THE SCOTTISH UNIVERSITIES. a Record of Their
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THE SCOTTISH UNIVERSITIES. A Record of Their Development during the period 1826-1926 With Four Appendices and a Bibliography. , By J. R. PEDDIE, M.A., Executive Officer of the National Committee for the Training of Teachers in Scotland. (Formerly Official Adviser of Studies and Lecturer in English in the University of Glasgow). ProQuest Number: 27535028 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 27535028 Published by ProQuest LLO (2019). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLO. ProQuest LLO. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.Q. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 i. PREFACE. I have been urged for several years by friends in the Scottish Universities to place on record my views on the activities of the Universities as they are to-day, and my experiences as Lecturer and Official Adviser of Studies at Glasgow University, indicating also the ideals which governed me in such guidance as I was privileged to offer students, session by session, in the course of their Univer sity careers. It has appeared to me that I could most fruitfully achieve what was desired by attempting to demonstrate the great and far-reaching developments which have taken place in the Scottish Universities in the last hundred years, giving at the same time, wherever possible, my own beliefs and experiences. If it be argued that, to adopt such a method is to destroy much of the value that the record may contain, I can but say that having touched University interests at so many points at Glasgow - as Lecturer, Adviser of Studies, Secretary of the Appointments Committee, Officer Commanding the Officers' Training Corps, Editor of the University Calendar and of the Roll of Honour. Member of the Union Board/ il. Board and of the Students' Welfare Scheme Committee, Hon. Treasurer of the Athletic Club, Examiner in English for the Bursary Competitions and the Preliminary Examinations, in addition to holding many other minor offices - to have made the story quite impersonal would have been to defeat the end which I had primarily in view. I make grateful acknowledgment of my obligations to the Principal of the University of Glasgow, Sir Donald MacAlister, Bt., to Professor R.S. Rait, and to Professor D.J. Medley. To Professor J.H. Baxter of the University of St. Andrews, and to Mr. James Robb of the Carnegie Trust, for their goodness in supplying me with pamphlets and reports, I tender my hearty thanks, as also to the Librarians of the Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh who helped me willingly in my search for books and official records. 8 Braid Avenue, EDINBURGH, December 1926. CONTENTS. PART I. Page. Chapter I. Introduction ••• ••• 1. Chapter II. The Royal Commission of 1826 •• 5. Chapter III. The Universities (Scotland) Act of 1858 ... 29. Chapter IV. The Royal Commission of 1876 and the Universities (Scotland) Act, 1889 ... ... ... 44. Chapter V. The Expansion of the Universities since 1889 ... 66. Chapter VI. A Note on Present Day Conditions of Entrance to the Scottish Universities .. 99. Chapter VII. The Carnegie Trust and the Scottish Universities .. ... ... 109. PART II./ CONTENTS (Contd.). PART II. Page. Chapter I. Teachers and Students in the Scottish Universities ... 130. Chapter II. The Scottish Universities and the Great . War (1914-1918) 165. Chapter III. Some Student Problems of To-day ... 175. Postscript ) Appendices 184. Bibliography PART I. 1. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. A Scottish Graduate now nearing the three score years > and ten allotted as the normal span, unless he has kept closely in touch with it, regards his University, as it is to-day, as something of a mystery. His teachers have gone; the Ordinances on which his curricula were based are changed; the customs and habits of a newer generation of students are to him foreign, and he concludes, sometimes with scorn, sometimes with awe, that tempora mutantur. He is to be forgiven if he forgets nos et mutamur in illis, for your University man is, as a rule, a conservative mortal, loving his o\m day and generation, his own teachers and his contemporaries^with a Ac. passion that time does not efface, and,is prone to suspect that things have not altered for the better. He is not readily impressed by imposing buildings, by huge staffs, and a vast array of subjects from which to cho^e. He wants to be assured that the lamp of learning is being kept undimmed, and that the product of the modern University is worthy of the splendour of the opportunities afforded. Yet, if he will examine^with an eye as unprejudiced as he can command, not merely the profound changes themselves that have occurred, but their nature and implications, contributing as they do