rectorial elections, the only exception being that of one professor who had given in his suffrage once or twice several years ago." 1843. John, 2nd Marquis of Breadalbane. Buchan voted for Sir James McGrigor. The Marquis of Waterford received votes in every Nation. The Rector gave prizes to the most distinguished students of 1842-43 and 1843-44. [1844. No Rector.] Mar and Angus voted for the Marquis of Breadalbane, Buchan and Moray for the Marquis of Bute ; the former again gave prizes to the most distinguished students. " If the Rector elected last year, the Marquis of Breadalbane, had been installed into office we understand he would have thought of giving a casting vote, as had been done, in like circumstances, in the University of Glasgow," 356 Marischal College and University 1845. Archibald Alison ; LL.D. 1845. The Right Hon. T. B. Macaulay had been proposed. Mr. Alison's address was the first delivered in the new buildings, 17th March. On the following day the Senatus and students entertained the Rector at breakfast. " The length to which the proceedings extended on this occasion precludes us at present from giving more than a mere outline of the lively eloquent orations delivered by the several speakers. On all hands the most thrilling interest was excited and the deepest attention maintained throughout " (Aberdeen Journal). " Principal Dewar opened the proceedings by a very impressive prayer, in which allusions to any particular Church were avoided, embracing at its conclusion a portion of the Church of England service, and which, from some of these reasons, seemed to excite the risible muscles of a certain exalted dignitary of the Church alluded to, who might have been expected to be more impressed by the solemnity of prayer, wherever or by whomsoever uttered " (Aberdeen Herald). " I arrived in Aberdeen," writes Alison in his Autobiography (i., 529), " on March 17th, and was received in the kindest manner by the principal and professors. My cousin, Mr. Forbes of Blackford, kindly afforded me hospitality in his house in Union Street. This street, a mile and a half in length, is composed entirely of handsome houses, built in cut granite. The speech which I made on my installation, which was afterwards printed in my collected Essays, bore internal evidence how strongly I was moved by this first gratifying testimonial having come from this quarter. It was written, but delivered like an extempore speech, without my once looking at the manuscript ; the subject being so present to my mind that I had no apprehension of becoming embarrassed, though it was not committed to memory. The speech, which will be found in my collected Essays, was listened to with great attention by a crowded audience, and gave, I understand, general satisfaction. On the following morning I was entertained at a public breakfast by the professors and students, which was very interesting from the unbounded enthusiasm exhibited. I afterwards dined with the professors." In spite of the reiterated assertion in this extract (cf. Notes and Queries, 9th S., ix., 427; x., 117), the address is not to be found either in Alison's Essays, Political, Historical and Miscellaneous (3 vols., Edinburgh, 1853), or in Modern British Essayists, vol. ii. (Philadelphia, 1850). It is reprinted for the first time in the present volume, supra, pp. 62-72. 1846. Archibald Alison. Unanimously re-elected. The Rector was not reinstalled. He gave prizes in sessions 1845-46 and 1846-47. [1847. No Rector.] Mar and Buchan voted for the Earl of Rosse, Angus and Moray for Thomas Babington Macaulay. The majority of individual votes was for Lord Rosse. The meeting resolved to inquire of the University of Glasgow whether the late Rector has a casting vote. 1848. Patrick Robertson, Lord Robertson; LL.D. 1848. Benjamin Disraeli, M.P., was proposed, but had a minority in each 357 The Rectors of the Nation. On 24th March the Rector was installed and entertained at dinner by the Senatus, " the honoured guest of the evening lending his usual wit and humour to enliven the festive board." On the follow- ing day the students entertained him at breakfast " over the cup that cheers but not inebriates, enhanced by the substantial comforts peculiar to such refreshment in our own country." . . . The Rector " for the first time had seen ladies at a public breakfast (turning to a galaxy who filled the organ gallery), but however fair and fragrant they might appear, he was afraid that the contemplation of so many flowers in the academic bowers of Aberdeen would not add fruit to the tree of know- ledge." . . . Professor Blackie " delivered himself of one of his characteristic speeches, in which he declared himself a flibbertigibbet and made use of the cognomen." The chair was occupied by Mr. Patrick Beaton, divinity student, who in July, 1863, contributed an account of the proceedings to Fraser's Magazine : " A chapter shewing how Lord P became our rector ". The Rectorial Address was printed at Aberdeen in 1848 (Lewis Smith). The Rector gave prizes for essays to the students of 1848-49. 1849. John Thomson Gordon, sheriff depute of Edinburgh. Buchan voted for Lord Robertson. Hugh Miller and Charles Dickens had been asked to allow themselves to be nominated, and their replies have been preserved. " I am deeply sensible of the great honour you do me in entertain- ing the purpose you intimate of proposing me as a candidate for the Lord Rectorship of Marischal College and University. In present circumstances, however, the honour is one which I beg respectfully to decline. I am, perhaps, not quite without apology for having done but little for literature and science compared with what I had once hoped, and still wish to do ; — but I am conscious that what I have yet accomplished is but little — and you will, I trust, attribute to the right feeling my determination of accepting no place to which my claim on the score of merit might with justice be challenged. The last ten years of my life have been exceedingly busy ones, nor were the harassing occupations in which they were spent of a nature very favourable to acquirement of the more solid or thought of the profounder kind. In that period, however, I was enabled to give to the public two little works — one descriptive of the second period of vertebrate existence on our planet, and one an examination of these evidences which connect the first beginnings of life in the remote past with the fiat of a Creator — that have been favourably received by men of science on both sides of the Atlantic. And should there be some ten or twelve years of active life, or a greater time still before me, I may, I trust succeed in doing for the geology of Scotland what may render me at least more worthy than now of an honour in connection with some of our Scottish Universities such as that which, in your too partial kindness, you at present propose. Trusting that you will sustain my reasons for declining your very gratifying proposal both as valid themselves and as proffered in good faith, I am, Gentlemen, etc., " Hugh Miller." 358 Marischal College and University " Brighton, Tuesday Evening, 2.0th February, 1849. " Sir, — I beg to assure you that I am very sensible of the feeling which has induced you to propose me as a candidate for the Lord Rectorship of your College, and that I feel much beholden to you for that mark of your regard and consideration. " But, in reply to your note in which you do me the favour to ask my consent to this nomination, I am constrained to say, without any re- servation whatever, that I do not aspire to the high honour in question, and that I must entreat you to withdraw my name at my express desire. I take the earliest opportunity in my power of making this communi- cation to you ; but my absence from town for a week past, and my absence from this place during this day, have combined to prevent my answering your letter sooner. It was forwarded here this morning. I am, Sir, yours faithfully and obliged, " Charles Dickens." Principal Donaldson, then a tertian, informs the editor that " we were determined to oppose Gordon, and Peter Bayne [also a tertian] wrote to Hugh Miller and then I wrote to Dickens." The Rector was installed and entertained at lunch by the Senatus on 23rd March ; by the students at breakfast on the following day. The Rectorial Address was printed at Aberdeen (Wyllie : 1849), as also an Address, delivered 8th November, at the opening of session 1849-50. 1850. John Thomson Gordon. Principal Donaldson states that " from the first we resolved to propose Carlyle, and the agitation in favour of Carlyle went on throughout the whole time of the contest. From our previous experience we resolved not to write to Carlyle, but to elect him first and then ask him to accept. Our resolution was found out just towards the end of the contest, and some divinity students who were on the other side wrote him such a letter that he had no alternative but to decline, and then they sent us a copy of the letter. We were very indignant at their conduct, but it was too late to take any steps." Carlyle's characteristic reply has been preserved. " 5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, "London, 22 febv, 1850. " Gentlemen, — Your announcement very much surprised me, not surely in an unpleasant way, and I beg in the meantime to thank you very cordially, you and my other young Friends in Aberdeen, for the honour you are doing me. The election to a merely formal office, I suppose, may go in this way or that, without momentous consequences ; but the fact that ingenuous young souls in your University, in poor old Scotland far away, are loyally disposed to me, and willing to testify that feeling by such methods as they have — this is already a possession, of a valuable and to me almost of an affecting nature, which I shall not have to part with. With the election itself I must not in the least in- terfere, for or against. In respect of personally visiting Aberdeen, too, I am constrained to say that travelling is at all times very untowardly 359 The Rectors of the to me, and that at present there are some special causes rather de- taining me here ; — on the whole, that if there be no real duty, but only a formal or ceremonial one, to be done in Aberdeen, I had much better not come, but that if there do appear some real fraction of duty to be done, in the event of my election, I will certainly make an effort to come. More I cannot say at present. And so with many thanks and kind regards, I remain, Gentlemen, your most obedt "T. Carlyle. " To Messrs. Thomson & Harper, Divinity Students, etc." The following was the detailed vote : — Nation. Gordon. Carlyle. Mar 50 25 Buchan 23 15 Moray 28 9 Angus 35 15 136 64 Fifteen years later Carlyle was elected Rector of his own university of Edinburgh. 1851. Archibald, 13th Earl of Eglinton. Tennyson had been asked to allow himself to be nominated, but declined to promise to come to Aberdeen for installation. Sir Charles Lyell was nominated, but had a minority in every Nation : the Eglinton party raising the question of his orthodoxy. The Rector was installed on 18th March. He requested what Principal Dewar " believed had rarely if ever been granted in this University, certainly not since he had the honour to be connected with it, that to-morrow should be granted to them, the students, as a holiday (enthusiastic applause)." The address, delivered 23rd March, was printed at Aberdeen ( Wyllie). The Rector gave prizes to the students of 1851-52, and 1852-53. 1852. Archibald, Earl of Eglinton. Lord Palmerston declined to give an inaugural address and his name was withdrawn. Lord Glenelg had a minority in each Nation. Lord Eglinton was chosen Rector of Glasgow University in the same year. 1853. George, 7th Earl of Carlisle; LL.D. 1853. Mr. Disraeli was asked to stand, but wrote : — " Grosvenor Gate, " Feb. 25, 1853. " Your letter of the 10th inst. has only just reached me. I need not say I am gratified and honoured by it. " The delay which has occurred in its transmission would, under any circumstances, now render it impossible for me to become a candidate for the high office of Rector of your celebrated and ancient University, even were it in my power, which it is not, to comply with the condition annexed to the attainment of that great distinction. " I have been obliged to decline a flattering solicitation of similar import from another of your Universities, because I could not under- take to visit Scotland this year. 360 Marischal College and University " I beg the favour of your offering to your fellow students the ex- pression of my gratitude and friendship. '« I have the honour to be your faithful servant, " B. D'Israeli. "James Mitchell, Esq." The students held a preliminary nomination on 16th February, and a regular nomination in the Public Hall on 19th February. The Earl of Mansfield had a minority in every Nation. The Rectorial Address, delivered 31st March, was printed at Aberdeen (Wyllie: 1853). 1854. Colonel William Henry Sykes, M.P. Moray voted for the Earl of Carlisle. Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer had declined to promise to come for installation. The Rectorial Address, delivered 30th March, was printed at Aberdeen (Herald Office : 1854). The students gave a breakfast, 31st March. 1855. Austen Henry Layard, M.P. Angus voted for Colonel Sykes. Mr. Layard is stated to be the youngest Rector on the roll, being but thirty-eight years of age. His inaugural address will be found reprinted supra, pp. 73-91. 