28 LIFE AND EXPERIENCES CHAP. 



above arts studies was Thomas Graham's course 

 of lectures on chemistry (see portrait). The majority 

 of the class consisted of medical students, the 

 remainder being made up of arts men, for in 

 those days no science faculty or science degree 

 existed. The illustrations to his lectures were pre- 

 pared and carried out with the greatest possible 

 care, every experiment succeeding ; this was chiefly 

 due, however, to an intelligent lecture assistant 

 who was a good manipulator. Graham was a 

 good expositor and we learnt much from his lectures, 

 but he was nothing of an orator nor even a fluent 

 speaker, often failing for want of words, and pointing 

 with both hands without speaking to indicate the 

 result of an experiment. Still it was an entirely 

 new world to me, and I valued it accordingly, 

 and I think I got a silver medal at the end of the 

 session. 



Graham could upon occasion show himself a man 

 of firmness. One day a row occurred. Two of the 

 medicals having -been expelled by order of the Council 

 of the College, an tmeute on the part of their fellow- 

 students broke out, and they resolved to stop all the 

 lectures at the medical " end " by way of expostulation. 

 So, armed with all the thigh-bones they could pick up, 

 not only the medical students for the year but the 

 whole number of them, marched in a body into 

 Graham's class-room, of which they took forcible 

 possession. It was well known what was to happen, 

 and a note was placed on the lecturer's desk signed by 

 the "head centres," stating that no disrespect was 

 meant to the professor, but that they were determined, 

 &c. The little man entered the theatre, followed as 

 usual by his two lecture assistants. He was received 

 with a salvo of artillery from the thigh-bones hammered 



