W. ROBERTSON SMITH 71 



under circumstances as to accommodation and convenience far more unfavourable 

 than I can now offer, Sir W. Thomson's students have for years been doing excellent 

 work, and have furnished their distinguished teacher with the experimental bases of 

 more than one very remarkable investigation. What has been done under great 

 difficulties in the dingy old buildings in Glasgow, ought to be possible in so much 

 more suitable a place as this." 



The most complete account given by Tait himself of his method of 

 running a physical laboratory is to be found in his evidence before the 

 University Commission of 1872, which consisted of Professor William Sharpey, 

 Professor G. G. Stokes, and Professor H. J. S. Smith. The following suc- 

 cessive answers to questions form a concise statement of Tail's views. 



" I have made the laboratory open to all comers, limited of course by the number 

 of students which my assistant and I can look after, and which my space can accom- 

 modate.... They (the students) are free to spend their whole time in the laboratory 

 when it is open each day, and thoroughly to devote themselves to their work.... 



"There is a small fee of two guineas for each student, but... that does not pay for 

 the mere chemicals and other materials used by each student... With the help of 

 my assistant I put each student as he enters the laboratory through an elementary 

 course of the application of the various physical instruments, the primary ones. For 

 instance, I begin by practising them in measuring time, estimating small intervals 

 of time, then measuring very carefully length, angle, temperature, electric current, 

 electric potential, and so on.... 



" When I find that they have sufficiently mastered those elementary parts of the 

 subject I allow them to choose the particular branch of natural philosophy to which 

 they wish to devote themselves, and when they have told me that, it is not by any 

 means difficult to assign to them, if they carry it out properly, what may be 

 excessively useful and valuable work." 



The assistant under whose care the Laboratory first took shape was 

 William Robertson Smith 1 , M.A., afterwards well known as a theologian and 

 Semitic scholar, the final editor of the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia 

 Britannica, and Librarian of the University of Cambridge. Smith was an 

 Aberdeen graduate who shortly before had gained the Ferguson Scholarship in 

 Mathematics open to the four Scottish Universities. Tait was examiner 

 that year; and, impressed with the brilliant though untrained, indeed 

 "almost uncouth," powers of the young student, he invited him to become 

 his assistant. When Robertson Smith saw that he could combine the duties 

 of the post with his theological studies at the Free Church College, he 

 accepted Tail's offer; and after training himself in physical manipulation 



1 A biographical note communicated by Tait to Nature is reprinted below. 