1856. Austen Henry Layard ; LL.D. 1856. Unanimously re-elected. On 20th March Mr. Layard delivered a short address, dealing mainly with the then burning question of the union of the Universities, which he advocated: "all the graduates to have a voice in the affairs of the University, and no rights which the students have hitherto enjoyed to be taken away. With regard to the Colleges, I think it is also desirable that these ancient institutions — venerable from their antiquity, endeared to you all — should enjoy the management of their own particular affairs." The Rector went on to urge the foundation of Chairs of Modern History, Political Economy and Modern Languages, and the equipment of " the very best library that can be afforded." He announced prizes for essays, to be competed for by students in Divinity, Medicine, Law and Arts. 1856, June 25. Mr. Bouverie (M.P. for Kilmarnock burghs) and Mr. Thompson (M.P. for Aberdeen) brought in a Bill "for the union of the Universities of King's College and Marischal College" — the Colleges to remain separate and independent. § 5 provided that " the Rector of the University shall be elected by the Masters of Arts of the University, and shall hold office for three years." The Bill was not proceeded with. [1857. No Rector.] Mar and Buchan voted for A. H. Layard (151 votes), Angus and Moray for James, 8th Earl of Elgin (121 votes). Mr. Layard wished to give, as Rector of last year, his casting vote in favour of Lord Elgin ; but the Senatus held that this would have to be done in Aberdeen. 1858. The Commissioners of Inquiry into the Universities of Aberdeen, appointed in 1857, issued their Report, recommending (as in 1838) a United University with separate Colleges ; and that the Rector should be elected for three years to the Convocation of the graduates, and all matriculated students. 361 Rectors of Marischal College 1858, April 22. On this date the Lord Advocate brought in a Bill, which in a much altered form became the Act 22 & 23 Vict., cap. 83, on 2nd August — infra. The first draft provided that the Rector should be chosen by the General Council of Graduates. 1858. Philip, 5th Earl Stanhope. Moray voted for M. E. Grant Duff, younger of Eden (Rector of Aberdeen University, 1866-72). The Rectorial Address, delivered 25th March, will be found reprinted supra, pp. 107-20. At three o'clock the students gave a banquet, and at night the Senatus gave a dinner. In reply to the toast of his health the Rector urged " as a fitting subject for a popular work the life of the last Earl Marischal." 1859. David, 7th Earl of Airlie. Unanimously elected. Thackeray and Carlyle were nominated for the Rectorship. The latter wrote : — " Chelsea, London, " nth Feb., 1859. " Dear Sir, " I am much obliged to you and your young friends in Marischal College ; but there are two reasons why, as appears to me, you ought not to proceed with your nomination. The Jirst is, that you have no good likelihood, so far as I can guess, of carrying your election. This is a very important preliminary reason ! The second is that, being extremely busy in these months, and otherwise averse to travel, and in truth an enemy rather than a friend to public haranguing as at present practised, I do not think it likely I could get to Aberdeen on such an errand, even if you were unexpectedly successful. " Pray desist, therefore. To me the honour is without importance at this stage of my life ; and in fact has no value except as testifying your regard to me, of which I can now otherwise hold myself assured. And to you have I not already ' spoken ' — to such of you as care to listen — and, with a great deal of deliberation, given you the truest advice I had ! " Accept many thanks from me ; and believe, all of you, voters for and voters against, that nobody, elected or eligible, can wish you more truly than I do, continued increase of intelligence and of all the nobleness that should go along with it. " And so with sincere regards and thanks, I remain, yours faithfully, " T. Carlyle. "John Forbes, Esq., Kingsland House, Aberdeen." Thackeray declined " in consequence of his inability from his engage- ments to come down to Aberdeen though elected." The Rectorial Address, delivered 17th March, was printed at Aberdeen (Wyllie : 1859). i860. David, Earl of Airlie. Unanimously re-elected. Delivered a short address of thanks on 5th April. 362 THE RECTORS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN. 1858, August 2. " From and after such date as may be fixed by the Com- missioners . . . the University and King's College of Aberdeen and Marischal College and University of Aberdeen shall be united and incorporated into one University and College in all time coming there- after, under the style and title of the University of Aberdeen." — Act 22 & 23 Vict., cap. 83, § 1. " The University Court of the University of Aberdeen shall consist of the following members, viz. : 1. A Rector to be elected by the matriculated students, voting according to the present usage in Marischal College, but subject to any regulations as to voting to be made by the Commissioners. ... 4. An Assessor to be nominated by the Rector. ... 6. No Principal or Professor of any University 1 shall be eligible to the office of Rector or Assessor." — Ibid., § 10. i860, June 30. " From and after the 15th day of September, in the present year, the University and King's College of Aberdeen and Marischal College and University of Aberdeen shall be united and incorporated into one University and College, under the style and title of the University of Aberdeen." — Ord. No. 7 (Aberdeen, No. 3). "In the election of Rector in the said University of Aberdeen, the matriculated students shall vote in four Nations to be called the Mar, Buchan, Moray and Angus Nations [supra, p. 30], by each of whom one Procurator shall be chosen, and the Procurators shall elect the Rector ; and in case of equality of votes of such Procurators, the Chancellor of the said University shall have a casting vote . . . and failing such intimation, the Principal shall have the casting vote. ..." — Ord. No. 6 (Aberdeen, No. 2), § 9. The new system was inaugurated by the most rowdy proceedings that ever characterised the installation of a Rector at Aberdeen. i860, December 23. Edward Francis Maitland, H.M. Solicitor General for Scotland. Raised to the Bench in 1862 as Lord Barcaple. The opposing candidate was Sir Andrew Leith Hay, formerly M.P. for the Elgin burghs ; and the result of the poll was as under : — Nation. Maitland. Leith Hay. Procurator. Mar 41 108 William J. Elmslie. 2 Buchan 85 68 Frederick Stewart, M.A, Moray 37 12 Charles McGregor. 4 Angus 39 52 James Mackie, M.A.* 202 240 1 By the Act of 1889, § 3, " ' University' means Scottish University." 2 Student of Medicine. 3 Student of Divinity ; LL.D. 1879; H.M. Inspector of Schools, Hong-Kong. ♦M.A 1861 ; D.D. 1893; minister of Lady Yester's Church, Edinburgh. 5 Afterwards " Mackay " ; minister of Partick, etc. 363 The Rectors of the There was thus an equality of Nations, and, the Chancellorship being vacant, it fell, under the above cited Ordinance, to the Principal, the Very Rev. P. C. Campbell, to decide. On 12th January, 1861, he gave the casting vote in favour of Maitland, although Hay had a numerical majority of 38 votes. The Procurators of the Mar and Angus Nations protested. A meeting of Sir Andrew's supporters was held ; a deputation of five students waited on Maitland in Edinburgh " to plead in his presence the detrimental effect on the present students, and in the general interests of the University which his so intruding himself must necessarily have ; " the opinion of counsel was got as to the validity of the Principal's vote — but in vain. The friction really originated not so much in the bad feeling over the Union of the Colleges, as in the supposed conflict between the interests of the Professors and of the students : supra, pp. 31-5. This is brought out in a print issued by the Leith Hay party, of which part may be quoted. " Queries and Answers to assist in explaining the position of affairs in regard to the approach- ing election. 1. Yes. The Rector was formerly a merely honorary official ; he is now the head of the University Court. 2. The Students. "1. Is there any difference between the present and former elections of Rectors ? 2. Whom does the Rector repre- sent? 6. What will be the result if the Rector is a local man ? 7. What will be the result if the Rector is not a local man ? 8. Who, then, are interested in the appointment of the Rector ? 9. What is the interest of the Students ? 10. What is the interest of the Professors ? 11. Have the Professors interfered to support any individual candi- date? 12. Have the Professors interfered to prevent the appointment of a local man ? 6. He will hold and attend meet- ings, and the University Court will be an independent body. 7. Few meetings will be held, and the powers of the University Court will practically devolve on the Professors. 8. The Students and the Professors. 9. To appoint a local man, so that the University Court may be in- dependent. 10. To get appointed any one at a distance so that the University Court may be controlled or re- placed by the Senatus, and the Professors may not be interfered with. 11. No; provided he be at a dis- tance, they are indifferent who or what he may be. 12. Yes ; they have opposed it to the utmost of their power." 364 University of Aberdeen " Gentlemen," says the writer of a Maitland print, " are we to be entrapped by such rotten arguments as the above ? ... Is not such a man as Mr. Maitland more likely to be a real friend of the students than one who competes for our Rectorial Chair, that the honour of such a position may serve to cover some of the blemishes in his otherwise inglorious career ? . . . Our wisdom is to get one who will have in- fluence with the Commissioners, and in this particular it is needless to state that Mr. Maitland is incomparably superior to Sir Andrew. We are confident Mr. Maitland will be thoroughly impartial ; and who will have the boldness to say the same of Sir Andrew, after his saying, ' I am d — d if I don't make the Professors pay for it ' ? " The crisis took place when Maitland came to deliver his Inaugural Address in Marischal College on 16th March, 1861. The subjoined report of the proceedings is from the Aberdeen Journal. " The agitation, which had been kept up with more or less intensity among the students ever since the election, seemed to be brought to a climax, in the case of those who opposed Mr. Maitland, by the ceremony of his induction ; for, on entering the hall, greatly more than the wonted noise and excitement prevailed among the students. Not only did the usual variety of sounds— some of them comical enough— greet the ear, but sticks were pitched about very freely, with- out any regard to where they fell. No kind of missile, so far as could be seen, was allowed to be taken into the hall ; but some of the mal- contents had brought hammers or some other kind of tool in their pocket, and they speedily smashed up the seats, and converted them into fragments, quite handy for throwing about. The forms had been, as usual, nailed to the floor, but this did not prevent the operation referred to. "When the procession, consisting of the Magistrates and Council, and the Professors, along with members of the University Council, entered with the Lord Rector, the cheering, hissing, hooting and yelling were loud and prolonged, and a shower of sticks, which seemed to have been reserved for this moment, fell, without respect of persons or places. Principal Campbell having taken his place at the rostrum, called on the meeting to engage with him in prayer. A number of the medical students, however (many of whom stood on the seats near the door), seemed to evince a determination that the proceedings should not be allowed to commence, for they hooted, whistled, etc., for several minutes. At length, at a moment when some measure of calm was restored, the Principal commenced a Latin prayer, which was inter- rupted more than once by ejaculatory sounds — proceeding, however, from only one or two of the students — but which caused laughter among the others. The prayer over, the hooting and uproar recom- menced, during which the oath was administered to Mr. Maitland. " Mr. Emslie, Divinity student [Procurator for Mar], then came forward and read a protest, declaring that Mr. Maitland had not been legally or competently elected Rector ; but scarcely a word of this docu- ment, which was a long one, was heard, even in close proximity to the speaker. Occasionally, a phrase was heard during a lull, and was re- ceived with cheers, laughter, etc. The Rector and the Principal, however, 365 The Rectors of the listened very patiently while Mr. Emslie read. Instruments were taken in the hands of Mr. R. Ligertwood, Advocate, Notary Public, and the paper was meanwhile duly subscribed by Mr. Emslie, Mr. Mackie, another student [Procurator for Angus], and by Mr. Duncan, Jun., and Mr. R. Ligertwood, Advocates. " Principal Campbell then shook hands with Mr. Maitland, con- gratulating him on his appointment, and the Rector thereafter ascended to the desk, upon which he placed the manuscript of his address, during which time the uproar continued unabated. The Rector in vain beckoned for silence, and stood for a time smiling at the hurricane of noise, which prevented him getting farther in his address than the first word — Gentlemen . " At this stage Mr. Burr, a student, mounted on a form, and said, addressing the Rector — I am requested to inform you by the students of the University of Aberdeen — (cries of ' No,' cheers, and hisses) — that they hope you will not think of addressing them, as they — (hisses, and cries of ' Oh '). But the noisy portion of the audience did not feel more disposed to hear Mr. Burr than the Lord Rector ; and the Pro- fessors, who had been waiting in the belief, apparently, that the storm would exhaust itself, began to move off the platform, and to remonstrate personally with those taking a leading part in the row. At this time the hooting and whistling had an instrumental accompaniment, sounds like those of drums beating starting out from the other noises ; and pease in handfuls and lesser quantities, and occasionally sticks and pieces of wood, were thrown. The Rector kept smiling, and went on — Gentlemen, I accept — (cheers, hisses, and interruptions) — as frankly as — (hooting) — the protest — (great uproar) — which you (looking to the demonstrators) have just offered. (Uproar.) Mr. Emslie, with the other gentlemen named, here handed the protest to Principal Camp- bell, who received it, and they then retired. The Rector, still looking blandly, endeavoured to proceed thus — Gentlemen — I should be en- tirely — (hooting and interruption). Here it was observed by those near the Rector that blood trickled down the learned gentleman's face, suggesting that he must have been struck by some of the missiles flying about. The younger and quieter students attempted, by hissing, to shame down the rioters ; and a voice was heard from the platform ' Call in the police.' " Principal Campbell, advancing to the end of the platform, nearest to where the row prevailed, energetically exclaimed — I will take other means to put an end to this disgraceful scene. The names of two or three gentlemen who have been taking an active part in these pro- ceedings have been marked, and — (cries of ' Out with them ! ' ' Expel them ! ' concluded the sentence). But the row abated not, and some one exclaimed — ' Call in the police.' (Great shouting, and cries of • Oh, oh ! ') The Principal continued — I am sorry to say some of you have to-day. . . . Your prospects in life are ruined by the proceedings of to-day ; some of you not only making use of expressions of opinion, but using dangerous missiles. " In the lull which followed these remarks, " The Lord Rector was heard — Do you rest satisfied with the protest you have handed in, and which I have as frankly received ? 