286 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. X. 



Speaking of the wide domain included in Technology, he 

 points out that his brother professors have nearly all com- 

 missions as wide, nominally, and restricted in meaning only 

 by common consent, by traditional custom, or conventional 

 use and wont. " With the Industrial Museum, this Chair 

 stands in organic connexion. My office, as Professor of 

 Technology, is to be interpreter of the significance of that 

 Museum, and expositor of its value to you, the Students of 

 this University." Those desirous of knowing more specially 

 the objects he had in view in the vast arena now opening 

 before him, will find a clear statement of his position in this 

 lecture, one of the few published in full. 1 We shall only 

 further quote the closing paragraphs, with remembrance of 

 the youthful dreams now realized by his having reached the 

 goal then set before him as the object of his highest ambi- 

 tion : " In conclusion, suffer me a reference to two things. 

 There are few occasions on which it is becoming for an in- 

 dividual to refer publicly to what the French have taught 

 us to call his antecedents ; but I may be allowed a word on 

 mine here. I came to this University some twenty-two 

 years ago, fresh from the Edinburgh High School, without 

 any prestige in my favour, any recommendations to pave my 

 way, or introductions which should conciliate the good- will 

 of a single professor. A mere school-boy I entered these 

 walls, to pursue, like a hundred others, the difficult study of 

 medicine, without any extrinsic advantages. I look back 

 now with unfeigned gratefulness to the services rendered me 

 by so many of the Professors. I stand indebted to a long 

 list of them for help and encouragement at a time when 

 these are most needed and most prized ; and but for the 

 kindness of more than one of their number, I should not be 

 here to address you as their colleague to-day. 



1 " What is Technology?" Edmonston and Douglas, Edinburgh. 