vitally/ 2 . vitally to the history of education in Scotland, it will be strange if he does not view with pride the magnitude of the achievement. If this description of the thoughts and emotions of a man of seventy regarding the Scottish Universities of to-day has any semblance to correctness, what then would be the sensations of a student who came to College a century ago, were he permitted to re-visit his Alma Jiater? In his case, one ventures to believe, the transformation, gradually effected throughout the past hundred years, would have been so complete as to make him almost uncritical? and while, as a discerning observer, he would note that the essential lectur ing system was still maintained, the scope and variety, the immense resources of the modern Scottish University, he would find strangely at variance with the simplicity and narrowness of the r ^ i m e which his College afforded. The history of the past century in a Scottish University is, from one important point of view, a narrative of the development from "College" to "University". There are many ways in which this fact is capable of illustration; but, perhaps, it will be most readily illuminated by an exam ination of the work of the various University Commissions which^£a^ during the nineteenth centuryHon the affairs - of the Scottish Universities. Before/ Before setting out on a survey of the arduous work done by these Commissions, it may be well to say in passing that to have regard only to the evidence given before the various bodies of Commissioners^and to leave out of account the routine work of the University, is to produce a distorted picture. The reader of those ponderous and unattractive volumes^jin which are entombed the contributions of many witnesses before University Commissions, may readily fly to the conclusion that in the Universities were bred many of the minor vices that go to bemuse unhappy humanity. Jealousy of privileges, a narrow, and, it may seem, unenlightened con servatism, productive of dog«in.*the«manger policies, laziness and inattention to the business of teaching, bickerings and enmities - all those unenviable qualities undoubtedly do emerge, particularly from the earlier nineteenth century records. But it must be kept fairly in mind that a visitation of Commissioners was the natural occasion for the relief of pent-up ideas and feelings, and that when a University Professor got his opportunity as a witness, he proceeded decorously, but with a certain vehemence, to unburden himself in as short a time as possible on many things that had vexed him session upon session. The average University Commission, therefore, seems a long-drawn and eventually almost intolerable criais in the affairs of the University. It does not adequately/ 4. adequately mirror the daily labours, the distinguished work patiently aox>mplished often under the most difficult con ditions. It discusses the things that are wrong and hopes to make them right; and it is this accumula.tion of matters, apparently in urgent need of amendiaent, which obscures the view and renders fair judgment an uneasy task. Those who regard the appointment of a Commission as a disturbing and disintegrating factor in University affairs point with some justification to the intellectual brilliance of the eighteenth century, when the course of University life was undisturbed by any Royal Commission, save that which in 1716 ejected the Jacobite professors from office; and'^U^ * demonstrate the grandeur of this period when men like Thomas Hutchison, Thomas Reid, Adam Ferguson, Dugald Stewart, Adam Smith, William Cullen, Joseph Black, James Beattie/and David Hume, finally set upon the Scottish Universities the seal of a European reputation. Yet none will deny, that, despite the greatness of their Professors, the Universities, lax in their curricula, hampered by their poverty, and antiquated in their governance# at the beginning of the nineteenth century lay sorely in need of strict scrutiny, both for their own betterment and for the advantage of the public. 5. CHAPTER II. THE ROYAL COMMISSION OP 1826. 4 I. The dates 1826-1926 are chosen for this study in the development of the Scotbish Universities, not so much because they denote a century, as in virtue of the fact that in 1826 a Royal Commission was appointed for the visitation of the Universities of Scotland; and by noting the nature of the problems which faced the Commissioners, one can most readily estimate the condition of these "learned societies" as the report significantly names them. If more attention is directed to the work of the 1826 Commissioners than to that of some of their successors, one is asked to remember that this Commission did the spade-work of the nineteenth century, and from its deliberations is got the best means by which to judge of the magnitude of the developments.