366 University of Aberdeen It must be painful to the whole Senatus — it is peculiarly painful to myself — these proceedings. He then recommenced his address, and got over about a dozen lines, when the tumult was renewed by the protesting students making a rush to leave the hall, which a large number of them did. " Principal Campbell, with energy — Lock the door. "The College servants, followed by some of the Professors, hastened to obey, and, after a struggle, succeeded in their object. At this time the calls for the police were becoming frequent, and, after some conversation between Principal Campbell and Baillie M'Hardy, the latter rose and endeavoured to make his way to the staircase, which was reached with some difficulty. Here a considerable crowd still remained, and were using the utmost exertions to regain their places in the hall, by endeavouring to force open the door. Several of the police were then brought up to the hall door, but no force was used by them, and the students outside, after some words of counsel from a medical student, left the staircase, and the doors for some time remained closed, — the Lord Rector proceeding with his address in comparative quiet. Some of the students found their way outside into the lower court, and commenced throwing stones and other missiles at the hall windows. They were driven from this by the appearance of some of the magistrates, and there did not occur anything of a violent nature after this. Meantime, while this was the state of matters out- side, " The Lord Rector, when silence had been obtained, said — A gentleman upon my left hand has kindly asked me to begin again ; shall I do so ? (Loud cheers, and cries of ' Yes, yes ' from the three or four hundred students who were still present.) Accordingly his Lordship complied, and, amid repeated applause, had read perhaps for five minutes, when the return of the students to the door, with shouts for instant admittance, brought him to a stand-still again. Some of the Professors, highly indignant at these repeated interrup- tions, proceeded to the door, and for several minutes were engaged personally remonstrating with the students, who at one time all but carried one or two of the learned gentlemen apparently off their feet. Again the uproar ceased for a minute or two, and the Rector, who throughout was amazingly calm, once more resumed reading. He had only proceeded, however, a page or two, when stones came whistling through the windows from the excluded students in the courtyard of the College. Unheedful of this, Mr. Maitland held on to his manuscript, and had done so for about five minutes, when, with a combined rush, the students returned to the door, burst in, and dis- order again prevailed. This was too much, and, closing his manuscript, " The Lord Rector, in a lofty and emphatic tone, and of course quite on the spur of the moment, said — I had hoped to address to you some observations which I had thought not unbecoming the present occasion, and which I was certain were not likely to create, but were calculated to allay excitement; but unhappily, gentlemen — I cannot but think very unhappily — there have been some few members of this University acting upon views, gentlemen, which I think, on calm consideration, they will abandon— (cheers) — acting not merely in a 367 The Rectors of the frank and manly way to express and vindicate their protest — which protest I was here as frankly to receive as they to offer. But with all respect and with all regard for these gentlemen — a regard, let me tell them, that is unabated by the evidence I have this day seen of the excitement under which they are acting, because I am quite confident that the exhibition we have had here is no fair index of their character and demeanour — (cheers) — to say nothing of hospitality to a stranger — (cheers) — which I am sure is the characteristic of the whole of the students of this University — (cheers) — these gentlemen have protested and they did right ; but I now, on my part, protest. I protest, on behalf of the great body who voted against my election, that they have no part in this demonstration. (Cheers.) It is impossible ; and I protest also on the part of the demonstrators themselves against it being supposed that this heedlessness into which in a moment of excitement they have been hurried is not the slightest index to what we are to expect of them either here in this University, or in their progress in after life. (Cheers). I do regret it, I say, and I trust that these things which have occurred in a moment of excitement will be forgotten and never remembered against them at all. (Cheers). But, gentlemen, I am afraid that in the excitement — in the continued deter- mination for the present to make this demonstration — it is impossible for me to address to the assembled students of the University, those who voted against me quite as much and in quite as friendly a spirit as those who voted for me. It is impossible for me, I say, I am afraid, to persevere in that address without increasing the excitement, and leading on to conduct more to be deplored — to consequences which none could more regret than I should, if I were the accidental occasion of them. Therefore, I am in the hands at present not of those who did me the unexpected honour of nominating and voting for me, but in the hands of the other body of students, equally distinguished and equally entitled to my respect. I say, I am peculiarly in their hands when I ask — Shall I proceed with the observations I proposed to address to you ? (Cries of ' Yes,' and cheers.) It is of little moment ; it is of very little moment, gentlemen, whether I do or not ; because I cannot imagine that any remarks I could tender to you are of real and permanent value ; but the reason I should regret, if it is made impossible for me to continue my address, is that I am afraid that the breaking in for the first time in this way upon what I under- stand to have been the invariable and now time-honoured usage of this place, will be recorded not here only, but elsewhere as an evidence that some change has come over the University of Aberdeen or its students ; and that no longer will it be right, or safe, or proper to hold those communications which even strangers from greater distances than I have come heretofore held with the whole body of the students of Aberdeen ; and that whether they took part in their election or were opposed to it, they at least would meet them with that cordiality and frankness which belong to them. (Cheers.) Now, I say I am in the hands of the gentlemen, not who voted for me but against me ; if they choose, they have it in their power — for the reason I have stated — to bring this meeting to this abrupt conclusion. If, on the other hand, they hold it to be consistent with the course which they have 368 University of Aberdeen taken — the very reasonable and right course, as I think it— of tendering a legal protest ; if they think it better not to call in question the legality of that protest by proceedings of violence which really are utterly inconsistent with and destructive of it — (cheers) — if they think that, then they may, possibly, kindly allow me to proceed with the observations I had intended to make ; and I can assure them, if they come to that conclusion, they shall not hear a single word from me which can by possibility be construed into anything deficient in respect to them. (Cheers, and cries of ' Seats, seats.') Calm being restored, the Lord Rector continued — Now, gentlemen, allow me to make another request ; and that is, that gentlemen will not contribute to the excitement, or interrupt the delivery of the observa- tions I have to make, by cheering. Probably they will see that, on the present occasion at least, it is expedient to abandon this practice. " This address — as admirably conceived as it was pronounced — had a powerful effect ; and the Rector went on with the reading of his discourse amid comparative quiet — the echoes only of discontent being heard from the rioters about the door. Several of the Professors, however, who had been actively engaged in quelling the disturbance now came on the platform, and a number of the malcontents stood up on the seats, and hooted them. The row threatened to be resumed. " The Lord Rector said — After this perseverance in interruption of the meeting, I really feel that it is quite inexpedient for me to attempt to proceed. I had further observations to make ; but there are some gentlemen, who, for some reasons best known to themselves, seem to wish that the proceedings of this meeting should be stopped, and that I should not be heard. I really cannot see that it can operate other- wise than prejudicially to that cause which I understand these gentlemen have at heart. But whatever be the motive, as they seem quite determined to proceed in this course, I see nothing for it but humbly to thank those, the majority, who have listened to the observations I have made, and to refrain from proceeding further. (Cries of ' No, no,* ' Go on.') By this time the learned gentleman had delivered about one-half of his written address ; and he now went on calmly and impressively to the close ; which was succeeded by loud cheers, the great majority of the students rising and waving their caps. " The Principal immediately pronounced the benediction, and this brought the proceedings, which had lasted upwards of two hours, to a close. " A number of the students remained in the quadrangle after the ceremony, but the excitement gradually subsided." A Defence of the Students of the University of Aberdeen, by a Student, was issued in pamphlet form (Aberd., 1861). The Solicitor-General's address will be found printed supra, pp. 121-37. Of the eighteen meetings of University Court held during his tenure of office, the Rector was present at nine. 1863, December 24. John, first Earl Russell ; LL.D. Mar. Coll., 1848. Rector of Glasgow University 1846, as Lord John Russell. The opposing candidate was Mr. Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff, AA 369 The Rectors of the fho had been proposed at Marischal College in 1858. The result of the poll was as under : — Nation. Russell. Grant Duff. Procurator. Mar 66 39 John Murray. 1 Buchan 79 59 Alexander Harper, M.A.* Moray 38 15 Alexander Miller. 3 Angus 48 20 Colin Ford. 4 Nation. Grant Duff. Grot Mar 59 15 Buchan 114 66 Moray 4i 5o Angus 3i 66 231 133 Earl Russell had thus a majority in every Nation. His Inaugural Address, delivered nth November, 1864, in the Music Hall, will be found printed supra, pp. 138-52. " The proceedings were conducted with quite as much propriety and decorum as could be expected, looking to former experiences of the doings at Rectorial installations." Of the fifteen meetings of the University Court held during his tenure of office, the Rector was present at only one. 1866, December 21. Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff. The opposing candidate was George Grote, and the result of the poll was as under : — ;. Procurator. Robert Gray, M.A. S William Brown. 6 Thos. A Stewart. 7 Jas. T. Crowden. 8 245 197 The Nations were thus equally divided, but Mr. Grant Duff had a majority of 48 votes, and the Chancellor gave a casting vote in his favour. The Inaugural Address, delivered 23rd March, 1867, in the Music Hall, was printed in pamphlet form at Edinburgh (Edmonston & Douglas : 1867). " The students, although not nearly so obstreperous as on former occasions, had a large supply of peas and peasemeal, which they dis- tributed freely amongst each other, but seldom amongst the rest of the audience or those on the platform. But for the noise made during the Rector's address by students on the north side of the hall, it would have been well heard in every part of it." Mr. Grant Duff took a more active interest than any of his pre- decessors in the affairs of the University over which he presided. At a meeting of the University Court on 9th October, 1868, he moved, " That the Senatus be invited to consider whether it might not be expedient to revise the Bursary Examination, with a view to a better distribution of the marks assigned for proficiency, amongst the various studies already encouraged, and to the introduction of certain new 1 M.B. 1864; M.D. 1867 ; Army Medical Staff. "Student of Divinity ; minister of Wishaw. 