Royal Scottish Academy

“ He was educated there, but, going to Edinburgh with a taste for art, he entered the academy of the Board of Trustees in Edinburgh in 1853. He proved a good student both then and later in the life school of the Royal Scottish Academy, where in 1862 he won the first prize for painting from the life. ”

“ In 1840 he sent to the exhibition of the Royal Academy in London his well-known picture of ‘Prince Charles Edward and the Highlanders entering Edinburgh after the Battle of Preston,’ in which he introduced the portraits of several eminent Scotchmen then living, and which appeared again in the Royal Scottish Academy in 1841. ”

“ From 1825 he was an unfailing contributor to the exhibitions of the Royal Scottish Academy, as well as to those of the Glasgow Fine Art Institute, and from 1840 to 1881 his works were also seen at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. ”

“ There are local schools which claim attention because of the value of their contributions to the aggregation of British art. The most active of these belong to the Scottish school, the centres of Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Aberdeen, which have produced some of the most distinguished British artists. The Royal Academy of London, indeed, with Scottish Schools. most of the other leading art societies, has been largely recruited from Scotland. ”

“ In 1849 Kidd was elected an honorary member of the Royal Scottish Academy. Never able to manage his own affairs, Kidd fell at the end of his life into hopeless financial embarrassment, and was supported finally by his friends and a pension from the Royal Academy. ”

“ In 1820, in spite of much opposition from the Royal Institution, the Scottish Academy was founded, and Watson, who had been president of the previous society, was elected to the same office in the new one, the ultimate success of which is largely due to his tact and ability. ”

“ Academy Notes, 1875-79. Complete in One Volume, with nearly 600 Illustrations in Facsimile. Demy 8vo, cloth limp, 6s. A Complete Illustrated Catalogue to the National Gallery. With Notes by Henry Blackburn, and 242 Illustrations. Demy 8vo cloth limp, 3s. UNIFORM WITH "ACADEMY NOTES."
Royal Scottish Academy Notes, 1878. 117 Illustrations, 1s. Royal Scottish Academy Notes, 1879. 125 Illustrations, 1s. Royal Scottish Academy Notes, 1880. 114 Illustrations, 1s. Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts Notes, 1878. 95 Illusts. 1s. Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts Notes, 1879. 100 Illusts. 1s. ”

“ The last procured his election as an associate of the Royal Academy (1825) . Later Scottish subjects were “Lord Byron” (1831) , portraits of Scott and “The Orphan” (1834) , which represented Anne Scott seated near the chair of her deceased father. ”

“ His love for art having, however, become very decided, he in his eighteenth year entered the Trustees' Academy at Edinburgh. Here he so distinguished himself that in 1826 he was invited by the Scottish artists, who had resolved to found a Scottish academy, to join it as an associate. ”

“ The school was opened, with Williams as rector, on 1 Oct. 1824. His success at Edinburgh was in many respects even more remarkable than that of Arnold at Rugby, for apart from the difficulties incidental to a day-school, he had to overcome the native Scottish bias in favour of purely utilitarian education as against the more liberal training of the classics and other higher branches of learning. The high standard of scholarship for which the academy became famous ‘extinguished whatever necessity there ever was for sending Scotch boys beyond Scotland’ to school. ”

“ Prominence is given in every university to certain branches of learning; and in Scotland there has always been a greater admiration of thinkers than either of scholars or mathematicians. We all value most what we ourselves have learnt; but where no line of study is absolutely neglected, probably it does not much matter which one receives the most attention. We are apt to overrate the importance of the thing acquired, and to underrate the most important point of all—the mental discipline. The real defect of the Scottish universities is that they have no student life. ”

“ Education at home under a tutor was first tried, but the result was such that preparations were made to send him to the Edinburgh Academy, one of the best secondary schools of the Scottish metropolis. ”

“ Every Scottish University is not an University only, but a High School, to supply the deficiency of other schools. And if the English Universities do not do the same, it is not because the same need does not exist, but because it is disregarded. Youths come to the Scottish Universities ignorant, and are there taught. ”

