University of Glasgow

“ They are not polluted with the vapours that are evolved from industrial life. No sounds of the ponderous hammer, or screeching "buzzer," are to be heard within the range of their pellucid course. They are consecrated to more lofty, if not to more useful purposes. But with the Clyde the case is different. It is almost a puzzle to say whether Glasgow excels more as the seat of a famous University or as the centre of a hundred busy, important, and prosperous industries. ”

“ Considering the engrossing nature of the pursuits of commerce, it is remarkably creditable to Glasgow that her university has always been maintained in a high state of efficiency, and that she has never allowed the honours of literature to be wholly diverted to her more serene sister of the east. So far had printing and publishing advanced in Glasgow in the reign of the second George, that, in 1740, a type-founding establishment was commenced there, being the first to the north of the Tweed. The immediate credit of this good work is due to Mr Alexander Wilson, a native of St Andrews. ”

“ In the year subsequent to this happy consummation of his exertions on behalf of learning in the south, he received intelligence of his having been elected Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow. This honour was the most valued of his life; it was afterwards enhanced by his re-election to office for the third time,—a rare occurrence in the history of the College.
The future career of the poet was not remarkable for any decided achievements in literature or poetry. ”

“ The University stands in High Street, in a dense part of the town, and a very old and shabby part, too. I think the poorer classes of Glasgow excel even those in Liverpool in the bad eminence of filth, uncombed and unwashed children, drunkenness, disorderly deportment, evil smell, and all that makes city poverty disgusting. In my opinion, however, they are a better-looking people than the English (and this is true of all classes) , more intelligent of aspect, with more regular features. ”

“ On receiving intimation of his appointment Smith wrote to Principal Davidson the following reply:—
Reverend and dear Sir—I have this moment received the honour of your letter of the 15th instant. I accept with gratitude and pleasure the very great honour which the University of Glasgow have done me in electing me for the ensuing year to be the Rector of that illustrious Body. No preferment could have given me so much real satisfaction. No man can own greater obligations to a Society than I do to the University of Glasgow. ”

“ The alumni of Glasgow University have not all blushed unseen, albeit the fame of their Alma Mater has sometimes been over-shadowed by that of Edinburgh. To go no further back than the living members of the Senatus Academicus, it will be admitted that Caird in Divinity, Lushington in Greek, Sir William Thomson in Natural Philosophy, Allen Thomson in Anatomy, Rankine in Mechanics, Grant in Astronomy, and Gairdner in Medicine, are names to conjure with. ”

“ The presence of so many of all classes of the citizens of Glasgow around me, and their liberal subscriptions for the prosecution of the work, the value they attach to its completion, and their sense of the advantages they and the people of Scotland derive from our institutions, the interest which my lamented father took in the advancement of every branch of science and education, would stimulate me to follow his example, and promote by every means in my power the success of your University and the objects for which it has been founded. ”

“ There are a large number of well-endowed chairs and lectureships and the normal number of students exceeds 2000. The universities of Glasgow and Aberdeen unite to return one member to parliament. Queen Margaret College for women, established in 1883, occupies a handsome building close to the botanic gardens, has an endowment of upwards of £25,000, and was incorporated with the university in 1893. Muirhead College is another institution for women. ”

“ Glasgow is really a very modern city. As the city on Manhattan is the evolution from a fortress, so the cathedral was the nucleus around which the ancient town of the “dark glen” grew. The university, when founded, became also a magnet to attract dwellers. In the twelfth century, King William the Lion erected the settlement into a burgh, with the privilege of an annual fair. Yet even down to the sixteenth century, Glasgow was only the eleventh in importance among Scottish towns. It was the American trade, after the union with England, which gave an immense stimulus to its commerce. ”

“ In the exigencies of the campaign, moreover, many deeds are done with perfect impunity by the students which would be seriously visited on less favoured mortals—for example, the cutting through of main water-pipes, carrying the supplies of whole blocks of buildings.
The good people of Glasgow are, for the most part, not at all inclined to withdraw this licence. They are, on the contrary, rather proud of the sacrifices they make in order that old customs may be kept up, and their complacency and good-humoured tolerance are almost inconceivable to people of non-University towns. ”

“ He is thus to be regarded as the father of those Mechanics Institutions which have since become so common. His anxiety for the improvement of artizans was not confined to his personal exertions. Shortly before his death in 1796, he bequeathed the whole of his property to 81 trustees, for the purpose of founding an institution for educational purposes in Glasgow. He had seemingly intended it as a sort of rival to the university in which he was himself a professor ”

“ In the matter of education, he had always had the deepest sympathy with engineering on the one side and university training on the other, because engineering was giving, perhaps, the most interesting application of the science learned in the University for the benefit of mankind. He remembered with pride that the first chair of engineering of any university in the country was that founded in Glasgow. He felt that engineers all over the world had still a good deal to learn as to the real value of university training, but he did not think that in South Wales they needed reminding of that fact. ”

“ Many of the Glasgow students were Irish Presbyterians, and an Irishman might well have been encouraged to seek a chair in the University of Hutcheson.
George Jardine, a student in 1760 and Professor of Logic from 1774, dated the first radical reform in the teaching of philosophy at Glasgow, from a royal visitation of 1727, after which each professor was restricted to a particular department instead of being required to lecture for three successive years in logic, ethics, and physics. He adds that the improvements thus introduced were greatly promoted by fortunate appointments. ”