3 M.A. 1864; B.D. 1868 ; minister of U.F.C.. Buckie. 4 M.A. 1867; H.B.M. Consular Service, China. 8 Student of Law. a M. A. 1868. 7 M.A. 1867; LL.D. 1890; H.M. Chief Inspector of Schools, Edinburgh. 8 M.B. 1867. 370 University of Aberdeen studies, which are now very generally believed to form essential elements in a liberal education." In the course of his' speech, which was re- printed at Aberdeen (D. Chalmers & Co. : 1868), he proposed a new scheme, as follows : — English into Latin 100 Latin into English, with easy questions on Roman History 200 Greek into English, with easy grammatical questions and easy questions on Greek History .... 200 English grammar and composition, with easy questions on British History 200 Arithmetic, including fractions and proportion . . . 150 Euclid, Book 1 150 Translation from French Prose 100 Geography 100 1,200 This scheme was to come into force on 1st October, 1870, and after 1st October, 1871, 100 marks were to be added for Translation from German Prose. On 21st October, 1869, the Court had under considera- tion a modified scheme proposed by the Senatus. A warm debate ensued, in which the Rector specially disapproved of the commanding position assigned to the Version and to Latin and Greek. " I confess," he said, " that considering the special aptitudes of the University of Aberdeen — which are certainly not special classical aptitudes — too much weight is still left in the Bursary Competition to Latin and Greek. . . . For Aberdeen to lay herself out for teaching classics would be as absurd as if she were to give up sending strawberries to the markets of the South, and devote her energies to the growth of the mangosteen.' Professor Geddes, in his opening address to the Senior Class of 1869- 70 (reprinted under the title Classical Education in the North of Scot- land : Aberdeen, 1869), had no difficulty in showing that these remarks were too sweeping to be defensible. The Senatus, after further con- sideration, adopted in 1870 a scheme, under which the Version became an optional subject, alternative with Higher Mathematics, and with certain other groups of subjects. This remained in force, with but slight modification, until the advent of the changes introduced by the Commissioners of 1889. 1869, December 24. Sir William Stirling Maxwell. Previously, 1862-65, Rector of St. Andrews, and afterwards, 1871-74, Rector of Edinburgh. The opposing candidate was Mr. Grant Duff, and the result of the poll was as under : — Nation. Maxwell. Grant Duff. Procurator. Mar 54 68 George Thomson. 1 Buchan 68 82 Alexander Shewan.' Moray 34 19 James Cooper, M.A. ; Angus 56 55 Robert S. Gibb. 4 212 224 1 M.B. 1870; M.D. 1872; coroner, Oldham. 2 M.A 1870 ; H.M. Indian Civil Service. • 1 D.D. 1892 ; Professor of Church History in the University of Glasgow, * M.B. 1872 ; Lauder, 37 1 The Rectors of the A specimen of the election literature of the contest will be found over leaf. The Nations were thus once again equally divided, Mr. Grant Duff having a majority of 12 votes. At the meeting of the Election Committee of Senatus, W. Japp Sinclair, 1 the defeated candidate for the Procuratorship of the Angus Nation, appeared and objected to the vote of William Boswell, Superintendent of the Meteorological Observatory at King's College, 1867, of that Nation, on the ground that his name was not found on the printed list as posted on the College gate. Objection not sustained on the ground that Boswell is a matriculated student, although like many other students he has ma- triculated too late to have his name placed on the printed list. Mr. Sinclair further objected to the votes of Faskin, King and Smith, on the ground that their votes had been taken after the list was begun to be added up. Objection not sustained on the ground that these gentlemen, matriculated students of the University, had tendered their votes before the result of the poll was declared, it having been announced beforehand that students coming in after their individual names had been called would have an opportunity of voting. Jan. 8, 1870. Chancellor gave casting vote for Stirling Maxwell. Jan. 15. A memorial was presented, signed by the Procurators of the Mar and the Buchan Nations, and by William J. Sinclair calling him- self Procurator for the Angus Nation. It was, however, objected that under no circumstances could Sinclair be entitled so to designate himself, and his name was deleted. Professor Bain then moved, seconded by Professor Nicol, " That whereas with reference to the election of the Lord Rector there are serious doubts as to the legality of the vote of William Boswell, on which turned the election of Procurator for the Angus Nation ; the Senatus having regard to these doubts and to the complicated questions that may arise from a disputed election of Lord Rector, deem it their duty to inquire into the whole circumstances connected with Boswell's qualification and right to vote at the election in order to be guided in the matter by the opinion of Counsel ; that a com- mittee be thereafter appointed to investigate the whole facts as to Bos- well's position or right to vote in the election, to make a full statement thereof and of the whole proceedings of the election to Counsel, so as to obtain that opinion for the information and guidance of the Senatus and of all concerned." The Senatus, however, approved an amendment proposed by Professor Martin, and seconded by Professor Geddes, " That the Senatus have now no statutory duty to perform with regard to the Rectorial Election." Jan. 18. Sir William Stirling Maxwell resigned the office which he had technically held for ten days. The Senatus took the opinion of Counsel (Mr. Rutherford Clark) as to whether Mr. Grant Duff could claim the Rectorship. The reply was in the negative, and recommended the Senatus to fix a day for another election. 1870, February 12. Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff. Stirling Maxwell's committee resolved to bring forward no candidate, and published a statement to that effect with the reasons for their actions. The name of Mr. (afterwards Sir) B. Samuelson, M.P., Ban- 'M.A. 1869; M.B. 1873; M.D. 1875; Prof, of Obstetrics, Owens Coll., Man- chester. 372 University of Aberdeen bury, was mentioned, but this opposition was not regarded as serious. On the polling day only a handful of students appeared, and the result of the poll was as under : — Nation. Grant Duff. Samuelson. Procurator. Mar No contest Geo. Thomson. Buchan ? 6 Alex. Shewan. Moray No contest John Pringle. Angus ? 3 W. Japp Sinclair. Mr. Grant Duffs second Inaugural Address, delivered 18th Novem- ber, 1870, in the Music Hall, will be found printed supra, pp. 153-169. " Throughout the whole proceedings a perfect Babel of sound was kept up, by chorus singing, shouting, ruffing, cheering, hissing and cries of various kinds, while a plentiful supply of peasemeal and missiles of various kinds was scattered by students in all parts of the body of the hall. . . . During the whole time the address was being delivered, from the noise kept up only an occasional sentence was audible even to those in the nearest seats." " I am staying," the Rector writes on 14th November in his Notes from a Diary, ii., 180, " at 31 King Street, Aberdeen, with my Assessor in the University Court, Mr. John Webster, always one of the pleasantest incidents in the year." Writing to the editor on nth June, 1901, Sir M. E. Grant Duff, who has kindly revised the proofs of his address, says : "lam glad to observe, on rereading it, after an interval of thirty years, that I have not changed any of the opinions which I then expressed." Of the thirty-one meetings of the University Court held during his tenure of office the Rector was present at nine. At the meetings on 7th and 13th December, 1872, he strongly advo- cated certain reforms in the Arts curriculum, which, though not given effect to at the time, are interesting in so far as they anticipate very closely the changes introduced by the Commissioners under the Act of 1889 : — " I. That the number of hours devoted to Latin and Greek be diminished, and that the time taken from them be divided amongst other studies. " II. That Natural Science be taught more extensively and in other branches than at present during the University course. " III. That a teacher of the French language and a teacher of the German language be appointed. " IV. That after the day of all students who desire to obtain the M.A. degree, and do not state in writing that they prefer to be examined in Greek, be bound to prove to the satisfaction of the examiners that they can read and translate French and German with ease and correctness. " IX. That the Moral Philosophy Class, instead of having 150 meet- ings as at present, have only 100 meetings, of which 60 be devoted to the History of Philosophy and 40 to Political Economy. " X. That the University pay the sum of in each year to a lecturer ... to deliver a course of not less than ten lectures on History during the session." On 28th September, 1872, the Senatus resolved " that the election 373 The Rectors of the o t 1 o Oh o 3 0. l> ■*? | s £ s ft, 03 It V 0. o i EM in O a 1 B ■a c "^»a w « c> a W a S ^ Eh fl H he ■ § 1 J j a K "3 O .8 4 u 1 ■ CO 5*- . 2 « -a 374 University of Aberdeen I 43 g H 8--P S « c w Q as u H eg {•} ■a < S « 5 3 IS 1 o H C Si <9 « 5 5 2 •o S S s w 8 •5 ffl > 3 — . c m o ■a r « ■ £ A a 3 h ° 'I H M _, ■22 V -01 J3 s 1 e * SS o ■- wo|w| - £ Ph o O 3 a Z M 8 go .is 4) u O. J3 C CO • t-i O «.co H a • --PS fUS .SM s tg loJSra OS O fe P i fa re a. ;3 * ffl&b 2 fe ■ ffl 3 S £ £ -.3 £ as •0"0 a a S a a 09 IS CQQ c - 4> OS < ■* s K 28 •a V ■ — J3 CO >, ^> SO °" s g « H " .. "O e S « 1 "2 .2 o S S 'i •6 B I S i * «s • TO -W - ii ' S * 5 O £ b ■ I E 5S . JO 09 09 — a * pa * 09* s « » « g s e SI .S M O V > s «* os <£ S u IS ? T - ^ - 09 q < i o J3 o *• OS'S « ° ■ 1 I a o as *< i I a «J 4) ■8 Eg 2 So S d b * - * O 0» - .2 B* C . S J- 3 i s ^2 C O S mo Ci 00 — 4) t> J* Hi v o.S ■H 5b o -J S* •s °^ 5 b y Sort 3 4> X o S cu° 3 O . o UJJ T3 O*'"'© m >" ^: ^ «! - co rt 4J .- csU c SqS J33S J3 ° - O 9- tN *" 13 <» j- .3 jj oofflQc; I ^ H . h r aS o rt n -c-c j,"- 1 H sPoo - ♦ J S o o .«(„ e o I* •o S ° o k, 111 I! fflQ^SIS in c ffl ,&• II rt --re O^.utJrtOHgo r5'*i^* < J . uOQ'S^'— ': ,"jQ5Sfflt- «>>.. aJ!"fe8J1$&JJ§lsSW llifl?*illilliy , i ~i ti r: -? k- t- 375 Nation. Huxley. Huntl Mar 76 53 Buchan 82 95 Moray 37 37 Angus 79 36 The Rectors of the of the Lord Rector ought to take place as soon after the opening of the session as it conveniently can . . . and that the Divinity session should be made to begin a month earlier than at present." 1872, December 14. Thomas Henry Huxley. The opposing candidate was the Marquis of Huntly, who became Rector eighteen years later. The result of the poll was as under : — Procurator. John Scott, M.A. 1 William Ritchie." {James Hendry. 3 Robert McWilliam.* Charles F. Newcombe. 8 274 220 Professor Huxley had thus a majority both of Nations and of votes. " The fact of any one," he writes to Professor Tyndall on 1st January, 1873, " who stinketh in the nostrils of orthodoxy, beating a Scotch peer at his own gates, in the most orthodox of Scottish cities is a curious sign of the times. . . . Unlike other Lord Rectors, he of Aberdeen is a power, and can practically govern the action of the University during his tenure of office " (Life and Letters, i., 389). Huxley's Inaugural Address, delivered 27th February, 1874, will be found printed supra, pp. 170-98. " I have just come back," he writes to his wife, " from the hall in which the address was delivered, somewhat tired. The hall was very large, and contained, I suppose, a couple of thousand people, and the students made a terrific row at intervals, though they were quiet enough at times. . . . However, I was consoled by hearing that they were much quieter than usual. ... [1 st March] I was considerably tired after my screed on Friday, but Bain and I took a long walk, and I was fresh by dinner time. I dined with the Senators at a hotel in the town, and of course had to make a speech or two. However I cut all that as fast as I could. They were all very apologetic for the row the students made. After the dinner one of the Professors came to ask me if I would have any objection to attend service in the College Chapel on Sunday, as the students would like it. I said I was quite ready to do anything it was customary for the Rector to do, and so this morning in half an hour's time I shall be enduring the pains and penalties of a Presby- terian service. . . . Did I tell you that I carried all my resolutions about improving the medical curriculum ? Fact, though greatly to my astonishment. To-morrow we go in for some reforms in the Arts curriculum, and I expect the job will be tougher. . . . [2nd March] My work here finishes to-day. ... I went officially to the College Chapel yesterday, and went through a Presbyterian service for the first time in my life. May it be the last ! " (Life and Letters, i., 407). 1 M.B. 1873 ; Manchester. 2 M.A. 1873 ; Professor of Classics, S. African College, Capetown. 3 M.A. 1874; minister U.F. Church, Forres. *M.A. 1873; Principal of Gill College, S. Africa. B M.B. 1873 ; M.D. 1878 ; British Columbia. 