“ To their widespread influence, to the ambitions which they awakened, and the opportunities which they brought within the reach of the whole body of Scottish youth is due, in large measure, the independent and honorable part that Scotland has played in the history of the United Kingdom. This popular character of the universities has been fostered by the curriculum of the common schools, by the easy passage from the schools to the higher institutions; by the inexpensive mode of student life in the university towns, and by the great number of scholarship funds available for the poor. ”

“ Under this system the fitness of the pupil to enter upon a course of higher studies is determined not solely by the results of a single examination, but by the whole character of his work during the preceding school course.
A notable factor historically in Scottish education was the extent to which the parish schools supplied their best pupils with higher or further education. The administrative changes last mentioned have led to a remarkable Higher-grade schools. development of organized higher-grade schools and departments. ”

“ No grants for science or art instruction are made to Scottish schools from the English Board of Education; but several of the technical schools avail themselves of the examinations of the board, and also of those of the City and Guilds of London Institute. Among the equipped technical colleges in Scotland may be mentioned the Heriot-Watt College of Edinburgh, the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College, Glasgow, the Robert Gordon College, Aberdeen, and the Technical College, Dundee. ”

“ Robertson Nicoll that once upon a time it was the ambition of every Scotch youth to become a professor. Once upon a time, too, and one does not need to quote authority for it, every second child in kilts was devoted by his parents to the ministry, and did, no doubt, sooner or later attain to that admirable office. But latterly the supply of Scotch professors has been a good deal bigger than the demand, and it has dawned upon the slow Scottish intellect that £70 a year and a manse is after all not exactly one of the prizes of life. ”

“ The examining board for each school is elected by the entire faculty of that school from its own members; and though it is scarcely possible for an unscrupulous examiner to frame the questions to suit his own pupils, there is nothing to prevent the tutor from framing his pupils' knowledge to meet the presumptive demands of the examiners. "We shall have to pay particular attention to Scottish history, for Scotus is on the board, and that is his hobby." In the school of literæ humaniores, no one expects either pupil or tutor to go far into textual criticism, philology, or archæology. ”

“ It is thought more than scholarship; it is the power of reasoning, more than that of acquiring facts, that the Scottish universities foster; and English candidates, passing before Scotch examiners, would be as certainly floored as Scottish candidates now are before English examiners. This is what the Scotch reply to an attack upon their educational system; but they will confess at once the social deficiencies of their universities. It is a bad system, defensible only by disparaging the importance of the student life and overlooking the advantages of society. ”

“ And, gentlemen, I have one other cause for feeling a fellowship with you, and that is, that I had the advantage for sometime of being a student at a Scottish university, and in very much I trace points of resemblance between the system of your university and that which obtained at home, and especially in this that, although founded by a Scotchman, this institution of Queen's College is one absolutely free and open to every denomination. ”

“ He insisted that the students preparing in training colleges to become teachers should receive their general education in the classes of the universities, in association with the students preparing for other professions, and should obtain only their strictly professional training in the training college. Not till 1873 was the cause won; then Scottish training college committees were granted permission by the board of education to send their best students to university classes. ”

“ To the Royal Academy of London he sent six works between 1863 and 1876. He painted portraits, subject pictures, and landscapes—the last especially in his later years. ‘These were remarkable for their richness of colour.’ In general he was a careful and even fastidious painter, taking high rank with his brother Scots. On 15 Feb. 1878 he attended the Scotch Academy dinner. Returning thence (and ‘from a subsequent engagement with some brother artists’) evil befell him. ”

“ Degrees are dependent upon examinations, and fellowships are provided, by means of which promising students can continue their advanced studies for years. The Scottish universities are at Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and St. ”

“ Margaret, of Cardinal Beaton, of Knox and Andrew Melville, of Archbishop Sharp, and Samuel Rutherford. The nature of life and education in a Scottish university is now, probably, better understood in England than it used to be. Of the Scottish universities, St. Andrews varies least, though it varies much, from Oxford and Cambridge. Unlike the others, Aberdeen, Glasgow, and Edinburgh, the United College of St. Leonard and St. Salvator is not lost in a large town. The College and the Divinity Hall of St. Mary’s are a survival from the Middle Ages. ”

“ It is the students who live in this sort of way that are the most interesting characters in the Scottish universities, and it is their necessities that have gone to extinguish the student life. This will be evident if we consider their position a little minutely. ”