“ He was, however, ambitious, domineering, and extravagant, so that it was said no bishop in Scotland had ever lived at so high a rate. He deserves to be considered a benefactor to the university of Glasgow, as he renewed and enlarged the buildings, and added to its permanent revenues, if he left it deeply in debt. ”

“ The Institute of Fine Arts, in Sauchiehall Street, is mostly devoted to periodical exhibitions of modern art. There are also pictures on exhibition in the People’s Palace on Glasgow Green, which was built by the corporation in 1898 and combines an art gallery and museum with a conservatory and winter garden, and in the museum at Camphill, situated within the bounds of Queen’s Park. The library and Hunterian museum in the university are mostly reserved for the use of students. ”

“ In 1898 Story was appointed principal of Glasgow University in succession to Dr. John Caird [q. v. Suppl. I] . In 1901 the ninth jubilee of the university was celebrated under his presidency. To his exertions was largely due the provision of new university buildings, mainly for medical and scientific purposes. At the same time he was a convinced champion of 'the humanities,' and his tenure of office was not free from friction with students. ”

“ Its scientific Professor, Thompson, now Lord Kelvin, was recently elevated to the Lord Chancellorship, the highest honor in its power to bestow.
Every important university develops special qualities of its own, for which it is noted. That of Glasgow is renowned for devotion to the scientific field. What a record is hers! Protector of Watt, going to extreme measures necessary, not alone to shelter him, but to enable him to labor within its walls and support himself; first university to establish an engineering school and professorship of engineering ”

“ D.D. Glasgow (1891) . James received his early education at the High School of Glasgow, and in 1856 entered the old college in High Street as an arts student. From 1857 to 1862 he was in his father's business; but in 1863 he began the study of medicine, and graduated M.B. at Glasgow University with honours on 16 May 1867, with a thesis on ‘The value of quantitative methods of investigation in medicine and allied sciences’ ”

“ The munificent gift of a building in every way suited to the purpose to which it is to be devoted, has given a great impetus to the efforts to promote every branch of the work which was already undertaken. Queen Margaret College—the gift of a lady who from the first manifested a cordial interest in the higher education of her sex—stands within its own grounds, in a pretty, half-secluded spot not far from the University, and near enough to one of the great thoroughfares of Glasgow to be easily accessible to students from all parts of the city. ”

“ On his return to Glasgow he settled down to practice (graduating M.D. in 1827) , till he was appointed, 18 June 1829, ‘professor of geology and natural history and mineralogy’ in the Andersonian University (now part of the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College) . In 1834 he was appointed professor of mineralogy, and subsequently of geology, zoology, and botany, to the royal Dublin Society, a post he held till his retirement on a pension in 1854, when he returned to Glasgow. ”

“ Giles. The crypt is particularly impressive. And the very pillar behind which Rob Roy hid is all but labeled. Of course it is "authentic," for Scott chose it. What unrivaled literary sport had Scott in fitting history to geography!
There is a University, one of the first in the Kingdom; the city universities are gaining on the classic Oxford and St. Andrews.
But chiefly there are miles of houses of working men, more humble than they ought to be. If Glasgow is one of the best governed cities in the world, and has the best water supply in the world—except that of St. ”

“ On Sunday we had the regulation walk to the lovely old garden, stables, farm, and poultry-yard. A great
{55} "wale" of cocks and hens, [19] among which our hostess dropped one of her priceless earrings, and we had a long hunt for it. Reading my Glasgow paper in the train next day, on my way south, I came on a paragraph announcing the "reception into the Roman Church" of the Professor of Greek (J. S. Phillimore) at Glasgow University—a Christ Church man, and a scholar of the highest distinction. What (I thought) will the "unco guid" of Glasgow say now? ”

“ But James Betoun, who came next in succession, acted a nobler part. He brought with him from Glasgow John Major—the one great schoolman of whom Scotland in the sixteenth century could boast, who had upheld the reputation of his country in the University of Paris as an able and successful teacher of the philosophy and theology of the day. Major and Patrick Hamilton—the one the representative of the old, the other of the new learning—were incorporated into the University of St Andrews on the same day (9th June 1523) ”

“ Here is a great number of young fellows that rival the youth of the capital in spirit and expence; and I was soon convinced, that all the female beauties of Scotland were not assembled at the hunters ball in Edinburgh—The town of Glasgow flourishes in learning as well as in commerce—Here is an university, with professors in all the different branches of science, liberally endowed, and judiciously chosen—It was vacation time when I passed, so that I could not entirely satisfy my curiosity ”

“ 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. ”

“ The ever-watchful Mr Wodrow observed the process going on even in the comparatively serious city of Glasgow. He remarks at this time how the young men of that city are less religiously educated than formerly, and how, going abroad in mercantile capacities, they come back with the loose habits of other countries. At the university, the students were beginning to evince a tendency to freedom of thought, and the statement of Trinitarian doctrines by the professors sometimes excited amongst them appearances of dissent and of derision. ”

“ We find traces of this expedient in the records of Glasgow, where there seems to have been great difficulty in accommodating the students of the infant university, on account of the extreme smallness of the town. Since the house once occupied by the student was thenceforth dedicated to his order, speculators were induced to build entirely with a view to the accommodation of a certain number of young men living in celibacy, and they naturally imitated the example set them in the construction of monasteries. ”