376 University of Aberdeen On the evening of Monday, 4th March, the Rector was^entertained to supper by the students in the Ball Room, Music Hall Buildings, Mr. John McCorabie, M.A., in the chair. About 200 sat down, including Professors Bain, Nicol, Struthers, Harvey, Trail, Milligan and Forbes. In replying to the toast of " Science," the Rector said : " I listened with extreme interest and attention to the remarks by my friend Dr. Milligan upon the amicable relations which should exist between Science and Theology. I heartily echo the amiable sentiments which my distinguished colleague put forth, but when he represented these two powers, which have been sometimes hostile, as lying down side by side with one another, like the lion and the lamb, I was forcibly reminded of a curious story I heard some time ago. A person was holding forth upon the millennium and upon the eventual reign of peace when the lion and the lamb should lie down together, and a somewhat caustic Yankee who was passing, remarked, ' Yes, I daresay, but the lamb will lie down inside the lion ' (laughter). That, gentle- men, if you will allow me to say so, seems to me exactly the kind of peace which will be eventually concluded between Theology and Science. The one will lie down inside the other. Which will lie down inside which, it would be presumptuous in me to say " (loud laughter). Of the ten meetings of the University Court held during his tenure of office, the Rector was present at six. On 26th February, 1874, he urged the modification of the medical curriculum in certain respects, notably the removal of Botany and Natural History from the "pro- fessional" to the "preliminary" examinations; and the substitution of French or German for Greek as a compulsory subject of preliminary examination for candidates for the degree of M.D. 1875, November 13. William Edward Forster; LL.D. 1876. The opposing candidate was Lord Lindsay (afterwards Earl of Crawford). The result of the poll was as under : — Procurator. James Simpson. 1 John Skinner. 2 George Alex. Bis set, M.A. 8 Harry Edward Dicey. 4 \ William White. 8 378 145 Mr. Forster had thus a majority of Nations and of votes. His Inaugural Address, delivered 24th November, 1876, will be found printed supra, pp. 199-222. *' Went to Music Hall," he writes in his diary, " a little before twelve. In committee-room Dr. Pirie — the Principal being ill — pre- sented me with the degree in the name of the Senatus. I made a short reply and was clothed in gown, hood and cap. Professor J M.B. 1876; Indian Medical Service. 2 M.A. 1876; D.D. 1895 ; Professor of Hebrew, Presb. Theol. Coll., London. 3 B. D. 1876 ; minister of Houndwood. *M.B. 1878; M.D. 1881; Malvern. »M.B. 1876; M.D. 1878; Hadfield. 377 Nation. Forster. Lindsay. Mar 77 36 Buchan 165 3° Moray 66 9 Angus 70 70 The Rectors of the came in, in high excitement; the students more uproarious than ever ; ' they have torn up the benches.' However, when I got in, they behaved very well, cheering furiously, and occasionally whistling, but on the whole attentive. Arts students in red, medicals in plain dress. My address took hour and a quarter" (Life, by Wemyss Reid, ii., p. 161). On Sunday, 26th November, the Rector attended service in the University Chapel, Old Aberdeen. On 27th November the freedom of the burgh was conferred on Mr. Forster, who was also entertained to supper by the students in Marischal College Hall, Mr. James Simpson, M.B., in the chair. The company numbered about 200, including many professors. Replying to the toast of his health the Rector demurred to some remarks made upon his speech by the Times, which " give the impression that the individual who is Lord Rector feels it to be rather a task than an honour. I think they used the word ' torture.' Well, the gentleman who wrote that probably never had been a Lord Rector himself, especially he had never had the glorious sensation of hearing himself called ' Rector Magnificus ' (laughter) — that is something I can tell you. I don't know whether it is any advantage to you to have a Lord Rector, but I am quite sure it is an advantage to the Lord Rector to be chosen ... It is an advantage for a man who is getting old, and most of your Lord Rectors are not boys, to be brought among young men and to be infected with the enthusiasm and the spirits of youth. I feel myself younger than I did last Friday (laughter and applause). I am told (I have no official information of the fact), but I am told that there was some raising of benches on Friday. Well, I am saying nothing of the raising up of benches at all — probably it is a practice that is better not persevered in — but I almost feel as if I could raise some of the benches myself (great laughter and cheers) — and I am not quite sure but with some experience gained by remaining with you for some time you may make me look upon that vile compound of peasemeal in a somewhat different manner. Nevertheless I cannot help but saying that you might consider, perhaps with advantage, the question of peasemeal (much laughter)." Of the eleven meetings of the University Court held during his tenure of office the Rector was present at two. 1878, November 16. The Earl of Rosebery ; LLD. 1881. The opposing candidate was the Right Hon. Richard A. (afterwards Lord) Cross ; and the result of the poll was as under : — Nation. Rosebery. Cross. Procurator. Mar 70 64 James Watson, M.A. 1 Buchan 131 106 James H. Walker, M.A. 2 Moray 42 32 Hugh F. Campbell.-' Angus 69 97 William R. Stewart. 4 302 299 1 Student of Law; S.S.C., Edinburgh. a M.B. 1876; M.D. 1884; N. Borneo. 3 M.A. 1879; B.L. 1894; advocate in Aberdeen. 4 Student of Medicine. 378 University of Aberdeen Lord Rosebery had thus a majority of Nations and of votes. His Inaugural Address, delivered 5th November, 1880, will be found printed supra, pp. 223-40. "The event was celebrated in an even more noisy and demon- strative manner by the students than in former years. They con- gregated in the Marischal College Quadrangle at eleven o'clock, and after indulging for a short time in the customary horseplay they marched to the Music Hall, scattering peasemeal as they went. On arriving they took possession of the portion of the area immediately below the platform and beguiled the time till noon by shouting, beat- ing with sticks, ringing bells, blowing foghorns and whistles, and throwing bags of peasemeal till the hall resembled a meal mill. . . . At the close of the speech the atmosphere became dense with pease- meal from innumerable bags. The audience left, most of them more or less bearing marks of having come in contact with the commodity so unsparingly dispensed by the students." On the day of the Inaugural Address Lord Rosebery was elected Rector of Edinburgh University. (In 1899 he was elected Rector of Glasgow.) In the evening he dined with the Senatus and about 600 students joined in a torchlight procession. On Friday, 1st April, 1881, the Rector was present at the Graduation Ceremony. Arriving in Aberdeen on Thursday, Lord and Lady Rosebery were met at the railway station by a large body of students and escorted to the Palace Hotel, where in the course of the evening the Rector received a deputation from the Magistrand Class who were holding their supper in the hotel, " requesting him to honour them with his presence. His lordship acceded, and, his health having been proposed by the chairman and drunk enthusiastically, his lordship briefly replied, expressing his pleasure in being present, alluding to the benefits of University life, and wishing the Magistrands now leaving the University much success in their future careers." On the following day the Graduation Ceremony took place in the Library of King's College. At its close the Rector presented the special University prizes to the winners, and, in reply to a vote of thanks, expounded his views as to the duties of a Rector. " In the first place he should deliver his Rectorial Address. I did not explain to you when I was last here, though I had the pleasure of explaining it to the assembled Professors of the University, what a ghastly spectre that undelivered Rectorial Address is to the person who has eventually to deliver it (laughter). I have known several Lord Rectors and I have been one myself (cheers, and a voice ' Two ') — that gentleman is good enough to remind me that a misfortune is still hanging over me (laughter). I say that having consulted former Lord Rectors and having had this experience myself, I can tell you, gentlemen, who may very likely be called on to fill that post at some future time (laughter), that waking or sleeping, walking or talking, eating or drinking, you never get rid of the spectre of that Rectorial Address. To begin with, everything that is to be said about Lord Rectors has been said and very well said, and then if you travel outside the strict lines that have been laid down for a speech of this description you find yourself in- fringing upon dangerous ground, you subject yourself to expressions 379 The Rectors of the of dissent, and possibly you may escape white with the indignant ebullition of flour (laughter and ' Three cheers for White ' x ). . . . In the second place there is this, when you have delivered your Rectorial Address, be from that moment and for ever totally silent on the Uni- versity you are called to preside over. I hold that if there is a position in which silence is golden, it is the position of a Rector who has gallantly surmounted the difficulties of his address. ... I have tried to the best of my ability to do my duty in the office of Lord Rector (cheers). I wish it had been in my power to do more, but I believe . that the office is capable of considerable development. As far as I have been able, I have mixed with you at your sports, I have been with you in your class-rooms, I have mingled in the duties of the University Court, and I have even listened to your after-dinner oratory (cheers) ; but I hold this, that when a large body of men, whatever cause may have directed their conduct, invite one who is not connected with them to form a connection with them for three years in that capacity, it ought to be a pride and an honour to that person. I was never so touched or so honoured in my life as when you did me that honour, which I had no right to expect at your hands, and from that moment to this I have never ceased to feel a filial interest in the University of Aberdeen (cheers)." Of the eleven meetings of the University Court held during his tenure of office the Rector was present at two. !i, November 12. Alexander Bain, LL.D., Professor Emeritus. The opposing candidate was Sir James Paget, and the result of the poll was as under : — Paget. Procurator. 42 John Jenkyns.- 81 Wm. Ch. Spence.'" 1 38 Wm. L. Mackenzie. 4 78 Jas. Struthers. 444 239 Dr. Bain had thus a majority in every Nation. A protest, addressed to the Senatus, objected to his election on the grounds that he was ineligible as Rector in respect : (1) that he was a Professor Emeritus, and (2) that he had been recently pronounced by the Court permanently incapable of discharging the duties of the subordinate office of Professor. The Senatus held that they had no jurisdiction. Dr. Bain's Inaugural Address, begun in the Music Hall on 15th November, 1882, will be found reprinted supra, pp. 241-58. The following extract is from the Aberdeen Journal's report of the pro- ceedings : — ^ohn Forbes White, LL.D., elected General Council's Assessor, 4th Nov., 1880. 2 M.B. 1882. a M.A. 1883; teacher, Irvine. 4 M.A. 1883; M.B. 1888 ; M.D. 1895; Medical Officer, Scotch Local Goyern- ment Board. 8 M.B. 1883. 380 Nation. Bain Mar 143 Buchan 177 Moray 44 Angus 80 University of Aberdeen " The public are aware that the students were, in view of the destruction of property in the Music Hall which took place on the occasion of Lord Rosebery's address, refused the use of it again, unless amended behaviour was promised, that is to say, unless the under- graduates agreed to give up the use of peasemeal and other substances within the building. The pledge was given by a majority of the students, and the address, after a little delay, was fixed to come off yesterday. A committee of about forty of their number had agreed to act as sponsors for the body of the students, Mr. P. Whyte Rattray, M.A., acting as convener and chairman of that committee. It is rather to be regretted that the majority of the students did not act up to the pledge to which they had given their assent. Never, perhaps, has there been in Aberdeen a more disorderly Lord Rector's meeting, and so furious waxed the disturbance in the Music Hall that the address had to be stopped before it had been well begun, and was not again resumed. " Shortly after eleven o'clock the students assembled in the quad- rangle of Marischal College, and formed into marching order for the purpose of proceeding to the place of meeting. About twenty-five minutes past that hour they left the quadrangle en route for the Music Hall, headed by a couple of itinerant musicians in the persons of a seedy-looking piper and a not less distinguished cornet player. These gentlemen had evidently been instructed to eschew all attempts at anything approaching harmony, and their efforts seemed to be entirely directed towards producing the greatest possible discord. They were ably backed up by the students, who were fortified for the occasion with ' tootin' ' horns, penny whistles, toy tambourines, and other species of musical instruments usually to be found only in the nursery, with which they swelled the unharmonious chorus. The procession marched down Broad Street and up Union Street, the bulk of the students being attired in their scarlet gowns, and all along the route a constant shower of hard peas was directed against the passers-by, the discordant music tending to add to the disorder of the scene. The utmost vigour was displayed in connection with the demonstration, and when a vulgar tramway car created confusion in the ranks at a point immediately below Union Bridge the processionists took revenge by ' boarding ' the car, and unceremoniously pelting the conductor and the occupants with a merciless shower of peas. The shopkeepers in Union Street flocked to their doors to witness the procession go past, but they met with such a warm reception in the majority of cases that they were fain to beat a hasty retreat. " On the hall being reached, an attempt was made to enter first by the Union Street door. This, however, was closed, and the students then made a wild rush for the Silver Street entrance, where they encountered sturdy resistance from several shore-porters, who had evidently been engaged with the view of securing an orderly