BRUCE 



959 



BRUGES 



colonial days. It was chartered in 1764 at 

 Warren under the name of Rhode Island Col- 

 lege,' but was transferred in 1770 to its present 

 location at Providence. In 1804 it was re- 

 christened Brown University, in honor of Nich- 

 olas Brown, a generous benefactor. Though 

 non-sectarian in spirit, the university owes its 

 origin to the Baptists, and the president as well 

 as a majority of the board of fellows and the 

 board of trustees must be Baptists. As a mat- 

 ter of fact, all the nine presidents have been 

 clergymen of that denomination. 



During the early and middle part of the 

 nineteenth century the scope of the institution 

 was greatly enlarged. President Francis Way- 

 land (1827-1855) introduced the elective sys- 

 tem, laying stress on the hitherto neglected 

 sciences and emphasizing graduate work. The 

 university does not have colleges of law, medi- 

 cine, engineering or agriculture. A great in- 

 crease in the number of students took place in 

 the last decade of the nineteenth century and 

 the early years of the twentieth; the annual 

 attendance is about 1,000, while the faculty 

 numbers about one hundred. The libraries con- 

 tain about 225,000 volumes, and the endow- 

 ment is over $4,250,000. 



In 1891 a Woman's College was founded, 

 which six years later was accepted by the 

 trustees as the Woman's College in Brown 

 University. This branch of the university has 

 its own buildings and its own courses, and the 

 women comprise about one-fourth of the total 

 enrollment of the university. 



BRUCE, broos, ROBERT (1274-1329), the 

 greatest of the kings of Scotland, famed in 

 legend and poetry as well as in history. A 

 large part of his life was spent in trying to 

 wrest Scotland from the English, and it was 

 during the very darkest days of that struggle 

 that a famous incident known as the story of 

 Robert Bruce and the spider is said to have 

 occurred. While a fugitive, Bruce lay one 

 morning on his hard bed in a wretched hut and 

 saw on the roof above him a spider swinging 

 by a thread of its own spinning. It was trying 

 to swing itself from one beam to another, and 

 again and again made the attempt in vain. 

 When it had tried six times, Bruce realized 

 that that was just the number of battles which 

 he had vainly fought against the English, and 

 he made a vow that if the spider tried a seventh 

 time and succeeded he would renew his courage 

 and try again. The spider's seventh attempt 

 was successful, and Bruce took heart and went 

 forth to victory. 



Early in his career Bruce, then Earl of 

 Carrick, swore allegiance to Edward I, king 

 of England, and though he occasionally 

 changed sides and aided the patriot William 

 Wallace (which see), he managed to maintain 

 friendly relations with Edward until 1306. In 

 that year in a quarrel he killed "Red Comyn," 

 a claimant to the Scottish throne, and imme- 

 diately afterward assembled his vassals and 

 had himself crowned king at Scone. Defeat 

 at the hands of the English followed, and late 

 in the year he dismissed his troops, retired to 

 the Irish coast and let his enemies think him 

 dead. In the following spring, however, he 

 landed in Carrick, defeated the English and 

 within two years had almost all Scotland, in 

 his hands. 



He then advanced into England, laying waste 

 the country, and in 1314 defeated the English 

 in a famous battle at Bannockburn as the 

 latter were advancing under Edward II to the 

 relief of the garrison at Stirling. For years 

 hostilities continued at intervals, with occa- 

 sional treaties which did not really establish 

 peace, and it was not until 1328 that England 

 finally recognized Scotland's independence and 

 the right of Bruce to the throne. Bruce did 

 not live long after the completion of his great 

 work, but died in 1329 of leprosy. His son 

 David succeeded him. 



BRUCHESI, brooka'se, Louis PAUL NA- 

 POLEON (1855- ), Roman Catholic arch- 

 bishop of Montreal since 1897. He was born 

 at Montreal and educated at Saint Sulpice 

 College in that city, and in Paris and Rome; 

 in the latter city he was ordained priest in 1878. 

 Upon his return to Canada he was appointed 

 to a professorship in Laval University. In 

 1887 he became canon of the cathedral of 

 Montreal and in the same year professor of 

 Christian apologetics at Laval. He prepared 

 the educational exhibits of his native province 

 for the World's Fair in Chicago, and was for 

 a time chairman of the Roman Catholic school 

 board of Montreal. He was appointed arch- 

 bishop of Montreal in 1897. Archbishop Bru- 

 chesi has been conspicuous in many public 

 movements not purely religious. His efforts 

 for temperance resulted in the organization of 

 the Anti-Alcoholic League in 1907, and he was 

 at one time vice-president of the Dominion 

 Forestry Association. Movements for social 

 and industrial betterment have always received 

 his hearty support. 



BRUGES, broo'jcz, the "city of bridges," is 

 an ancient walled city of Belgium, capital of 