admission into the hall. A desperate melee took place here for some time. The shore-porters strongly defended their position, but it was ultimately carried by the students, who then entered the hall amid loud and prolonged cheering from their party. An entrance was not, how- ever, effected before a shower of peas had been directed against the 38i The Rectors of the unfortunate shore-porters, and a well-aimed shower of old boots and sticks had been thrown at the position. A few miscreants in the rear of the crowd flung quantities of mud scraped from the streets, and one or two stones were cast, happily without doing any serious mischief. Once within the building, the galleries of which had previously been filled with the general public, among whom were a large number of ladies, the youths commenced the roughest horse-play, every descrip- tion of fog-horns and other mysterious musical instruments being unremittingly tooted. True to their promise to abjure peasemeal within the hall, that familiar adjunct of student demonstrations was not much in repute. Its place, however, was worthily filled. During the half-hour of waiting the air was simply alive with hard peas, which were being ' chucked about ' in the most furious and promiscuous manner. Crackers were frequently thrown amongst the students in the area of the hall, while on many occasions the occupants of the gallery were cast into a state of dire alarm by the like fireworks. The exuberance of youth also found vent in pulling about the forms and tables in the hall, while the chairs on the platform were dashed about and rearranged several dozen times before the arrival of the Lord Rector. A ' select ' band also mounted the platform, and, led by the itinerant bagpipe musician, performed for the delectation of the audience. The utmost confusion prevailed for nearly half an hour. " The Lord Rector was received in the Green Room on the north side of the platform by a number of the Professors of the University and other gentlemen. He was accompanied to the platform by, amongst others, Principal Pirie, Principal Brown, Professors Struthers, Stirling, Hamil- ton, Niven, Geddes, George Pirie, Alex. Ogston, Alleyne Nicholson, Donaldson, Brazier, Forbes, Minto, Christie, Grub and Fyfe. The Town Council of Aberdeen was represented by the Lord Provost, Baillies Duffus, Hunter and Walker, Treasurer Walker and Council- lors Findlay, Kinghorn, Charles Gordon, Croll, Graham and Shepherd. Amongst those who also occupied seats on the platform were Dr. Ogston, Dr. Rodger, Mr. Thomas Jamieson, F.C. ; Mr. John F. White, Mr. W. Keith Leask, assistant professor ; Baillie Sinclair, Old Aber- deen ; and Mr. Thomson, Oldtown Brewery. The members of the committee with their convener and chairman, Mr. P. Whyte Rattray, M.A., were seated in the rear of the platform. Apologies for absence were received from, amongst others, Major Ramsay of Straloch ; Dr. Farquharson, M.P. ; Sheriff Dove Wilson and Mr. George Thomson, jr. of Pitmedden, but these were not read to the meeting owing to the noise which prevailed. The gentlemen who came upon the platform were received with a shower of missiles, including numerous crackers flung into the midst of the body of ' grave and reverend seniors,' which created considerable alarm and dismay, the attendants striving bravely, but ineffectually, to stamp them beneath their feet. A number of the seats in the area of the hall had been overturned, and the room was literally strewn with peas, rendering locomotion an exceedingly difficult, not to say dangerous, process. The gentlemen who were on the plat- form seemed to be not a little taken aback by the turn of events. " The noise proceeded without interruption until at length Dr. Bain advanced to the desk, which had been erected in front, for the purpose 382 University of Aberdeen of delivering his address. His appearance was the signal for a pro- longed blowing of trumpets and miscellaneous noises, while a few cried out ' Order,' and evidently wished that Dr. Bain should be heard. In the midst of the noise Mr. W. L. M'Kenzie (Magistrand), of the Moray Nation, came forward to introduce the Lord Rector to the students. His remarks were not audible, even in the near vicinity of the plat- form. " Dr. Bain again came forward amid blowing of trumpets and musical instruments. He was greeted with loud shouts of ' Gie's a prayer,' and ' Now's your time,' the former remark, it was understood, being an allusion to the customary Latin prayer which it had been deemed advisable to eliminate from the programme. After standing by the desk for about five minutes Dr. Bain sat down to wait for quiet- ness, amid cries of ' Next speaker.' After remaining seated for some three minutes the Lord Rector again rose, and despite the noise proceeded to deliver his address. During the whole course of its delivery fireworks were let off, peas and old boots thrown about, and popular choruses sung, including ' When Johnny Comes Marching Home,' and selections from 'Cloches de Corneville,' and other popular comic operas of the day, the airs being accompanied on toy tambourines and ' tooters,' which gave forth the most weird and dismal sounds. A few impious young men indulged for a considerable time in the singing of the hundredth psalm, and at times the interruptions were so fierce that a species of general chaos prevailed. " After speaking for about half an hour, and the disturbance not showing any signs of abatement, but, on the contrary, seeming rather to increase, Dr. Bain intimated that, with the consent of the Principal, he had agreed to hold his address as read. The announcement was greeted with loud and continued noise, in the midst of which Professor Bain retired, and the proceedings abruptly came to a close." 1884, November 15. Alexander Bain. The opposing candidate was Lord Randolph Churchill, and the result of the poll was as under : — Nation. Bain. Churchill. Procurator. Mar 125 53 Alfred C. Ferguson, M.A. 1 Buchan 153 IOI James Beattie. 2 Moray 59 44 Wm. L. Mackenzie. 3 Angus 90 114 John C. Myles. 4 427 312 Dr. Bain had thus a majority both of Nations and of votes. He did not deliver a second Inaugural Address. Of the thirty-four meetings of the University Court held during his tenure of office the Rector was absent from only one. He identified himself with the interests of the University to an extent not attempted by any of his predecessors, and many academic reforms are due to iM.B. 1887; M.D. 1892; Thirsk. 2 M.A. 1885; teacher, Oban. 3 See p. 380, footnote 3. *M.B. 1887. 383 The Rectors of the his initiative. Not the least characteristic was his moving, at the last meeting of the Court held under his presidency, 7th October, 1887, that the Graduation Oath 1 " is now inappropriate and ought to be abolished." This resolution was approved by the Court, subsequently by the Senatus, and the use of this form of oath came to an end. 1887, November 12. George Joachim Goschen ; LL.D. 1888. The opposing candidate was Mr. John Morley, and the result of the poll was as under : — Nation. Goschen. Morley. Procurator. Mar 100 79 Thos. Moir Rae, M.A. 2 Buchan 135 113 William Catto. 3 Moray 7i 69 Robert G. McKerron, M.A. 4 Angus 149 53 Alexander Radcliffe. 8 455 3H Mr. Goschen had thus a majority in every Nation. In 1884 a body was instituted styled the Students' Representative Council, its objects being " to consult the interests of the students, to be the medium of communication between them and the University authorities, and to co-operate with the latter on public occasions." Profiting by the experience gained at the Rectorial Addresses of Lord Rosebery in 1880, and Dr. Bain in 1882, the Senatus decided, when Mr. Goschen's address fell to be delivered, on 31st January, 1888, to abandon their former practice of attempting to keep order through the vigilance of individual professors, and to entrust the arrangements to the Students' Representative Council. That body accordingly issued a printed programme, a portion of which may be reproduced. "Arrangements for the Rectorial Address. " After much difficulty the Students' Representative Council have obtained the use of the Music Hall, on the following conditions, which must be strictly adhered to. " (Primo.) There must be no procession to the hall. After the address a procession will be formed in Golden Square. " (Secundo.) No one will be allowed to enter having in his possession Sticks, Fireworks of any description, Peas, Peasemeal, Flour, or any missile, Trumpets or any noisy instrument. " (Tertio.) Any one infringing the rules laid down for the conduct of the meeting, or conducting himself in a way unbecoming a student and a gentleman, will be summarily ejected by the Vigilance Com- mittee of the Students' Representative Council, and will render himself liable to rustication by the Senatus Academicus for the remainder of the Session. 1 Ego, A — B — , coram Omniscio et Omnipotente Deo, Religionem Chris- tianam, quousque in Sancto Dei Verbo palam proponitur, publice profiteor : Insuper Almae Matri Academiae, cui ingenii culturam atque hos honores acade- micos debeo, me benevolentiam quam potero liberaliter relaturum sancte promitto. Ita me Deus adjuvet. a M.B. 1888. »M.A. 1888; M.B. (Edin.) 1893 ; Fyvie. 4 M.B. 1888; M.D. 1898; Aberdeen. 8 Medical student. 384 LILLIPUT AND BROBDINGNAG. WITH APOLOGY TO GILRAY. If you're anxious now to shine In the high mendacious line, As a true " Fourth Party" should, When in the house you rise Only tell a pack of lies, As one of Churchill's brood. For we ne'er had won the day At Ramillies or Malplaquet, Or else at Oudenarde, Had not the Blenheim " dude " The French King's bribe pooh-poohed, As not up to his Stan-dard. Chorus — And every one did say, As he rode along that day, " This man would sell his mother To the French without a bother or the nation for L.S.D. — And what a very honourable nice young man This John Churchill must be." What, you for our Protector, Or you for our Lord Rector, Instead of Dr. Bain ! The thought is far too simple, Though it only fits the " pimple " Which we hear you call a brain. Chorus — And every one will say, As you slink your homeward way, " If this young fool amusement finds In duping Dr. B , Why, what a very quiet and modest young man This nice young man must be." From Characteristics of English I'oets. (Minto.) Blackwood & Co., 1874. University of Aberdeen " This being the first occasion on which the arrangements have been entirely in their hands, the S. R. C. appeal to the students to assist them in carrying these out. The students will see that in the observance of the above the credit, both of themselves and the S. R. C, is at stake. In view of the exceptional consideration which the Lord Rector is extending to his constituents, the Council hope that his courtesy will be generously reciprocated by their behaviour on this occasion. "Signed on behalf of the S. R. C, " Wm. Blackie, President. " The above has the full approval and sanction of the Senatus Academicus. " Wm. Milligan, Secretary of Senatus." The action of the Senatus was fully justified by the result. " It is but simple justice to say that every student honourably fulfilled the obligation under which he came, and never had any public man a more splendid reception or a more attentive and intelligent hearing, . . . One of the students presided at the organ, and with the greatest skill and a true instinct of what was required of him, suited his playing to the temper of his audience. . . . The quieting effect of the music was at all times apparent. . . . The uninviting appearance of the afternoon had the effect of disorganising the arrangements for the proposed procession, which was abandoned." Of the thirty-seven meetings of the University Court held during his tenure of office, Mr. Goschen was present at only one. " His Rectorship of Aberdeen," writes his successor, Lord Huntly, "may be said to have been momentous for the University. . . . He was subse- quently chosen by the Edinburgh students as their Lord Rector [1890], being thereby afforded the means of acquainting himself with the needs of the Scotch Universities during the important period which culminated in the passing of the Act of 1889. To these happy auspices we may also fairly attribute the raising of the Parliamentary Grant to the Scottish Universities from the sum of £40,000, at which it stood under the Act, by a further annual contribution of £30,000, and specially the separate grant of £40,000 to the Aberdeen University Extension Fund, during Mr. Goschen's tenure of the Chancellorship of the Exchequer. Higher Education in Scotland has had no truer friend than Mr. Goschen, and Aberdeen in particular has cause to thank the students for enabling him to give practical proof of his friendship to their Alma Mater" (Aurora Borealis Academica, p. 24). 1889, August 30. " 5. The University Court shall consist of . . . " (iii.) In the University of Aberdeen : — " (a) The Rector. . . . " (e) An Assessor nominated by the Rector. . . . The Rector may, before he appoints his Assessor, confer with the Students' Representative Council. . . . " 14. The Commissioners shall have power . . . " (iv.) To ordain that in the election of the Rectors in the Universities of Glasgow and Aberdeen the election shall BB 385 The Rectors of the be determined by the majority of the votes of all the students voting, whenever the votes of the Nations shall be equally divided." — Act 52 & 53 Vict., cap. 55. 1890, November 22. The Marquis of Huntly; LL.D. 1893. The opposing candidate was Mr. James Bryce, LL.D., M.P. for South Aberdeen ; and the result of the poll was as under : — Nation. Huntly. Bryce. Procurator. Mar 105 88 William Christie. 1 Buchan 132 "7 Ashley W. Mackintosh, M.A. a Moray 64 69 Alexander Anderson, M.A. 3 Angus 129 78 Alfred H. Bennett. 4 430 352 Lord Huntly had thus a majority in three Nations. In the evening the students held a costume torchlight procession, which is described at great length in the local newspapers. " From every point of view — whether as regards the number taking part in the procession, the admirable manner in which the arrangements were conceived and carried out, the behaviour of the students, and the unique character of the spectacle — it was admitted that the demonstra- tion of Saturday was the most successful that ever took place in the annals of Aberdeen University. And further than that, those who have been witnesses of similar displays in connection with other Scotch Universities are able to affirm that these were completely cast into the shade by that which was organised by the Aberdeen students." At the conclusion Superintendent Wyness made " a neat little speech, in which he spoke of the Aberdeen students as the most hard working in the kingdom and complimented them on their excellent behaviour." In March, 1891, the Students' Representative Council, under the above-quoted section 5 (iii.) (e) of the Act 53 & 55 Vict., cap. 55, recommended the Rector to appoint as his Assessor in the University Court the Editor of the present volume, who thus became the first representative of the Council that sat in the Court. The Rector had previously nominated Mr. James Murray Garden, but Mr. Garden died before entering on his duties. Under the old system Mr. John Webster had held the office for thirty years as Assessor to eight different Rectors. Lord Huntly's Inaugural Address, delivered 6th March, 1891, will be found printed supra, pp. 280-304. In introducing Lord Huntly, Mr. A. H. Bennett, President of the S. R. C, said : " There is no family that can approach the Gordons in record of close and continuous connection with our University, for since the foundation of the University in 1494 a Gordon scion has dignified an office in each succeeding century. At the present moment the University of Aberdeen has for its two highest officials — the Chancellor and the Rector — the two representatives of the famous old House of Gordon. To the general public, and unfortunately to many of our students, the Lord Rectorship has only been associated J M.B. 1895; Aberdeen. 2 M.B. 1893; M.D. 1895; Aberdeen. 8 M.B. 1891. *M.B. 1891 ; South Australia; supra, p. 38. 386 University of Aberdeen with a triennial election fracas and the delivery by the Rector of an inaugural address to the students. But the present undergraduates have, by the recent election, redeemed the office, which, devoid of any use to themselves, was fast degenerating into an empty honour of doubtful utility even to the man on whom it was bestowed. With, perhaps, a shade of democratic feelings they have secured direct representation in the University Court. At present the Rectorship bids fair to be no sinecure, and in Lord Huntly we are convinced we have a Rector who will efficiently represent student feelings in all schemes for the benefit of this ancient and honourable University." Lord Huntly then delivered his address. "To the credit of the students not the slightest approach to uproarious conduct occurred. All behaved admirably. . . . Immediately after the address the students collected in Golden Square, and sur- rounding the carriage in waiting for Lord and Lady Huntly they at once proceeded to unyoke the horses in the machine. The police at first resisted, but Superintendent Wyness, finding it useless to attempt to keep the youths from executing their purpose, ultimately allowed them quietly to unharness the animals. Lord and Lady Huntly then stepped into the carriage, and the students, being supplied with a piece of rope from a neighbouring house, dragged the vehicle, amid the shouts of their companions, along Silver Street, Union Street and Market Street, to the Imperial Hotel, the unusual spectacle attracting much public attention. At the Imperial Hotel the Marquis, in response to cries for a speech, thanked the students for the heartiness of their reception, and expressed the delight which Lady Huntly and himself had experienced in meeting them that day. His Lordship then entered the hotel and the students dispersed. Those in charge of the carriage dragged the vehicle, with a number of their comrades seated inside, through the principal streets. At the harbour they came into conflict with the police, and in a slight melee that occurred the students threatened to pitch the vehicle into the dock. At Marischal College an attempt was made to let it down the steep corridor leading to the lower quadrangle, but this foolish proceed- ing ended disastrously. The vehicle was bumped against the wall, and when about half way down the steps it collapsed, ultimately becoming a total wreck. The value of the carriage, which was hired for the occasion by the Marquis of Huntly, is said to exceed £60." 1891, May 9. "The Commissioners under the said Act [52 & 53 Vict., cap. 55] statute and ordain " I. In the election of Rectors in the Universities of Glasgow and Aberdeen, whenever the votes of the Nations shall be equally divided, the election shall be determined by the majority of the votes of the students voting : Provided that if an equal number of the votes of all the students voting, as well as of the votes of the Nations, shall be given for two or more candidates, the election may be determined as between such candidates by the Chancellor, by letters addressed to the Secretary of the University Court within twenty-one days after the day fixed for the election, and failing such determination, then the election shall be determined by the Principal as between such candidates. 387 The Rectors of the " II. Ordinances numbered 3 and 6 of the Commissioners under the Universities (Scotland) Act, 1858 [supra, p. 363], so far as they are inconsistent with this Ordinance, are hereby repealed." Ordinance No. 7 (Glasgow and Aberdeen, No. 1), 9th May, 1891. 1893, November 18. The Marquis of Huntly. The opposing candidate was Mr. W. A. Hunter, LL.D., M.P. for North Aberdeen, and the result of the poll was as under : — Nation. Huntly. Hunter. Procurator. Mar 124 85 Charles G. Cowie, M.A. 1 Buchan 101 76 George Cowie. 2 Moray 33 48 John A. Gordon. 8 Angus 90 43 John E. Rae, M.A. 4 348 252 Lord Huntly had thus again a majority in three Nations. For the first time the voting was taken part in by women students, who had been admitted to the University by resolution of the Court of date 12th July, 1892, on a motion by the Editor of this volume, at that time the Rector's Assessor. In the evening the usual costume torchlight procession was held. At its conclusion the "students were admitted to the Barrack Square. . . . The processionists formed into a large circle in the square, and when all had taken up their position the hundreds of torches were hurled into a heap in the centre of the circle. In an instant there was a fiercely blazing fire which was fed by several barrels and other in- flammable materials. And then came another scene the grotesqueness of which can hardly be realised. Joining hands the 500 students, to the accompaniment of a vigorous tomtom on the big drum, executed a sort of general war dance round the blazing pile. Suddenly this ceased and the dance was taken up by couples, who in waltz and polka whirled round and round to the strains of the bagpipe." Lord Huntly delivered a second Rectorial Address on " Historic Interest " on 25th October, 1895, the second day of the Academic functions in connection with the Inauguration of the Mitchell Hall and Tower, and the arrangements were not, as on the last two occasions, entrusted to the S. R. C. " The success of the second day of the celebration proceedings was considerably marred by the silly and disgraceful misconduct of a number of the most juvenile students, who are either too senseless or too ignorant to know how gentlemen ought to behave on such an occasion. One of the pressing needs of the University would seem to be the establishment of a Chair of Good Manners to teach these youths the difference be- tween legitimate hilarity and fun, and caddish vulgarity and discourtesy. While the Lord Rector, in the few stinging remarks which were wrung from him after he had borne with the greatest patience the most irritat- ing and discourteous interruptions, exonerated the general body of the students from blame, we cannot help thinking that there ought to be sufficient weight of public opinion among the students, and a sufficient 1 M.B. 1894; M.D. 1900; Ellon. 2 M.B. 1895; London. S M.B. 1896; Dingwall. 4 Advocate, Aberdeen. 388 Lord Huntly and Dr. Hunter, 1893. University of Aberdeen spirit of gentlemanliness to put down instantly and effectively conduct which would have disgraced a crowd of corner boys. ... A sense of chivalry might have induced them to give a respectful hearing to their Lord Rector, who was elected by their own votes, and who has always manifested the deepest interest in their welfare. . . . The most exasperating thing was that the interruptions and interjections were absolutely devoid of cleverness or humour. There was not a single witty sally amid all the Babel of cries. . . . Within recent years it has been the custom to give the Lord Rector a patient and respectful hearing. That this was not accorded to the Marquis of Huntly yesterday cannot be on account of any lack of popularity, because he is, perhaps, the most popular Lord Rector the students have had for a long time. We are willing to attribute the want of chivalry and courtesy partly at all events to the excitement produced in the minds of the students by the events of the past two days. "... On emerging from the College buildings the students congregated to the number of several hundreds in the vicinity of the main entrance. The chief purpose of the gathering was to demonstrate their appreciation of one of the most popular Lord Rectors the University has had ; but the old brougham incident was no doubt in the minds of many of the enthusiastic youths. . . . The hotel was reached without any exceptional incident, and before entering the Lord Rector good-humouredly turned in the doorway and complimented his numerous escort upon the comparative order which they had observed. His carriage had not on this occasion been wrecked beyond recogni- tion ; it was only minus a door." The usual costume torchlight procession took place in the evening. 1896, November 14. The Marquis of Huntly. The opposing candidate was Mr. A. F. Murison, LL.D., Professor of Roman Law, University College, London ; and the result of the poll was as under: — Nation. Huntly. Murison. Procurator. Mar 114 83 Robert S. Machray, M.A. 1 Buchan 77 103 John W. Walker. 2 Moray 32 5i John Christian. 3 Angus 92 63 John C. P. Manuell. 4 315 300 The Nations were thus equally divided, but Lord Huntly had a majority of votes. His third Rectorate forms a record. Of the 133 meetings of the University Court held during his tenure of office the Rector was present at 103 ; also at about 120 committee meetings. He did not deliver a third Address. 1896, November 9. The nomination fight in Marischal College quadrangle took place, for the first time, under certain conditions which had been drawn up beforehand by the opposing parties, viz. : — JB.L. 1898; Royal Artillery. 2 M.A. 1898. 3 M.A. 1898. * " Major" Manuell : medical student. 389 The Rectors of the " i. None but registered students permitted to join in the fight. " 2. No missiles permitted except peasemeal and flour ; beans, peas, soot and eggs strictly prohibited. "3. The decision of the referees [Sacrists Dankester and Philip and Sergeant Major Hart] to be final. " 4. No fisting or kicking allowed. " 5. The fight not to last longer than half an hour." " The supporters of the Marquis of Huntly declined to agree to the limitation to half an hour, declaring that they would fight it out to the end. They further expressed the belief, however, that less than half an hour would suffice to beat the Murison army. In this they were mistaken, for after a fight of twelve minutes victory was awarded to the Murisonites amidst a scene of the wildest enthusiasm. . . . The victorious party, on leaving the quadrangle, marched along Broad Street into Union Street, led by their pipers and with their own flag floating uninjured in the light breeze and the remains of that of their opponents alongside of it." Allegations of unfair play were brought by the defeated party in characteristic language. " Fresh from this morning's fray," says " Bydand" in the Journal, "I sit down to write a complaint of the ungentlemanliness of our opponents. We used only flour and peasemeal ; our opponents used soot, and mixed pepper with their peasemeal. Witness one Huntlyite carried to the Infirmary [with a broken collar-bone]. Such are the ways of Murisonites, and they are quite of a piece with the arrogance and self-seeking of their bumptious candidate. Poor chaps, they can't help it. Supporters of the Marquis of Huntly could never stoop to such ungentlemanly practices — practices which, as our champion major [Pengelly Manuell] said truly, ' would be a disgrace not only to University students, but to the greatest cads on earth.' " W. P. R. protests vehemently " against the mean, cowardly, dastardly ferocity that prompted the use of cayenne pepper and soot during what ought, and always hitherto has been, a straightforward, manly contest. The pitiful little soul who did this has before him a long, long struggle in well-doing to cleanse and redeem himself in his own eyes from this foul stain. . , . His is but howling in outer dark- ness : ever unable to know the sweetness of being lulled to sleep amid the music of nobler thoughts." Ultimately the flags were deposited in the warehouse of Messrs. Esslemont & Macintosh, where they were displayed from one of the upper windows. " Some of the Huntly men concocted a telegram purporting to be from Professor Murison to Mr. Russell, the chairman of his committee in Aberdeen, in which the professor was made to thank Mr. Russell for the intimation of the victory and to ask him to send both flags to London immediately. This telegram was despatched from a suburban telegraph office to the head office in Aberdeen, and while in course of delivery was intercepted by two of those in the plot, who, after having got possession of it, altered the name of the local post office from which it had been sent to ' Euston.' The two Huntly men then proceeded to the shop of Messrs. Esslemont & Macintosh, and, presenting the telegram to Mr. G. B. Esslemont, intimated that they had come from Mr. Russell to get the flag. Mr. 390 University of Aberdeen Esslemont however . . . would not accede to such a request without greater authority, and left the room to send for Mr. Russell, and the Huntlyites took advantage of his absence to unfasten their flag and throw it down to the pavement where some more of the party, who were waiting the result of their comrades' mission, promptly seized it and carried it off to a place of hiding." On Monday following what professed to be the flag was returned to Mr. James Esslemont. At a meeting of Professor Murison's supporters " a number of shreds of what was supposed to have once formed part of a red, white and blue flag was distributed as the remains of the Huntly banner, which the Murisonites gained possession of at the trial of muscular strength. The female students were each presented with a small piece of the material, and for the possession of the remaining pieces, each about an inch square, there was a keen struggle. It turns out now, however, that the cloth was not that of the Huntly banner. That material remained in the possession of some Huntlyites, who had substituted for it a tattered imitation which was not in the fight at all." At a mass meeting of students held on 27th October, i8gg, it was agreed to convey the thanks of the meeting to Lord Huntly, " the re- tiring students' representative in the University Court, for the interest he has shown in all student affairs, and to record its appreciation of the services rendered by him to the students." At the meeting of the University Court on 14th November, 1899, Principal Sir William Geddes paid a tribute to the ex-Rector. " They were aware that his period was unique inasmuch as he held the office for three triennial periods. He did not know that any other rector of a Scottish University had held office for such a lengthened period. And further there was the circumstance that his record in attendance at meetings of the Court and meetings of committees was also similarly unequalled. He might refer also to the great interest he took and the powerful influence he exerted in developing the Extension Scheme. It would be in their remembrance that Lord Huntly presided at the great meeting in the Town Hall which launched successfully the Extension Scheme and that he was foremost in the negotiations with the Treasury in dealing with Mr. Goschen, to whom they were indebted for the £40,000 grant from Government. There was a third point he would wish to note in connection with Lord Huntly's term of office, and that was that he was extremely instrumental in obtaining the very munificent grant from the Mitchell family of Newcastle-on-Tyne. . . . Then it was hardly necessary to refer to the circumstance that Lord Huntly presided over the Court with great tact and with great business capacity. They had all been struck with his lordship's urbanity and courtesy, and the Principal said he should hope, although they made no minute in the matter, that it was the general opinion round that Court that Lord Huntly did noble service, and made the tenure of his office for nine years memorable in the annals of the University (loud applause)." 391 The Rectors of the 1899, November ex. Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal; LL.D., 1899. The Procurators were : — Mar Henry Fraser. 1 Buchan William D. Niven. 2 Moray William M. Calder. 3 Angus Ernest L. Danson. 4 For the first time since the union of the Universites in i860 there was no opposing candidate, Sir Edward Grey, who had agreed to stand, having, at almost the last moment, written to withdraw his name, " because the contest cannot under present circumstances be conducted, exclusively or even mainly, upon political considerations, and must in this respect be very different from what is the rule upon other occasions of the kind." The prospect of no election fight caused great disappointment ; but, although a suggestion was made that Mr. Kruger might be approached, it was ultimately decided by the Grey partisans to take no further action. The nomination on 4th November passed off in comparative quietness, but the torchlight procession in the evening of the day of election was the occasion of a somewhat unusual town v. gown demonstration. " It appears that a week ago some young operative engineers had been liberally bespattered with peasemeal by students, and determined to have revenge, which they intended should take the form of breaking up the procession and putting the students to flight. The young men employed in several of the engineering establishments in town conspired together to this end, but happily the police heard of their intention and took measures to prevent its being carried out. It had been intended to attack the procession at Queen's Cross, and about seven o'clock Chief Constable Wyness was informed by telephone from the west-end sub-station that 150 engineers, armed with short clubs and torches, and carrying large quantities of soot, had assembled at Queen's Road. . . . Just as the mounted officers entered Queen's Road they met the engineers, now about 200 in number, advancing. The young men were informed that if they desired to have a procession they would get the same facilities and protection as the students, but that on no account would they be allowed to interfere with the proces- sion or the students. The engineers did not seem inclined to take this counsel and the mounted officers rode through their ranks several times, breaking up the organisation and ultimately driving the great bulk of the youths along St. Swithin Street in front of the procession. A good many, however, who had broken away from the main body assembled in front of the spectators at Queen's Cross and attacked the procession as it advanced. Sticks were freely used and large quantities of soot were thrown at the students and the police. There were some lively encounters, the processionists retaliating with their blazing torches and their fists. Thanks to the police, however, nothing serious occurred, although what might have been the case if 300 1 M.B, 1900. 2 M.A. 1900. 3 Bajan.. *M.A. 1902. 392 University of Aberdeen young men, carrying lighted torches, had come in conflict with 200 armed with clubs it is not easy to conjecture." Lord Strathcona's Inaugural Address, delivered in the Mitchell Hall, 18th December, 1900, will be found printed supra, pp. 305-25- The arrangements for the distribution of tickets of admission had been carried out by the S. R. C, and the address " was listened to with an amount of respectful attention never perhaps extended to any Lord Rector within living memory. 1 True, at different times, generally at the most inappropriate moments, the ' toot toot ' of a horn, the ringing of a bell, or the utterance of a most inapt interjection, provoked a slight ripple of laughter. . . . Towards the end of the address some of the young men seemed to be spoiling for a fight, and the interruptions were slightly more frequent. . . . Lord Strathcona had to interpolate the remark that he was afraid he was wearying his audience, a suggestion which instantly evoked a practically unanimous shout of ' No.' ... A regrettable outburst took place when the Rector commenced the sentence in which he said that he must now bring his address to a close. A thoughtless and ignorant cheer was raised at first, then a verse of ' Jean ' was sung ; and, as the noise increased, the Principal [the Very Rev. Dr. Marshall Lang] rose to appeal for silence. This was the signal for still greater din, which continued till Mr. Forbes, president of the S. R. C, rose and made a similar appeal. He was loudly cheered and then something like silence was restored." In responding to a vote of thanks, moved by the junior member of Senatus, Professor Latta, the Rector formally requested the Principal to grant a holiday on the morrow, and went on to say : — " I am informed by your excellent Vice-Chancellor, and was told by my Lord Provost here on a former occasion, that it is intended to make certain alterations and improvements in your university and to have better provision for its professorships. I think you ought most heartily to look to and go into this matter, consider that it should be done, and that you should not lose too much time in doing it. I trust that before another Christmas, after the present one comes, you will have made a very considerable advance in this regard and that you will have got not only the £75,000 which I am told is absolutely necessary to liquidate the debt and make provision for what is wanted in buildings, but that you will have made it up to £100,000. ... I will now say, Mr. Vice-Chancellor, that if the good people of Aberdeen can get within that time £75,000 or even £50,000 I shall be very glad indeed to add £25,000." (Prolonged and enthusiastic cheering.) Thereafter a body of students unyoked the horses from the carriage which was in readiness to convey the Rector to the Principal's resi- dence, attached a stout rope, and drew the carriage, containing the J So writes a probably youthful newspaper reporter, but the Editor, who believes he holds a record among University officials in having been present at all the nine Rectorial installations of the period 1870-1900, has no hesitation in stating that on only two occasions has the address been listened to throughout— when Mr. Goschen spoke in 1888, and when Lord Huntly spoke for the first time in 1891. BB* 393 The Rectors of the University of Aberdeen Rector, the Principal and the Provost, along King Street and Univer- sity Road to Chanonry Lodge, where it arrived " without having received a single scratch or suffered in the slightest degree." A torch- light procession took place at night. In the evening the Rector dined with the Court and Senatus, and on the following evening with the University Club. 394 INDEX OF RECTORS. ELECTED OR PROPOSED. Abercrombie, John, 45, 63, 355. Abercromby, Sir George, 347. Aberdeen, Earl of, 32, 339. Airlie, Eaxl of, 362. Alison, Sir Archibald, 32, 62, 357. Allardyce, Alexander, 346. Arbuthnott, Viscount, 32, 339, 351, 353- Bain, Alexander, 36, 241, 380, 383. Bannerman, Alexander, 355. Barcaple, Lord, 13, 35, 121, 363. Baxter, Alexander, 347. Blair, William, 344. Breadalbane, Marquis of, 63, 356. Brougham, Lord, 32, 63, 355. Bruce, Sir Michael, 354. Bryce, James, 38, 386. Bulwer, Sir E. Lytton, 361. Burnett, Alexander, 336, 337. Burnett, George, 335. Burnett, Sir Thomas, 32, 334. Bute, Marquis of, 356. Campbell, Thomas, 356. Cant, Andrew, 333. Carlisle, Earl of, 360, 361. Carlyle, Thomas, 32, 359, 360, 362. Churchill, Lord Randolph, 383. Colquhoun, J. Campbell, 63, 355, 356. Cross, Sir Richard, 378. Cull an, Alexander, 329. Dickens, Charles, 32, 358, 359. Dischinton, David, 329. Disraeli, Benjamin, 357, 360, 361. Douglas, Silvester, 337. Duff, M. E. Grant, 36, 153, 362, 369, 370, 371, 372. Duff, Patrick, 345. Duff, William, 345. Dun, Patrick, 342. Egiinton, Earl of, 354. Elgin, Earl of, 361. Ellesmere, Earl of, 34, 92, 339, 340. Erroll, Earl of, 354. Farquharson, John, 334. Ferguson, James, 338, 346. Fife, Earl, 347, 349. Forbes, Archibald, 334. Forbes, Arthur, 334, 335. Forbes, Sir Arthur, 345. Forbes, Charles, 347. Forbes, Sir Charles, 354, 355. Forbes, David, 334. Forbes, John, 330, 331. Forbes, Thomas, 344, 345. Forbes, William, D.D., 342. Forbes, Sir William, 3rd bart., 334, 344- Forbes, Sir William, 5th bart., 336, 346, 347- Fordyce, Alexander, 346. Fordyce, Sir William, 346. Forster, William E., 37, 199, 377. Galloway, Alexander, 329, 330. Garden, Francis, 346. Glenbervie, Lord, 32, 337, 338. Glenelg, Lord, 360. Gordon, Cosmo, 346. Gordon, John Thomson, 358, 359. Goschen, George J., 36, 259, 280, 384. Grant, Sir William, 347. Gray, John, 32, 345, 346. Greg, William R., 202. Grey, Sir Edward, 306. Grote, George, 370. Guild, William, 30, 332, 342. Hay, Alexander, 329. Hay, Sir Andrew Leith, 35, 363. Hay, Nicolas, 330. Herschel, Sir John, 32, 356. Hume, Joseph, 38, 33, 347, 349, 35°. 351, 353, 354. Hunter, William A., 388. Huntly, Marquis of, 13, 36, 37, 38, 280, 376, 386, 388, 389. Huxley, Thomas H., 36, 170, 376. Inglis, John, 28, 34, 92, 340, 341. Irvine, Sir Alex. Ramsay, 346. Jeffrey, Francis, 345. Johnston, Arthur, 30, 31, 332, 395 Index of Rectors Kruger, Paul, 392. Layard, Austen H., 73, 361. Leythe, John, 330. Lindsay, Lord, 377. Lindsay, David, 333, 342. Lumsden, Robert, 330. Lyell, Andrew, 329. Lyell, Sir Charles, 360. Lyndhurst, Lord, 63, 355. Macaulay, Thomas B., 63, 357. MacGrigor, Sir James, 28, 351, 353, 356. Macintosh, Sir James, 354. Macpherson, Sir John, 357. Maitland, Edward F., 13, 35, 121, 363- Maule, Fox, 356. Maxwell, Sir W. Stirling, 371. Meldrum, George, 343, 344. Menzies, John, 333, 334. Middleton, George, 335, 336. Miller, Hugh, 358, 359. Milne, John, 343. Morley, John, 384. Murison, Alexander F., 389. Nicholson, George, 333. Paget, Sir James, 380. Palmerston, Lord, 360. Paton, John, 335. Ramsay, Sir Alexander, 345. Reynolds, Robert, 12, 333. Robertson, Lord, 357, 358. Rose, Arthur, 342. Rosebery, Earl of, 37, 223, 378. Ross, Alexander, 332. Rosse, Earl of, 357. Russell, Earl, 138, 369. Samuelson, Sir B., 372. Stanhope, Earl, 362. Strathcona, Lord, 391. Tennyson, Alfred, 32, 360. Thackeray, William M., 32, 362. Urquhart, John, 344. Urquhart, Patrick, 334. Waterford, Marquis of, 356. tf* ER$t r LtfC£i THE ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS LIMITED 396 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. NOV 11 194- 17M ' REC'D LD WN26'66-1M X7«la^49l»